NIC-CERT: How this confusing bunch of letters will provide security against cyber-attacks

By Manali Joshi

NIC-CERT, a setup of National Informatics Technology, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology was inaugurated by the Minister of Law and Information Technology, Mr Ravi Shankar Prasad on 11 December 2017.  Explaining the move, the Minister said that in the recent past, there has been an exponential growth in cyber-attacks leading to concerns of data theft which led to the drafting of the Data Protection Act and the setting up of CERT. Moreover, he stated, that as a part of Digital India Initiative, in order to make services easily accessible to the citizens, it had exposed itself to numerous probabilities of cyber theft and vulnerability.

Stronger security network

He emphasised that for responding to the cyber-attacks of present times, the government needs an alert and responsive eco-system which is assured by NIC-CERT. The objective of CERT is to create a comprehensive framework integrating world-class security components with inbuilt threat intelligence to detect and prevent the danger at its root level through an efficient response. Lastly, NIC’s pan-India connectivity is one of its key strengths and this, coupled with its enhanced ability to detect and prevent attacks, would collectively upscale the Government’s ability to protect its data.

Multi-pronged strategy

According to Mr Prasad, setting up of NIC-CERT is MeitY’s initiative under Digital India, aimed to enhance the security position of NIC and the government, which will, in turn, aid in enhancing the trust of the citizens as the services offered to them would be configured in a framework that is secure by design. NIC-CERT will operate in close coordination and collaboration with sectoral CERT’s and more so with Cert-in. Using various tools, the team will correlate events that would help in generating a canvas of the attack surface and identify the vulnerabilities and possible exploits. The gathered intelligence integrated with the knowledge of the open web would give the CERT the ability to prevent and predict attacks.

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