Secure network for intra-government communication in the works

NEW DELHI: The government is in the process of testing and installing a secure and dedicated communication network (SDCN) for intra-government communication with 5,000 secured phones, Parliament was informed on Wednesday.

"As per information from the Department of Telecommunications, a secure and dedicated communication network (SDCN) designed for provision of 5,000 secured phones has been planned for intra-government communication initially in Delhi, to be scaled up to 20,000 users for the entire country," Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told the Lok Sabha in a written reply.

He added that the system is currently under installation and testing.

Responding to another question, Prasad said close to 850 government websites have been hacked by cyber criminals since 2012.

"As per information reported to and tracked by Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), a total of 371, 189, 155 and 128 government websites were hacked in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 (up to October), respectively," he said.

The government websites host information for public dissemination and no sensitive information is hosted on such portals, Prasad added.

As per the guidelines of the government, the computer systems with sensitive information are isolated from the Internet, he said.

"In order to protect the websites of government departments, a layered security approach in the form of practices, procedures and technologies is put in place. The National Informatics Centre ( NIC) which hosts government websites has deployed state-of-the-art security solutions including firewall, intrusion prevention systems and anti-virus solutions," Prasad said.

The minister said CERT-In regularly tracks hacking of websites and alerts website owners concerned to restore the site and take steps to prevent recurrence.

"NIC is operating a security monitoring centre for detecting and responding to security incidents. Restoration of affected websites is done after taking necessary remedial measures," he said.