In a move to address cyber security challenges, a consortium of tech majors led by Microsoft India will impart training to 1,200 chief information security officers (CISOs) of Central Government, State Governments, banks, public sector undertakings, technical heads from Defence, Defence Sector PSUs and technical arms of Air Force, Army and Navy to address cyber security challenges.
The training was necessitated after the worst ransomware attack that crashed 10 lakh computers in several European countries, including Britain, France and USA in May this year. Cyber security against cyber warfare assumes greater significance due to rapidly increasing risks, vulnerabilities, threats, cyber crimes and fraud. The training will be given under “Cyber Surakshit Bharat” programme which is being launched by next week.
Top officials of Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MEITY) told The Pioneer that a consortium comprising experts led by Microsoft India will give cyber security training to 1,200 cybersecurity experts, including of armed forces and technical heads from Defence, Defence sector PSUs to address cyber security-related challenges.
According to officials, India remains vulnerable to digital intrusions such as cyber-espionage, cybercrime, digital disruption and Distributed Denial of Service (DoS).
“The crimes related to cyber world can be multi-layered, multi-location, multilingual, multi-cultural and multi-legal, that’s why it is difficult to investigate and reach to the criminal. The cases related to cyber crime have increased by 70 per cent in 2014 as compared to 2013. There is also growing threat from online radicalisation,” officials said.
The training will be given in five cities that include Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangaluru and Hyderabad. “Cyber security professionals must be prepared for the new challenges for identification, surveillance, monitoring, location tracking, targeting for recruitment, access to networks and stealing user credentials,” officials said.
The other partners of the consortium are Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC), Wipro, Tata Consultancy Service (TCS), Dimension Data (DD), IBM, Tech Mahindra, Ernest & Young and Redhat. The consortium partners will provide technical assistance to conduct the training programme whereas National e-Governance Division of the MEITY will provide the logistic support for the program.
According to officials, the training programme will include cyber security management and cyber health index exercise, end-to-end security across identity, data, application and endpoints, introduction to important security standards, network security and introduction to security in Internet of Things and industrial control Systems.
There are many types of malware that affect a computer, ranging from those that steal your information to those that just delete everything on the device. Recently, a major ransomware attack had brought businesses to a close throughout Europe in May this year. Ransomware usually locks computers, encrypts the data on it and prevents software and apps from running and payment is demanded before the ransomed data is decrypted and access returned to the victim.