Lok Sabha Question No. 1601 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2018-12-19
Subject: Data Hacking
Ministry: ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Asked by: Adhikari Dibyendu

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

## LOK SABHA

## UNSTARRED QUESTION NO.1601

TO BE ANSWERED ON: 19.12.2018

## DATA HACKING

## 1601. SHRI DIBYENDU ADHIKARI:

Will the Minister of Electronics & Information Technology be pleased to state:-

- (a) whether it is a fact that data hacking is a regular feature in Indian IT system;
- (b) if  so,  whether in spite of Government security support, over 150 Government portals have been hacked since 2017;
- (c) whether  it  is  also  a  fact  that  siphoning  of  bank  account  has  become  common phenomena and has increased over 3% in last six months;
- (d) if so, the details of year-wise complaints received and action taken thereon since 2016 till date; and
- (e) the plan of action of the Government to stop data breaches or hacking in future?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE FOR ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI S.S. AHLUWALIA)

(a) and  (b):  With  the  innovation  of  technology  and  rise  in  usage  of  cyber  space  for businesses,  the  cyber  attacks  are  also  on  the  rise  worldwide  as  well  as  in  the  country. Defacement / hacking attempts do occur on Internet facing servers by malicious actors like elsewhere in the world. As per information reported to and tracked by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), 172 and 105 Government websites, which includes 74 and  31  websites  hosted  on  NICNET  managed  by  National  Informatics  Centre  (NIC),  were hacked during the year 2017 and 2018 (upto November) respectively.

(c)  and  (d):    As  per  information  reported  to  Indian  Computer  Emergency  response  Team (CERT-In), a total of 3, 14 and 6 financial fraud incidents affecting ATMs, cards, Point of sale (PoS) systems and Unified Payment Interface (UPI) have been reported during the years 2016, 2017  and  2018  (upto  November)  respectively.  Further,  Reserve  Bank  of  India  (RBI)  has registered a total of 1191, 1372, 2059 and 921 cases of frauds involving ATM/Debit Cards, Credit Cards and Internet Banking Frauds reported (amount involved Rs 1 lakh and above) during the year 2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19 (Upto 30 Sept 2018) respectively.

(e): In tune with the dynamic nature of Information Technology and emerging cyber threats, continuous efforts are required to be made by owners to protect networks by way of hardening and  deploying  appropriate  security  controls.  Government  has  taken  several  measures  to enhance the cyber security posture and prevent cyber attacks including breaches and hacking. These inter alia , include:

- (i) The  Indian  Computer  Emergency  Response  Team  (CERT-In)  issues  alerts  and advisories regarding latest cyber threats and countermeasures on regular basis to ensure

safe usage of digital technologies. Regarding securing digital payments, 28 advisories have been issued for users and institutions.

- (ii) All authorised entities/ banks issuing PPIs in the country have been advised by CERTIn through Reserve bank of India to carry out special audit by empanelled auditors of CERT-In on a priority basis and to take immediate steps thereafter to comply with the findings of the audit report and ensure implementation of security best practices.
- (iii) All  the  new  government  websites  and  applications  are  to  be  audited  with  respect  to cyber security prior to their hosting.  The auditing of the websites and applications is to be conducted on a regular basis after hosting.
- (iv) Government  has  issued  guidelines  for  Chief  Information  Security  Officers  (CISOs) regarding their key roles and responsibilities for securing applications / infrastructure and compliance.
- (v) Government  has  empanelled  76  security  auditing  organisations  to  support  and  audit implementation of Information Security Best Practices.
- (vi) All organizations providing digital services have been mandated to report cyber security incidents to CERT-In expeditiously.
- (vii) Government has formulated Crisis Management Plan for countering cyber attacks and cyber terrorism for implementation by all Ministries/ Departments of Central Government, State Governments and their organizations and critical sectors.
- (viii) Cyber  security  mock  drills  and  exercises  are  being  conducted  regularly  to  enable assessment of cyber security posture and preparedness of organizations in Government and critical sectors. 38 such exercises have so far been conducted by CERT-In where organisations  from  different  sectors  such  as  Finance,  Defence,  Power,  Telecom, Transport, Energy, Space, IT/ITeSetc participated.
- (ix) CERT-In  conducts  regular  training  programmes  for  network  /  system  administrators and  Chief  Information  Security  Officers  (CISOs)  of  Government  and  critical  sector organisations regarding securing the IT infrastructure and mitigating cyber attacks. 22 trainings covering 746 participants conducted in the year 2018 (till November).
- (x) Government has launched the Cyber Swachhta Kendra (Botnet Cleaning and Malware Analysis  Centre).  The  centre  is  providing  detection  of  malicious  programs  and  free tools to remove the same.
- (xi) Government has initiated setting up of National Cyber Coordination Centre (NCCC) to generate necessary situational awareness of existing and potential cyber security threats and enable timely information sharing for proactive, preventive and protective actions by individual entities. Phase-I of NCCC has been made operational.
- (xii) National Informatics Centre (NIC), which provides IT/E-Governance related services to Government  departments,  protects  the  cyber  resources  from  possible  compromises through a layered security approach in the form of practices, procedures and technologies that are put in place. NIC has deployed state-of-the-art security solutions including  firewalls,  intrusion  prevention  systems,  anti-virus  solution.  Additionally, periodic security audits of resources are performed followed by subsequent hardenings. These are complemented by round-the-clock monitoring of security events and remedial measures are carried out for solving the problems subsequently.

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