The number of cyber security incidents have gradually increased in India over the last few years. Although, the government has taken certain cyber security initiatives as discussed below, more expansive and aggressive measures are required to meet the rising challenges.
1. National Cyber Security Policy, 2013
The Government of India took the first formalized step towards cyber security in 2013, vide the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, Department of Electronics and Information Technology’s National Cyber Security Policy, 2013. The Policy is aimed at building a secure and resilient cyberspace for citizens, businesses and the Government. Its mission is to protect cyberspace information and infrastructure, build capabilities to prevent and respond to cyber-attacks, and minimize damages through coordinated efforts of institutional structures, people, processes, and technology.
2.Cyber Swachhta Kendra’ (Botnet Cleaning and Malware Analysis Centre)
The Cyber Swachhta Kendra is an initiative in the direction of creating a secure cyber ecosystem in the country as envisaged under the National Cyber Security Policy in India. Antivirus companies to notify the end users regarding infection of their system and providing them assistance to clean their systems, as well as industry and academia to detect bot infected systems. Information Technology’s Digital India initiative, will detect botnet infections in India and prevent further infections by notifying, enable cleaning and securing systems of end-users.
Collaboration with industry partners
Development of Public Private Partnerships is an important strategy under the National Cyber Security Policy 2013. Pursuant to this aim, under the aforementioned Cyber Swachhta Kendra initiative, antivirus company Quick Heal is providing a free bot removal Tool.
International Cooperation Initiatives
Information sharing and cooperation is an explicit strategy under the 2013 Policy. Consequently, as an answer to the increasing international nature of Cyber Crime, the Indian government has entered into cyber security collaborations with countries such as the USA, European Union and Malaysia. The U.K. has agreed to assist in developing the proposed National Cyber Crime Coordination Centre in India.
Article By- Harshita Jain
Editing By- Jasleen Kaur
Other than enacting laws against cybercrime, these are welcome initiatives taken by the Government to meet national objectives and international goals. Meeting the benchmarks set under these initiatives is no doubt the top priority of the regime.