ICICI Bank says already changed PINs of customers identified at risk; urges to follow safe banking

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: ICICI Bank, the country's largest private sector lender by domestic assets, has assured its customers that all is well with the bank's cyber security wall, and urged customers to continue using their ICICI Bank Debit Card for transactions at ATMs, Point of Sale (POS) terminals and on eCommerce websites without concern.

“In view of the recent reports in the media about the alleged security breach at ATM's of another bank impacting debit cards across multiple banks in India, we would like to assure you that ICICI Bank has already taken precautionary measures to change the ATM PIN of customers who were identified to be at risk”.

The bank added that if one has not received any communication from ICICI Bank to change one's ATM PIN, he or she can be assured that the debit card is not at risk.

ICICI Bank maintains that it deploys state of the art transaction security infrastructure including real-time fraud monitoring tools to protect its customers against any unauthorised usage. 

Here are the safe banking tips listed out by ICICI Bank:

Do change your ATM PIN once in 3 to 6 months

Do not share your ATM PIN with anyone

Report lost or stolen cards immediately

NEVER SHARE your Card number, CVV, PIN, OTP, Expiry date or URN with anyone, even if the person claims to be a bank employee. Sharing these details can lead to unauthorised access to your account

Never keep your Card and PIN together or write your PIN on the card

Transact online only at reputed and known online merchants

Report of close to 32 lakh debit cards ​feared to have been 'compromised' by cyber malware attack in some ATM systems, came in on Thursday. 

According to banking circles, around 19 banks, including the big leauges like State Bank of India, HDFC, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, experienced data breach as some ATMswere hit by a malware with high potential to compromise customers data.

The Finance Ministry on Thursday said only about 0.5 percent of debit cards were only compromised while the remaining 99.5 percent were safe adding that there was not need for need for banks and customers to panic. "Since the data compromise took place from specific machines within a particular time period, it is just a limited issue and banks have asked their affected customers to replace their card or change their PIN," Department of Financial Services Additional Secretary G C Murmu said on Thursday, adding that other cards are not affected at all.

The genesis of problem was receipt of complaints from few banks that their customer's cards were used fraudulently mainly in China and USA while customers were in India, NPCI said in a statement. Complaints of fraudulent withdrawals have come from 641 customers and the total amount involved is Rs 1.3 crore as reported by various affected banks, added NPCI.