Gaurav Kumar asked: In the context of growing cyber-attacks worldwide, how well is India prepared to tackle them given the government’s push for a ‘Digital India’?

Munish Sharma replies: The Government of India has rolled out a number of initiatives to secure “Digital India” from cyber threats. Some of the initiatives are over a decade old such as the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team or CERT-In, India's national nodal agency responsible for dealing with cyber security incidents, established in 2004. A nodal agency, National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC), was established in 2014 to augment the protection of critical information infrastructure in India. The government subsequently appointed a National Cyber Security Coordinator in 2015. The level of preparedness to deal with cyber-attacks is gradually improving. Plans to establish a National Cyber Coordination Centre (NCCC) are already in place, which will facilitate cyber-crime prevention, investigation and training for law enforcement agencies.

Posted on July 10, 2017