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 wallet firm have been asked to immediately report any untoward incident.
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.
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.
Prasad said that the ministry has started a review of the IT Act in order to strengthen it as the Act was formed in 2000, almost 16 year ago – and may have to be updated to deal with the move towards digital payments and mobile banking.
He added that all ministries have also been asked to appoint Central Information Security Officers apart from creating awareness among people regarding cyber security.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.
By Baishakhi Dutta
