RSA has recently announced that HDFC Bank successfully has implemented layered components of the company’s Identity Protection and Verification Suite. The bank has deployed a combination of RSA’s Adaptive Authentication and FraudAction solutions and participated in the RSA eFraudNetwork with an aim to protect its online banking customers from cyber crime and online threats.

Of the total banking transactions carried out by the bank through its various channels its Internet banking transactions grew from 2 percent in 2000-01 to 28 percent in 2009. Having seen such a growth in its online banking transactions, the bank also expected the number of online attacks against its online banking customers to grow. With a view to protect these customers from threats such as Trojans, fraudsters and injections the bank decided to deploy the RSA solutions.

“Online fraud is a significant threat to organizations and consumers all over the world. Phishing, Pharming and Trojan attacks are increasing in India as online banking becomes more popular. Our customers are also aware of these threats, so we needed to ensure we could offer them a secured platform that can protect their personal credentials and financial assets. Customer satisfaction is our top priority and RSA provided us with the necessary balance of online security and user convenience,” said Anil Jaggia, Chief Information Officer, HDFC Bank.

The deployment includes the Adaptive Authentication solution’s visible component of site-to-user authentication which will allow the bank to provide its customers to verify the authenticity of the website with a personalized image and a message which the customer can choose while registering for the online banking services. It also includes the FraudAction service which through IP fingerprinting, heuristic pattern recognition and blacklisting detects, tracks and shuts down phishing or pharming websites.

Four months post the deployment, the bank claims to have seen a 60% reduction in attacks and also a positive feedback from the customers. The deployment has also allowed the bank to make its security policies and strategies stronger. Says Vishal Salvi, Senior VP and Chief Information Security Officer, HDFC Bank, “The implementation has allowed us to focus more on security policies and strategies and less on management and controls”