THE Department of Telecommunications has decided to setup a Telecom Testing and Security Certification Centre to develop systems, processes, adopt/develop security standards and test tools for security testing and certification of telecom equipment. Based on these standards, processes and tools, the Centre can accredit the test labs for security testing and certification of telecom equipment used by various Telecom service Providers.

Such test labs can be set up under private or public or joint venture entity. Giving this information in written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha yesterday, Mr Kapil Sibal, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, said that a Pilot lab has already been established at Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangaluru to develop security standards, test processes and test tools for telecom equipment testing and security certification.

Mr Sibal said that the development of systems, processes, security standards, test procedures, test tools, etc., for telecom network elements which are large in numbers, is time-taking exercise. Also understanding security standards, protocols, etc., is a complex and voluminous task. Further, there are no readily available standards and processes for security testing of telecom equipment as the issue of establishing security standards for telecom equipment has been realized only recently by international standard making bodies like 3GPP.