Government calls meet on cybersecurity next month
The government has announced setting up of similar frameworks for the finance and power sectors. The government has announced setting up of similar frameworks for the finance and power sectors.
The government has called a meeting of state ministers and secretaries of information technology next month to primarily discuss states’ preparedness in the area of cybersecurity. “In January, we will have a meeting of state IT ministers and secretaries and cybersecurity and safety will be an important component of that discussion. I have directed that the role of state governments has to be expanded in the area of cybersecurity,” Minister of Law & Justice and Electronics & IT Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters here on Monday. Prasad was speaking at the launch of NIC-CERT centre, which will monitor, detect and prevent cyber attacks on government’s internet traffic.
According to government officials, Prasad was given a presentations by senior officials of National Informatics Centre (NIC), and the meeting was also attended by representatives from the Intelligence Bureau, Indian Army, Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), and also the National Cyber Security Coordinator. A senior NIC official said that the new NIC-CERT centre will monitor the traffic and movement of information across various networks against any suspicious activity. “On a daily basis, thousands of attacks are mitigated before they affect mission critical systems in the country. A team of 30 cyber security specialists work at the 24×7 centre in two shifts apart from the 350 employees at the NIC data centre,” the official said.
It will also alert the concerned parties in case it detects any malicious activity. NIC helps government agencies build their digital presence. “This is establishment of an institution in India’s pursuit of safe and secure cyberspace. Any unusual movement on the NIC network, any attacks, intrusions will be detected and cleansed,” Prasad said. The government has announced setting up of similar frameworks for the finance and power sectors, he added.
NIC-CERT will also work in collaboration with sectoral CERTs and CERT-In. Using various tools, the team at NIC-CERT will be able to identify vulnerabilities and possible exploits and the intelligence gathered will give CERT the ability to predict and prevent attacks. NIC Director General Neeta Verma explained that communication between government officials and government and citizens travels through NIC network.
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