Online identity theft – an Indian perspective

Abstract Purpose – Today almost all businesses are connected online and net banking has becoming a buzzword. The concept of identity theft which was more known in the Western world is making its presence felt in developing economies like India. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to review the current scenario of phishing attacks in India and provide some countermeasures that can be adopted by online firms to fight this kind of attack. Design/methodology/approach – A few statistics related to the phishing attacks worldwide are compared with India's to gauge the severity of the problem. Security measures adopted by a few banks worldwide are reviewed and are compared with their counterparts in India. In the end, some guidelines are furnished on how to tackle the situation. Findings – There has been an increase in identity theft in the last few years which could pose a serious problem in the future, resulting in loss of trust by the customer towards net banking. Most of the Indian banks are taking initiatives to address the problem but still more work is to be done in the case of small and rural banks. Originality/value – Since identity theft is not only a concern of one individual but the responsibility of the concerned financial firm, measures needs to be taken to protect the identity and data of their online customers. This paper is an attempt to assess the present situation. Efforts have been made to come out with the security measures that can be adopted by different firms in enhancing security and protect the identity of their online customers.