The National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) under the Prime Minister’s Office, will have a separate Cyber Security Wing (CSW) to secure the critical information infrastructure of the country.
The newly-created wing of the NSCS, headed by National Security Adviser (NSA) Shiv Shankar Menon, will be manned by cyber experts from various government agencies and it will directly report to the NSA.
The proposal, which was being discussed in the Security Council for sometime, was expedited following the circulation of morphed images and videos to stir up communal hatred during Assam ethnic violence earlier in August. The cyber wing will have the mandate to develop counter cyber attack and check non-state actor’s sustained attack on Indian computers, which as per the government assessment is alarming at the moment.
Giving details of Cyber Wing structure, Deputy National Security Adviser Latha Reddy said that at the moment it is a small structure and a Joint Secretary-level officer is exclusively dealing with the cyber and technical issues, but in future the government may expand the unit. “Our job will be to coordinate and to see that all sections of the government come together and work in a coordinated manner to ensure a robust cyber security architecture which clearly defines roles and responsibilities and also develop accountability between different agencies,” she said.
She also said private sector can be accommodated at some stages in the cyber security wing if any help is needed for capacity building. Releasing recommendations of Joint Working Group on engagement with private sector on cyber security, Menon said the rising cyber attacks and misuse of various internet platforms are the biggest security challenge. “The recent incident of misuse of social media to stir up communal hatred is one such grave example. How to control it? Government and private sector need to do it together...We need each other. At the moment we cannot promise 100 per cent cyber security but we can make it stronger,” Menon said.
According to the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) under the Department of Telecom, the number of cyber attacks on critical infrastructure is rising every year. India needs at least 5 lakh cyber security experts to guard the cyber border.
Government officials said the present availability of experts would only be in thousands. “In 2012, we have reported over 20,000 attacks by hackers on our infrastructure. Last year, it was 13,500. So the trend suggests, it is becoming a very important area for us,” DeitY secretary J Satyanarayan said.