New Delhi: Several Indian banks have come under more than 400 phishing attacks during the past few months with the number rising sharply in Sept-Oct, 2008, according to industry lobby National Association of Software Companies (Nasscom).

Phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication in a bid to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details.

Criminals using the internet have attacked banks such as state-owned Bank of India, private lender HDFC Bank, India's largest private lender ICICI Bank among others, Nasscom president Som Mittal told reporters on the sidelines of a Nasscom-organised conference on cyber security awareness.

Further, the number of phishing attacks on Indian banks sharply increased during Sept-Oct 2008 with most of the phishing attacks using compromised Indian government servers.

"There is high awareness at the government level and the number of attacks proves that we are at the cusp of a significant increase," Mittal said.

"We have cyber laboratories training police officers, and other people about data protection best practices and standards," Data Security Council of India (DSCI), chief executive officer Kamlesh Bajaj told reporters.

Currently, there are three cyber laboratories in Maharashtra and one in Bangalore with 3-4 people working in each laboratory, Bajaj added.

Apparently, over 80 Indian banks do not have adequate security protection for their online account users. Consequently, fraudsters can easily access the personal information of account holders.

These problems are due to the complexity of cyber crimes, and also non-cooperation from netizens, panellists at the conference said.

The three-day seminar will focus on cyber security, security surveys to assess the state of security in information technology and business process outsourcing companies, creation of a security portal as a one-stop portal for all security related knowledge and e-security forums.