Airtel unit wins multi-year contract to secure Indian Railways’ digital operations

Bharti Airtel's enterprise unit, Airtel Business, on Monday said it has won a multi-year contract from the Indian Railway Security Operations Centre (IRSOC) to deliver comprehensive security services to protect the digital backbone of Indian Railways.

The country sees the operation of over 13,000 trains daily, which serve more than 20 million commuters, and enable millions of digital transactions each day, while transporting over 1.5 billion tonnes of freight annually. In a joint statement, Airtel Business said safeguarding this flow of critical data, including sensitive customer identities, payment details, as well as key operational databases for ticketing, train tracking, freight and signalling is crucial in today's era of intensifying cyber threats.

With advanced and centralised security controls, the company said it will build a multi-layer protection to secure the expansive database of the railways, while safeguarding the end-to-end digital operations of the country's railway services, which include 160,000 employees distributed across 26 locations.


Sharat Sinha, CEO & director, Airtel Business, said the company's security layer will advance security efficiency in ticketing and data management, shield all railway digital operations from evolving cyber threats, while delivering safe and seamless digital services to millions of daily railway commuters.

"The establishment of IRSOC will help in providing a centralised security operations centre to continuously monitor IR assets, detect and respond to cybersecurity threats efficiently, gather threat intelligence and ensure proper collaboration with national cybersecurity agencies," said Dilip Kumar, executive director-information & publicity, Railway Board.

The companies did not provide any financial details.