IT minister announces measures to strengthen Cybersecurity

In view of the several hacking incidents in the country by the so-called hacker group 'Legion', the ministry of electronics and IT has ordered a series of measures including audit of the financial sector starting immediately with the National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI), review of the IT Act to make it stronger and setting up a crack team to respond to unusual incidents on a war footing. Social networking site Twitter has also been asked to strengthen its network and all stakeholders of the financial industry including payment and wallfirm have been asked to immediately report any untoward incident.

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Union minister of electronics and IT, Ravi Shankar Prasad said that he has ordered a review of the "entire IT infrastructure, of India and the need of the hour is "hardening, of the security wall. "There is huge traffic flowing through the IT platforms, if there is any mishap, the systems have to be resilient and we have to take appropriate measures, said Prasad. A digital payment section has been created in CERT-In, an agency which monitors the Internet traffic on a real time basis given the ongoing momentum in cashless payments in the country. "We have to be alert, there is nothing to be scared of,, he added. Prasad also called for a meeting of the security and technical staff of banks on Tuesday. The meeting was attended by over 50 officers from banks such as IDFC, ICICI, SBI, Canara Bank among others.

Under the IT Act it is mandatory for all institutions to report cyber incidents to CERT-In, however prompt reporting of such incidents, especially by banks has not happened in the past.

Prasad said that all digital payment firms have been asked to report any unusual movement immediately to CERT. "We have sought details from all the people whose accounts have been hacked and Twitter has also been asked to strengthen its security and to pay attention to any unusual movement, said Prasad.

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Two major initiatives to curb cyber crime - the BotNet Centre and the National Cyber Coordination Centre will also be expedited and are expected to come up before the end of this financial year.