by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Corporate, Corporate Buzz, Markets, Networking, Sales, SMEs, Technology
New Delhi : Global IT security firm Quick Heal’s Enterprise Security brand Seqrite has discovered an advertisement on DarkNet forum that claims to have access to data of over 6,000 Indian businesses that include Internet Service Providers (ISPs), some of the key government organisations, banks and enterprises.
Seqrite Cyber Intelligence Labs, along with its partner seQtree InfoServices, tracked the advertisement where the unknown hacker has priced the information at 15 Bitcoins (nearly Rs 42 lakh) and is offering network takedown of affected organisations for an unspecified amount, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.
“This can be a major tool of mass disruption if a non-state actor gets hands on it,” Seqrite said on its website.
The organisations whose services may be at risk are: UIDAI (Aadhaar), Idea Telecom, Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), Flipkart, DRDO, Aircel, Reserve Bank of India, BSNL, SBI, TCS, ISRO, ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, VMWare, Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation and various Indian state government portals, among others.
“We have alerted the government authorities well within time. If someone gets control over this massive data that is currently up for sale on DarkNet, the above mentioned organisations and enterprises can get affected,” Rohit Srivastwa, Senior Director, Cyber Education and Services at Quick Heal, told IANS.
Following a detailed investigation, researchers identified the affected organisation as India’s national Internet registry IRINN (Indian Registry for Internet Names and Numbers) which comes under the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI).
As a precautionary measure, Seqrite reached out to the government authorities and Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC), recommending to them to alert all potentially affected organisations and urge them to change passwords and get their servers and systems patched with latest updates.
According to the researchers, the seller claims to have the ability to tamper the IP allocation pool, which could result in a serious outage or Denial of Service (DoS) attack-like condition.
“This could impact various content delivery network (CDN) and hosting providers as well. If the hacker gets an interested buyer, then an attack on the system could disrupt Internet IP allocation and affect Internet services in India,” the company said.
“Along with the access, the hacker is also selling credentials and various contractual business documents and claims to have access to a large database of Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC),” it added.
The IRINN provides allocation and registration services of IP addresses and autonomous system numbers.
It comes under NIXI which “is the neutral meeting point of the ISPs in India with the primary objective being the facilitation of exchange of domestic Internet traffic between peering ISP members”.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Banking, Corporate, Corporate Governance, Finance, News
Mumbai : The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is expected to keep its key interest rate unchanged in its next monetary policy review on Wednesday, in view of the consumer price index (CPI) inflation in August shooting up to 3.36 per cent, according to latest official data.
While core inflation in August rose to 4.6 per cent, high food and fuel prices pushed wholesale inflation at 3.24 per cent, to nearly double of that over the previous month.
The RBI’s monetary policy committee (MPC), which will deliberate over two days here from Tuesday to decide on the fourth policy review of the fiscal, has the mandate to target an annual retail inflation rate of 4 per cent, with a band of 2 per cent in either direction.
In the previous bi-monthly review in August, subdued inflation and demand had prompted the central bank to reduce its repurchase rate, or the short-term lending rate for commercial banks, by 25 basis points (bps) to 6 per cent from 6.25 per cent.
State-run State Bank of India (SBI), in a report titled “RBI caught in a bind: Expect status quo on October 4, 2017”, said the apex bank faced a difficult decision on cutting its lending rate.
“On the eve of the forthcoming monetary and credit policy, the central bank is stuck in a conundrum of low growth, mild inflation, saving financialisation and external uncertainties. This will make the job difficult for the RBI on October 4,” the SBI Ecowrap report said.
“The obvious question that arises is choosing between (a) the move towards the 4 per cent inflation target swiftly, or (b) staying in the inflation band,” said SBI Chief Economic Adviser Soumya Kanti Ghosh.
“In hindsight, if the central bank moves towards the 4 per cent target in January 2018 as was suggested earlier, there would be limited room for rate cut in forthcoming policies.”
The reduction in August came after four consecutive policy reviews in which the RBI had maintained status quo on its repo, or short-term lending rate, since the reduction by 25 bps to 6.25 per cent in October 2016.
Announcing the August review, the RBI said: “Noting, however, that the trajectory of inflation in the baseline projection is expected to rise from current lows, the MPC decided to keep the policy stance neutral and to watch incoming data. The MPC remains focused on its commitment to keeping headline inflation close to four per cent on a durable basis.”
Domestic credit rating agency ICRA also discounted the possibility of an RBI rate cut.
“We do not expect a rate cut in the upcoming policy review as consumer price index (CPI) inflation is expected to chart an upward trajectory over the coming months, and print between 4.5 per cent and 5 per cent in March 2018,” ICRA MD Naresh Takkar said in a report earlier this week.
Instead, the drop in GDP growth during the first quarter, has provoked strident Arate cut calls from industry, which wants urgent steps to revive private investments.
Pulled down by sluggish manufacturing, growth in the Indian economy, during April to June, fell to 5.7 per cent, clocking the lowest GDP growth rate under the Narendra Modi dispensation.
According to the American financial services firm Morgan Stanley, the RBI is expected to hold rates while maintaining its neutral policy stance.
“We expect the RBI to stay on hold at the upcoming meeting as rising incoming inflation and projections of further acceleration in inflation ahead will mean that there would be limited space for further easing,” Morgan Stanley said in a research note.
The SBI report also pointed to external challenges like rising geopolitical tensions, and the hardening of commodity and crude oil prices. In mid-September, petrol rates here, for instance, Atouched their highest level since Modi assumed office three years ago.
“In particular, the external environment looks a little bit wobbly compared to what it was at the beginning of 2017,” it said.
“No wonder, the rupee is currently witnessing depreciation pressures,” the report added.
The rupee has recently come under pressure owing to volatile capital flows and the country’s widening current account deficit.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Banking, Business Summit, Commodities, Commodities News, Commodity Market, Economy, Events, Finance, Investing, Markets, News, Politics
Former RBI Governor C. Rangarajan
New Delhi : Former Reserve Bank of India Governor C. Rangarajan on Friday said the package the government is looking at to revive the economy should be partly to raise capital expenditure and look at problems preventing private investments from rising.
“The package in my opinion should be partly to raise capital expenditure of the government, but suited in a way in which it will stimulate private investments,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the 10th International Gold Summit by Assocham.
He said the fall in growth rate was also accompanied by a fall in investment rate.
“More critically, it is the private investment rate that has fallen. In fact public expenditure on capital has shown some slight rise. Therefore, the most important thing is to address the problems that may be preventing private investment from rising,” Rangarajan said.
He suggested that two things can be done. “There are a number of stalled projects. The low hanging fruit is to ensure that these stalled projects are activated. Secondly, the banking system needs to be recapitalised so that it can provide additional credit for investment as well.”
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Banking, Economy, Markets, News
Mumbai : Continuing a recent trend, Indian foreign exchange reserves shot up by a massive $3.572 billion to touch a high of $398.122 billion for the week ended September 1, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data showed on Friday.
The country’s foreign currency assets (FCAs), a major portion of the overall reserves, increased by $2.808 billion, to $373.641 billion for the week in consideration.
According to the latest RBI data, while gold reserves also rose by $748.3 million to $20.691 billion, India’s special drawing rights (SDRs) with the International Monetary Fund increased by $6.5 million to $1.506 billion.
The special drawing rights with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) increased by $6.5 million to $1.506 billion, the apex bank said.
In the previous week, the reserves had increased by $1.148 billion to $394.55 billion.
The inflow of foreign currency into the Indian equity and debt markets have contributed substantially to the impressive rise in reserves.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Governance, Economy, News
New Delhi:(IANS) The SIT on black money has asked the RBI to set up a framework for sharing the data on the outflow of illicit wealth from the country with the enforcement authorities, an official statement said on Monday.
The Special Investigation Team Chairman, Justice (retired) M.B. Shah, in a letter dated August 11 to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan has impressed upon the imperative need to establish the following institutional mechanism for sharing of data with the enforcement authorities to curb illicit financial flows, finance ministry said in a statement.
“Access to this database would needs to be given to authorities like Enforcement Directorate and Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, so that the above analysis could be done,” he said, as per the statement.
Presently, RBI holds the information with respect to all types of foreign exchange transactions.
The SIT on black money, appointed by the Supreme Court, is of the view that there should be effective sharing of information between various government departments, particularly of enforcing agencies, it said.
The data can be shared only by having one agency such as Central Economic Intelligence Bureau (CEIB) or any other agency, as a data warehouse, it added.
“From the said data warehouse, various agencies can gather the relevant information for taking early appropriate action. This is so since the data available with one agency can be relevant to action expected to be taken by other law enforcement agency,” according to the statement.
The SIT said that for controlling and tracking illicit financial flows out of the country, use of RBI data by various law enforcement agencies like Enforcement Directorate, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence and Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) is of critical importance.
SIT has suggested that Foreign Exchange Transactions Electronic Reporting System (FET-ERS) data should capture the PAN number of the importer or the exporter and that RBI take necessary steps for the same to get this done on an urgent basis.
In the data provided by RBI to the SIT, huge amounts were found outstanding beyond a period of one year in violation of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).
The SIT had noted that the possibility of the concerned companies having wrongly claimed duty drawback also cannot be ruled out. Further, the possibility of the companies concerned having availed of various export promotion schemes also cannot be ruled out.
“SIT in the letter expressed satisfaction that Import Data Processing and Monitoring System (IDPMS) is being set up by RBI which is expected to be launched by the end of September which will enable cross checking of each advance remittance irrespective of value against the Bill of Entry,” it said.
