The Institute formed a CISO Forum exclusively for Urban Cooperative Banks (UCB) in the year 2021 and the first meet of the Forum was held on May 06, 2021.

The 13^th meeting of the Urban Cooperative Banks (UCB) CISO Forum was held on June 20-21, 2024, at the Institute. Dr. Deepak Kumar, Director, IDRBT, inaugurating the forum, highlighted the strategic importance of the Forum in fostering information sharing, especially in the light of increasing cyber threats, resource limitations of UCBs, and the critical need to maintain cyber hygiene in UCBs.

Thereafter, Ms. Darshana Kulkarni, General Manager, DIT, RBI, in her keynote talk on “Cyber Security & IT Infrastructure”, highlighted the criticality of cyber security and the need to strike a balance between compliance, innovation, and technological resilience. She emphasised the importance of maintaining infrastructure inventories and dwelt upon threats including supply chain attacks, deep fake incidents, and security risks linked to cloud services.

Shri. Sarath C K, AGM, CSITE, RBI, spoke on Master Direction on Outsourcing of IT services. Ms. Babitha, Vice President, Systems Audit, Reserve Bank Information Technology Ltd., provided insights into cyber security audit and various types of attacks.

Shri. Yanamandra Srinivas, Paytm, delved into the human aspects of cyber security guidelines, emphasising the role of human vulnerability in cyber-attacks. Dr. Dipanjan Roy, Faculty, IDRBT, presented an overview of the 36^th Cyber Drill conducted in May 2024 and spoke on the fundamental strategies of reactive, active, and proactive approaches in cyber security. Shri Johny P, from Cisco, turned the focus on AI for Threat Detection and Response while addressing the current challenges in security architecture. 42 CISOs from various UCBs participated.

The UCB CISO Forum is coordinated by Dr. Dipanjan Roy, Faculty, IDRBT.