Centre conducts over 9,700 cybersecurity audits of critical sectors like power, banking

New Delhi, July 27 (IANS) The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-in) and National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) have together carried out 9,798 security audits to strengthen cybersecurity across critical sectors like power, energy and the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) in the country, according to the government.

The government remains conscious of the cyber threats to India’s digital and physical infrastructure.

“The policies of government of India are aimed at ensuring a safe, trusted, and accountable cyberspace for all users. Multiple initiatives have been undertaken to secure critical infrastructure sectors such as power, transport or banking for their uninterrupted and safe functioning,” said Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Jitin Prasada, in the Rajya Sabha.

CERT-in has empaneled 200 cybersecurity organisations for carrying out these audits.

The cyber agency issues the necessary guidelines for setting up of State/sectoral Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRTs). Sector-specific CSIRTs, such as CSIRT in Finance sector (CSIRT-Fin) and CSIRT in Power sector (CSIRT-Power), are operational to coordinate cyber security issues and improve cyber resilience within respective sectors.

The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) has developed a range of indigenous cyber security tools in mobile security, forensics, log collection and analytics, etc. to reduce reliance on foreign solutions, said the minister.

CERT-In has formulated a Cyber Crisis Management Plan (CCMP) for all government bodies to counter cyber-attacks and cyber-terrorism. CCMP provides strategic framework to coordinate recovery from cyber-crisis and enhance resilience.

In addition, guideline documents and templates have been published to assist development and implementation of state-level/sectoral Crisis Management Plans.

CERT-In also regularly conducts workshops for government bodies and key organisations to sensitise them about the cyber security threat landscape and enabling them to prepare and implement the CCMP. So far, 205 such CCMP workshops have been conducted.

—IANS

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