NIC-CERT to Prevent & Predict Cyber-attacks on Govt. Utilities

NIC-CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team), a dedicated body to detect, prevent and mitigate the impact of cyber-attacks on the National Informatics Centre (NIC), was inaugurated on 11 December 2017 by Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Minister of Law & Justice and Electronics & Information Technology. NIC has a key role in e-governance at the National, State and District levels. Almost all Indian-government websites are developed and managed by NIC.

Government has introduced a lot of its services online as part of its Digital India initiatives and has made services very accessible to the citizens, and that has also exposed them to the threats and vulnerabilities which are an inherent part of cyberspace. Cyber-attacks have also grown exponentially leading to concerns of data theft which led to the Government drafting the Data protection Act. As Internet with its ever expanding canvas of opportunities is touching the life of people, it necessitates the requirement to upscale the existing security infrastructure. Government needs an agile and responsive eco-system for responding to the cyber-attacks of the day:

• NIC-CERT has been setup with the objective of creating a comprehensive framework that integrates world class security components and inbuilt threat intelligence for detection, prevention and incident response,
• Using the tools the team will correlate events that would help in generating a canvas of the attack surface and identify the vulnerabilities and possible exploits.
• The gathered intelligence assimilated with the knowledge of the open web would give the CERT the ability to prevent and predict attacks.
• NIC’s PAN-India connectivity and reach is one of its key strengths and this coupled with its enhanced ability to detect and prevent attacks would collectively upscale the Government’s ability to protect its data.
• NIC-CERT will operate in close coordination and collaboration with other sector’s CERT’s and more so with Cert-in.
• NIC has been doing remarkable job of securing the Government cyberspace for a long time and by setting up this centre they have taken their experience and expertise to the next level.

Setting up NIC-CERT is Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s initiative under Digital India aimed at enhancing the security posture of NIC and the Government which will in turn lead to enhanced trust of the citizens as the services offered to them would be configured in a framework that is secure by design.