SBI blocks 6 lakh debit cards over security breach

Six lakh State Bank of India (SBI) debit cards have been blocked due to a security breach that occurred in a 'non-SBI' ATM network.

These compromised cards will be replaced with new ones in a move that was labelled as 'one of the biggest in Indian banking,' in a report by Times of India said on Wednesday.

The security breach was not observed by the state-lender's banking system but many other banks also fell victim to this breach, so customers who have used their cards only at the SBI's ATM have not been affected, Shiv Kumar Bhasin, Chief of technology at SBI told TOI.  

The report said that the bank has informed its branches about the cards being blocked and fresh cards would be issued to customers.

As on July 2016, there were 20.27 crore active debit cards from SBI and it's associate banks had a total of 4.75 crore active debit cards, according to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) website. The cards that were affected, and subsequently blocked, comprise about 0.25% of this, the report added.