Cyber security force on the anvil

The Centre is planning to create a workforce of five lakh cyber security professionals to shield the country’s Information Technology (IT) infrastructure from frequent attacks by hackers.

The government also intends to create a round-the-clock National Critical Information Infrastructure Centre (NCIIPC), which will not only protect the nation's critical information, but also make the infrastructure more resilient to external onslaught.

Both plans are part of a new national cyber security policy that was released by Union IT Minister Kapil Sibal here on Tuesday.

The 2013 policy has been drafted at a time when the cyberspace is becoming more complex, with manifold increase in networks and devices.

The NCIIPC will be instituted in addition to the 24x7 Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) that functions as a nodal agency for all cyber security emergency responses and crisis management.

The CERT-In will function as it is. But the policy favours creation of several new CERTs to deal with cyber crisis in specific sectors.

All private and public sector organisations are encouraged to designate a senior management member as the chief information security officer, responsible for the cyber security efforts in the organisation.

“The policy is a framework document. It gives you a broad outline of what our vision is. The real task or challenge is the operationalisation of this policy,” Sibal said.

Though the document refrains from making any specific comment on any country or hacking group, several international studies have traced large-scale hacking attempts to China. The People's Liberation Army is known to have raised a brigade of professional hackers who target critical information networks in other nations.

The US is also believed to be behind many international snooping attempts.