The Centre on Monday unveiled the NIC-CERT centre that would monitor and help in early detection and mitigation of cyberattacks on government networks.
“All communications between government departments — Centre, State and district, as well as interactions between the government and the citizens takes place through NIC’s network,” said Electronics and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.
“The NIC-CERT will help us in our pursuit of a safe cyberspace by early detection of any attack on India’s systems,” he said.
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NIC’s (National Informatics Centre) networks handle about 500 GB of data at any given point in time.
NIC-CERT currently has a team of about 30 cybersecurity professionals working in two shifts. This is in addition to the more than 300 people in the cybersecurity team who already work at the NIC, NIC Director General Neeta Verma said.
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Working in tandem
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NIC-CERT will operate in close co-ordination and collaboration with other sectoral CERTs and more so with CERT-In, she added.
The government had already announced setting up of sectoral CERTs (computer emergency response teams) for sectors such as finance and power.
“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.” Mr. Prasad added.
It will also alert the concerned parties concerned in case it detects any malicious activity. “Any unusual movement on the NIC network, any attacks, intrusions will be detected and cleaned,” he said.
The minister also said that he has called a meeting of all state IT ministers in January which will mainly focus on the issue of cybersecurity and safety. “The role of the state governments has to be expanded in the area of cybersecurity. The centre and the states have to work together,” he said.