Union Government launches Cyber Surakshit Bharat initiative

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) launched Cyber Surakshit Bharat initiative in association with National e-Governance Division (NeGD) and industry partners at an inaugural event in Delhi on January 19, 2018.

The move is aimed at strengthening the cybersecurity ecosystem in India, in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision for a ‘Digital India’.

The initiative was inaugurated by the Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology and Tourism (Independent Charge), KJ Alphons in the presence of Union Information Technology Secretary Ajay Prakash Sawhney and Law Secretary Suresh Chandra and various renowned industrialists.

Speaking on the occasion, KJ Alphons said that Digital India has led to a rapid transformation in the governance system and to ensure good governance, the private corporate sector must come forward.

Key Objective

The initiative has been conceptualized to spread awareness about cybercrime and building capacity for safety measures for Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) and frontline IT staff across all government departments.

Operation

It will be operated on the three principles of awareness, education and enablement.

It will include an awareness program on the importance of cybersecurity.

It will also include a series of workshops on the best practices and enablement of the officials with cybersecurity health tool kits to manage and mitigate cyber threats.

Other Details

• Cyber Surakshit Bharat is the first public-private partnership of its kind and will leverage the expertise of the IT industry in cybersecurity.

• The founding partners of the consortium include some of the leading IT companies such as Microsoft, Intel, WIPRO, Redhat and Dimension Data.

• Its knowledge partners include Cert-In, NIC, NASSCOM and the FIDO Alliance and premier consultancy firms Deloitte and EY.

• The inaugural ceremony was followed by the first national workshop for Central and state government CISOs.

• Conducted by security experts of the consortium partners, the daylong orientation provided comprehensive guidance on topics ranging from the fundamental building blocks of a secure critical infrastructure to the role of a CISO in IT risk management to analysing a department’s cyberhealth.

• The sessions also covered management of identity, devices and apps, OS (operating system) level security practices as well as attack methods and vulnerabilities.

Further, the initiative aims to conduct a series of training programmes in the next six months across cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai.

The programmes would be attended by the CISOs and technical officials from the Central Government, state governments and UTs, public sector banks, public sector units and defence forces, defence PSUs and technical arms of the Air Force, Army and Navy

Background

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology had earlier issued a directive to all Central Government ministries to appoint a Chief Security Officer (CSO) to ensure cyber safety.

It had also issued an RFP to all empanelled auditors to conduct a cybersecurity audit for government departments.

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