Surprise inspections to help decrease fraud in public sector banks and insurance companies
Posted on: 05/Aug/2015 10:04:40 AM - No. of views : (3647)
Chief Vigilance Officers (CVOs) of various public sector banks and insurance companies have been asked to conduct surprise inspections in the wake of cases of fraud. The suggestion was made by the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC).
According to the CVC, many cases of fraud have occurred in organisations that function in a computerised environment. There has been misuse of information because of sharing of username - password combination with others. Also, many people do not regular change passwords, especially when they are transferred, on long leave or suspended.
A directive from the CVC said, The Commission is of the view that periodic change of passwords by officers would be an important preventive vigilance measures to address the issues... The email-ids, user-ids, etc for accessing the secure systems should be disabled once an officer superannuates, placed under suspension or not required to perform any function on account of proceeding on long leave, training, deputation, transfer, etc... Introducing a provision in the system, or software itself at a pre-decided time period (i.e. a fortnight or a month) to change password could also be one of the options for preventing misuse by unauthorised persons... In addition, it also needs to be ensured by way of periodic surprise inspections or checks by next higher authority or controlling officers as to whether the user-ids and password are being shared by the officers with any unauthorised persons... CVOs of banks were to take suitable action and regularly monitor secrecy of passwords and any instances of casual approach by any password holder was to be dealt ruthlessly by the concerned bank as the same may put huge funds at risk.
