Lok Sabha Question No. 503 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2021-12-01
Subject: Cyber Attacks and Cyber Terrorism
Ministry: ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Asked by: Bheemrao Baswanthrao Patil

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

## MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

## LOK SABHA

## UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 503

TO BE ANSWERED ON : 01.12.2021

## CYBER ATTACKS AND CYBER TERRORISM

## 503. SHRI B.B.PATIL:

Will the Minister of ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY be pleased to state:

- (a) whether  the  Government  has  taken  adequate  steps  to  counter  both  the  cyberattacks and cyber terrorism and if so, the details thereof; and
- (b) whether  the  incidents  of  cyber-attacks  and  hacking  of  Indian  websites  from hackers of foreign countries are on the rise and if so, the details thereof and the requisite steps taken by the Government in this regard?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE FOR ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI RAJEEV CHANDRASEKHAR)

(a) and  (b)  :Government  is  fully  cognizant  and  aware  of  various  cyber  security  threats including cyber terrorism; and has taken following measures to enhance the cyber security posture and prevent cyber-attacks:

- i. Government has formulated a Cyber Crisis Management Plan for countering cyberattacks  and  cyber  terrorism  for  implementation  by  all  Ministries/  Departments  of Central Government, State Governments and their organizations and critical sectors.
- ii. The  Indian  Computer  Emergency  Response  Team  (CERT-In)  issues  alerts  and advisories  regarding  latest  cyber  threats/vulnerabilities  and  countermeasures  to protect computers and networks on regular basis.
- iii. Government has issued guidelines for Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) regarding their key roles and responsibilities for securing applications / infrastructure and compliance.
- iv. All  the  government  websites  and  applications  are  audited  with  respect  to  cyber security  prior  to  their  hosting.    The  auditing  of  the  websites  and  applications  is conducted on a regular basis after hosting also.
- v. Government  has  empanelled  security  auditing  organisations  to  support  and  audit implementation of Information Security Best Practices.
- vi. Cyber  security  mock  drills  are  conducted  regularly  in  Government  and  critical sectors.  61  such  drills  have  so  far  been  conducted  by  CERT-In  where  600 organisations from different States and sectors participated.
- vii. 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. 15  and  17  training  programs  were  conducted  covering  708  and  4801  participants during the year 2020 and 2021 (till October 2021) respectively.
- viii. Government  is  operating  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.
- ix. Government has set up the National Cyber Coordination Centre (NCCC) to generate necessary  situational  awareness  of  existing  and  potential  cyber  security  threats. Phase-I of NCCC is operational.
- x. CERT-In  co-operates,  works  and  coordinates  incident  response  measures  with international  CERTs,  overseas  organisations  and  service  providers  as  well  as  Law Enforcement Agencies.
- xi. Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has issued National Information Security Policy and Guidelines (NISPG)  to all Ministries and Government  Departments  for implementation.

Indian  Computer  Emergency  Response  Team  (CERT-In)  is  mandated  to  track  and monitor cyber security incidents in India. CERT-In has reported that a total number of 17560,  24768,  26121  and  25870  Indian  websites  were  hacked  during  the  year  2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 (upto October) respectively.

There  have  been  attempts  from  time  to  time  to  launch  cyber-attacks  on  Indian  cyber space. It has been observed that attackers are compromising computer systems located in different parts of the world and use masquerading techniques and hidden servers to hide the identity of actual systems from which the attacks are being launched.

According to the logs analyzed and made available to CERT-In, the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses of the computers from where the attacks appear to be originated belong to various  countries  including  Algeria,  Brazil,  China,  France,  Germany,  Hong  Kong, Indonesia,  Netherlands,  North  Korea,  Pakistan,  Russia,  Serbia,  South  Korea,  Taiwan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, USA, Vietnam etc.

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