NEW DELHI: Hackers will be faced with maya should they decide to hack into the computer systems of India’s Ministry of Defence. The ministry has decided to drop the Microsoft operating system and go for a local one named Maya operating system, according to a source. On a trial basis, a few computers in the ministry will have the Maya OS installed by August 15, the source said.
The ministry believes the new operating system, based on an open-source platform, will boost cyber security, the source said. Going forward, the ministry wants to install Maya on all systems connected to it. Maya OS was developed by a government agency in six months. It has additional security features for ‘endpoint detection and protection’, the source said.
Indian Navy has decided to install Maya OS in their systems while the Army and the Air Force are evaluating it. Considering the potency of cyber warfare and the possibilities of cyber attacks, espionage and data theft the Army in April initiated steps to raise dedicated internet networks in all six operational commands.
In May, the Defence Cyber Agency conducted cybersecurity drills, which included the participation of various branches of national security. Its focus was to evaluate the effectiveness of the firewalls in service to safeguard the country’s vital infrastructure.
Measures to contain such attacks and safeguard the cyberinfrastructure picked up pace after an investigation revealed the role of hackers from China. In November 2022, a cyberattack on five servers of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi pointed to China-based hackers. Cyberspace is getting increasingly vulnerable to hacker attacks globally. Over 500 million hacker attacks were reported in India alone in the first quarter of this calendar year, according to a report.