Fearing cyber attack, Department of Telecom tells staff to secure systems

Apprehensive of a possible cyber attack by Chinese hackers, the Department of Telecom has asked all departments under it to upgrade security of all websites and web portals.

The DoT in its circular also asked all web portals and websites under its ambit to submit a compliance report after securing the system at the earliest.

Besides, the DoT has asked all other ministries and departments to migrate their websites and web portals to the gov.in domain by August 31, if they had not done so already.

Earlier this month, the DoT also cautioned its staff about possible cyber attacks on government systems through phishing and creation of dubious apps.

"In order to disrupt essential public and utility services, attacks are employing distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks where in a multituted of compromised systems attack a single target, thereby causing denial of service for users of the targeted systems. Attackers are using compromised systems of organisations to carryout DDoS attacks on other organisations," said the DoT in its circular.

To mitigate the cybsersecurity threat, it is essential to ensure that adequate protections on the ICT systems are put in place at the organisation level.

"In view of current situation of Covid-19, many organisations have adopted Work From Home (WFH) concept, where unsecured home computers are extensively used to connect to the organisation work. To mitigate the cybersecurity threats emanating from WFH, user may follow best pratices," said the DoT to its staff.

Last month, Singapore-based cybersecurity firm Cyfirma Research had warned India that Chinese hackers had increased their attacks on government establishments and were trying to steal data from sensitive ministries.

Amidst massive cyber attack in many countries including Australia in last month, Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) had warned public and business establishment about the possible a large scale phishing campaign in the guise of free Covid-19 tests.