NEW DELHI: In view of rising cyber threats, the Union Ministry for Home Affairs (MHA) has asked the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) to take immediate steps to strengthen cyber security mechanisms across smart cities.
Reiterating the points discussed in a recent conference on cyber safety, the MHA has stressed the need for each smart city to appoint a dedicated Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), backed by a technical team. CISOs will play a critical role in safeguarding digital infrastructure, monitoring cyber risks, ensuring compliance with national security protocols, and leading timely responses to potential attacks. Officials said the move comes against the backdrop of increasing dependence on technology-driven governance and services under the Smart Cities Mission.
In the conference, deliberations were held over the possible threats, the required cyber security measures, the steps to curb cybercrimes, and the relevance of critical information infrastructure and protected systems in smart cities.
“In the wake of emerging cyber challenges, there is a need to appoint a suitably qualified and dedicated CISO with a requisite technical team for every smart city… A robust Information Security Management System may be implemented including firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDS/IPS), endpoint protection, data encryption and multi-factor authentication. Regular comprehensive cyber security audits along with vulnerability assessments and penetration tests (VAPT) should be conducted to identify and address potential weaknesses and patch them effectively,” MHA secretary Govind Mohan wrote in his letter to MoHUAcounterpart.Officials said that following the letter, MoHUA has designated CISOs.
The communiqué also highlighted the operationalisation of a 24x7 Cyber Multi Agency Centre by MHA as a nodal point for reporting, coordinating.