The Hindu : New Delhi News : Govt. websites to be audited for cyber security: Pilot

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Friday, Dec 17, 2010
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Govt. websites to be audited for cyber security: Pilot

Special Correspondent

Sachin Pilot

NEW DELHI: Union Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology Sachin Pilot has asked all ministries, department and public sector enterprises at both Central and State government levels to step up their cyber security efforts to avert any kind of hacking or attacks as witnessed recently in case of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) website.

The Centre has also decided to audit all websites of ministries and departments with respect to quality and security prior to the hosting.

Mr. Pilot, who recently held a meeting with officers of Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Home Affairs, Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), National Informatics Centre and the CBI here, asked all government agencies to pay close attention to cyber security guidelines followed by them. He also reviewed preparedness on part of various Central agencies involved in cyber security.

Talking to The Hindu, Mr. Pilot said: “I have stressed the need to enhance the security of the websites in particular and cyber space in general. There has been a quantum jump in the number of Indian websites -- from 1.7-lakh in 2005 to about 1-crore now. This has necessitated that all government agencies should pay close attention to cyber security guidelines followed by them.”

“The crisis management plan prescribed by CERT-In is a comprehensive set of instructions to prevent and deal with attacks on websites. With respect to design and security of the websites, the guidelines issued by National Informatics Centre (NIC) and web security guidelines issued by should be complied with,” he said.

Mr. Pilot further said CERT-In has empanelled more than 50 IT security auditors for auditing IT infrastructure of the organisations. Ministries and departments have also been instructed to audit their websites on regular basis and whenever there are any major changes in the website applications. NIC has been instructed to host websites only after the user department produces security certification of their websites and compliance to the guidelines periodically, he added.

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