A presentation to the meeting -- also seen by Bloomberg -- flagged concerns about rising, unregulated exchanges trading bitcoins. According to CERT, 34 Indian companies were affected by ransomware attacks in May and June alone.Digital currencies have proliferated as money managers invested in blockchain -- the technology used to verify and record cryptocurrency transactions -- and set up funds to speculate on currencies in the markets. The state is looking to build a digital ledger to create a permanent audit trail for land registries. "We are now storing more and more citizens’ data,” said Neeta Verma, director general at National Informatics Centre, responsible for encryption and data security for all government welfare programs and offices. It explored banning trade in cryptocurrencies, regulating and taxing it or treating it as a digital asset similar to gold.

Source: Economic Times August 22, 2017 01:32 UTC