heads. we have also organized a ‘ seminar on liquidity management in rtgs environment ’ to apprise you of the challenges that you may face on the operationalisation of the rtgs system and the manner in which you have to control and co - ordinate your liquidity management measures to derive optimal benefits from the rtgs system. it cannot be disputed that that the technological innovations, in general, have been at the core of the reform process in the services sector globally and the financial sector, in particular. for the last so many decades, it has been driving the business re - engineering process in our banking industry. we, at the rbi, have been actively studying these developments and readying ourselves to provide for a technology framework and operating environment, conducive to the banks. let me share with you some of the initiatives that we have undertaken. a reliable communication backbone to facilitate improvement in financial services, the reserve bank of india has, through idrbt, set up the infinet - a ‘ closed user group ’ network as the exclusive domain for the applications of the entities in the banking and financial sector. as you all know, the infinet is a blend of vsat technology and terrestrial leased line technology based wide area network. infinet provides for the robust and reliable communication backbone for the implementation of all the systemically important payment system applications. reserve bank ’ s concerns and focused attention on the twin issues of security over the infinet and message standards for intra / inter - bank applications have led to the development and implementation of the structured financial messaging system ( sfms ), a standard messaging protocol, which would be riding on the infinet communication backbone. sfms has adequate in - built security and with public key infrastructure ( pki ), provides for a security solution of international standards. sfms will also act as an alternative for accelerating the integration of the branches of the banks. secondly, a state - of - the - art, robust and secure platform - ibm s - 390 system with a complete standby installation - has been made operational in mumbai centre to ensure the availability of the requisite technical infrastructure, capable of robustness, operational resilience and redundancies to ensure business continuity. the disaster recovery site is being set up at a geographically distanced location from mumbai. you will all agree that these efforts are incomplete without the total involvement and participation of the end - users of the payment and settlement system. the proverbial “

cyber related threats is changing very fast and what is current on any day becomes obsolete the very next day. if continued cyber vigil is to be ensured then a continuous process of awareness building, education, re - enforcement, tests, trials and upgradation is a must. it is this area which we generally tend to be rather lax and which is exploited by cyber - baiters. 19. let me dwell a bit on what the central bank of this country is doing in this regard. in terms of providing a comprehensive framework for it implementation, we at reserve bank have been proactive and follow an approach of consultation and congruence in the security framework. right from the early days when rbi provided guidance on computerisation, we have been conscious of the role that it plays in meeting the emerging customer needs and the opportunities and challenges of using technology, including cyber related aspects. i will draw your attention to a few recent initiatives in this regard by the rbi. 20. the reserve bank has recently issued on june 2, 2016 a comprehensive set of guidelines for cyber security framework in banks. these guidelines built over the earlier work emphasise the importance of having a focussed attention to cyber threats and framework for mitigating the threats and to protect the information assets. i would like to redraw your attention to the recent cyber incident at one of our banks. apparently there has been no monetary loss in the recent incident. but it is too early to conclude what and how of the incident at this juncture ; however, the need for vigil over the sensitive systems like remittances is once again brought to the fore, with particular focus on configuration of the systems and the human aspects in managing the systems. banks need to put in place preventive measures such as appropriate bis central bankers ’ speeches controls framework around the systems, reconciliation of transactions in on real / near real time basis, controls over the message creation and transmission, applying timely security patches to the interfaces, if any, close monitoring of transactions and disabling usb, and internet access on the connected nodes. equally important is the timely detective measures. it is pertinent to prepare ourselves to face such incidents, by having a robust crisis management plan. i am sure the banks are taking earnest steps to comply with the provisions of the circular as soon as possible. time has come to scale up the cyber security preparedness to meet the emerging threats 21. information dissemination is a key facilitator in combating the menace of cyber