By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, MARCH 20, 2018: THE MoS for Home Affairs, Mr Hansraj Gangaram Ahir, today in Parliament stated that a Joint Working Group had been established for public-private partnership on cyber security. Such working group was set up under the aegis of the National Cyber Security Policy (2013), which provides for developing effective Public Private Partnership and collaborative engagements through technical and operational cooperation and contribution for enhancing the security of cyberspace.

The proposed partnership seeks to ensure collaboration in following areas, such as setting up of Information Sharing and Analysis Centres in critical sectors like Banking, Telecommunications and Power. It is also proposed to establish Centres of Excellence on Policy Research, Standards and Audit. The joint venture also seeks to build capacity in law enforcement agencies and cyber forensics. Another objective is to establish testing labs for telecom and IT equipment under the PPP model.

Mr Ahir also drew attention to several mechanisms and measures put in place to ensure digital safety and cyber security. To begin with, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) had been designated as a National nodal agency to coordinate matters related to cyber security incidents in the country. Also, the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) had been setup to enhance the protection and resilience of Nation's Critical information infrastructure. The Government also issued general guidelines for Chief Information Security Officers regarding their key roles and responsibilities for securing applications and infrastructure. Also, compliance organisations are encouraged to develop their organisation level cyber security policy. Public Private Partnership had also been developed for cooperation and collaboration for responding cyber security incidents.

Moreover, to spread awareness amongst law enforcement agencies, cybercrime workshops were being conducted to sensitize them. Further, the Information Security Education and Awareness (ISEA) Project is being implemented with an objective of capacity building in the area of Information Security, training of Government personnel and creation of mass Information Security awareness. The project aims to train 1.14 Lakhs persons under Academic activities (formal and non-formal courses) by the year 2020. So far more than 71000 candidates have been trained in various formal/non-formal courses in Information Security through 52 academic and training institutions.

The Minister also stated that cyber forensics training labs in all north eastern states, CBI Academy Ghaziabad and cities such as Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata and Bangalore had been set up and more than 28,000 state police personnel from North Eastern States, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Karnataka had been trained for dealing with cybercrime. Moreover, Cyber Crisis Management Plan for countering cyber threats and cyber terrorism had been developed, and so far 60 workshops had been conducted for Central Govt. Ministries, Departments, States and Union Territories and other organisations.

Notably, R&D was also being carried out in the thrust areas of cyber security including, (a) Cryptography and cryptanalysis, (b) Network & System Security, (c) Monitoring & Forensics, and (d) Vulnerability Remediation & Assurance through sponsored projects at recognized R&D organizations. The Government had also initiated setting up of National Cyber Coordination Centre (NCCC) to generate necessary situational awareness of existing and potential cyber security threats and enable timely information sharing for proactive, preventive and protective actions by individual entities. Phase-I of NCCC has been made operational. Moreover, the Government launched the Cyber Swachhta Kendra (Botnet Cleaning and Malware Analysis Centre), which helps detect malicious programs and also provides free tools to remove the same.