Big Brother Is Watching! MP’s Own Cyber Watchdog Is Functional

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): A Big Brother is now keeping an eye on the agencies and departments of the state government to ensure that they do not compromise with cyber security norms, besides protecting the government's secured networks from ransomware and other types of cyber attacks and resolve cyber-security related issues. 

The State Cyber Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT), an autonomous body, headed by a joint director, and comprising a technically competent team of experts, scientists and engineers, has become functional.  

The new body is functioning along the lines of and in coordination with the central agency Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In). Madhya Pradesh is the second state in the country to have a hi-tech cyber security agency of its own. West Bengal was the first.   

The CSIRT will prepare framework, policies, protocols and procedures related to cyber security to be followed and complied with by the departments, corporations and agencies of the state government.    Vaibhav Shrivastawa, joint director of CSIRT told Free Press, that they are functioning from the Vallabh Bhavan annexe. “The infrastructure is being built.

It is a continuous process but we are functional,” he said. Shrivastawa said that they have already issued confidential advisories to different departments and agencies and have organised two training sessions of Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) – who will be the nodal officers for cyber security for different departments.

CSIRT will also help the state government in proactively reaching out to its citizens with e-governance without jeopardising their personal data. It will also deal with financial frauds committed using vulnerabilities in digital systems. The CSIRT will conduct cyber security safety audits of state government departments and agencies.

The vulnerabilities detected in the system would be conveyed to the head of the organisation or department concerned, who will be expected to rectify them. It the rectification is not done, the CSIRT will have to the power to block the access of that particular agency to the government's cyber network.

This will be the preventive role of the proposed body. It will also play a reactive role in detecting cyber attacks and limiting the damage done by them.