Chennai: Amidst rising cases of data theft and frauds involving ATM, credit and debit cards, it has been found that around one-third of Indians share their confidential information with others. An equally high number of users store their data in email, mobile and computers.

Around 33 per cent of Indian consumers store their bank account, credit, debit card and ATM passwords and Aadhaar and PAN card details in their email, mobile and computers, found an online survey by LocalCircles. Further, 11 per cent of respondents store PIN numbers of their ATM cards and passwords of their internet banking in their mobile phone’s contact list.

Among the remaining respondents, 21 per cent or one in every five people memorise them all and 39 per cent or two in every five people keep it in a paper format with them.

Further 29 per cent of respondents share the PIN of debit and credit as well as ATM cards with their family members. Another four per cent have given them to their domestic and office staff and two per cent to one or more friends.

“Financial experts reason that one of the most common ways for hackers to commit cybercrime is by phishing an individual’s email account, text messages on mobile, to access their personal financial details, either ATM PIN-based or OTP-based. However, people continue to rely on storing their sensitive personal financial details, their banking passwords, and information of their ATM debit and credit cards, on their smartphone, email, or computer,” said Sachin Taparia, the chief executive officer of LocalCircles India.

A recent ‘Unisys Security Index 2020’ report that measured the concern among consumers about personal financial security, found that bank card fraud through unauthorised access to individual’s credit and debit card details and concerns arou-nd banking and shopping online was amongst the top problems globally. The report had found that personal safety concerns have seen the largest increase — rising nine percentage poi-nts to 58 per cent in 2020.

The Unisys report found that Indians have the second-highest level of security concerns among the 15 countries surveyed. The report also found that 83 per cent of Indians are concerned about identity theft, making it the topmost security concern.

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