India tightens cybersecurity controls after banking and data exposures

26 Oct 2026

India is tightening cybersecurity oversight as banking data exposures highlight weaknesses in credentials, applications, cloud storage and third-party technology. The Reserve Bank of India is requiring regulated entities to treat systems as potentially compromised after credential leaks or unauthorised access, conduct forensic checks, rotate exposed passwords and close dormant or obsolete accounts and APIs. A suspected exposure involving 3,897 State Bank of India customer records has added urgency, even though the bank reported no disruption to core operations and the available evidence does not establish that transaction credentials were compromised. Regulators are also examining concentration among cloud, technology and AI vendors because a shared failure could spread outages or vulnerabilities across the financial system. The stakes include customer privacy, operational continuity, confidence in digital finance and the resilience of India’s increasingly interconnected banking infrastructure.