Modi Govt Using AI For Cyber Secure Bharat: Amit Shah

Amidst

the rising fear of Anthropic’s Mythos AI, especially for the banking industry, the centre has announced a new move to fight against cybercrime by deploying artificial intelligence (AI) tools to spot and remove hidden mule accounts that are usually used in online scams. Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced on Tuesday that the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), which works under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH).

All About The MoU

For those unaware, mule accounts are basically bank accounts that are typically used by cybercriminals to transfer or hide their illegally obtained money. These bank accounts are primarily opened using fake documents or tricking users into sharing their banking access.As per the Home Minister, these accounts have emerged as one of the major challenges in controlling the cyber scams in India. This new AI system will help the RBI-banking system to track suspicious banking activity. Data from I4C’s Suspect Registry will be given into the AI tool to instantly spot risky and hidden mule accounts.

The government believes that this AI tool will help the banks and officials to detect cyber frauds quicker and stop cyber fraudsters from moving stolen money through the financial system. In a X post, the Home Minister stated, “Today, the I4C under MHA signed an MoU with the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH), unleashing the power of artificial intelligence to combat cyber fraud. The move will swiftly detect and cull hidden mule accounts by feeding the data from the I4C's Suspect Registry to the AI-driven fraud detection system and serve the citizens as their next-gen shield against cybercrime."

IMF Warns Against Rising AI Use For Potential Misuse

Recently, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned banking industries and users about how developing AI systems like Anthropic’s mythos could emerge as a danger. These tools have the potential to identify critical software flaws that are hidden and could potentially be misused by the hackers, as these tools can act on their own, the organisation iterated.

FM Nirmala Sitharaman Holds Key Review Meeting

Last month, the Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman chaired a high-level meeting with banking officials and the Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw along with key stakeholders to assess the impact of emerging artificial intelligence models and how such technologies can be misused to exploit software vulnerabilities.She instructed the Indian Banks' Association to prepare a coordinated institutional mechanism to ensure effective responses to cyber threats. She also asked the banking officials to engage top cybersecurity professionals and specialised agencies to make the monitoring and defence systems better.What lies ahead is that it will be noteworthy how AI industries and the banking industry will need more measures to combat such rising cybersecurity issues that are a consequence of AI that was once claimed to help humans and not increase their work.