IT ministers’ conclave: ‘Phishing, ransomware main reasons for security breaches’

The issue of cyber-security assumed centre stage at the IT ministers’ conclave on Tuesday, where it was said that as many as 1.5 lakh online transactions get compromised on a daily basis in India out of the total 230 crore such deals. According to sources present at the meeting between the central and state ministers of information technology here, a presentation by National Cyber Security Coordinator Gulshan Rai noted that main reasons for security breaches of was phishing attacks, ransomware, manipulation of IP addresses, denial of service, among others.

Sources pointed out that the discussion on cyber security was held in the backdrop of  increased digital footprint
in India, especially in the rural areas. This includes financial services as well under the Jan Dhan Yojana which has 31.04 crore beneficiaries with Rs 73,878 crore maintained in their accounts.

However, according to information accumulated by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), the total number of cyber security incidents reported to the agency was 44,679, 49,455, 50,362 and 40,054 during the years 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 (till November), respectively. At the meeting, according to sources, while Rai asked the state governments to step up their cyber security operations and improve cyber hygiene, Minister of Electronics and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the Centre will deploy a special team for auditing cyber security infrastructure.

Apart from cyber security-related issues, the IT ministers also discussed the draft electronic manufacturing policy, under which the state representatives called for increased focus on domestic manufacturing of medical devices, solar power equipments and automotive goods. A senior IT ministry official said Prasad appealed to the ministers to revive the manufacturing clusters in their respective states.