DoT fixes June 15 deadline for appointing nodal officer

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has set June 15 as the deadline for telcos to appoint a nodal officer who will be in charge of coordinating with the office of the National Cyber Security Coordinator. DoT said in a directive failing this, the telcos stand to face action. It also mentioned that some telcos are yet to register on the Trusted Telecom Portal, which was launched last year.

The DoT had asked all telcos to appoint a nodal officer, who would be authorized to access the `Trusted Telecom Portal,' provide inputs and coordinate with the National Cyber Security Coordinator (NCSC) a year ago.

The nodal officers would, typically, coordinate with the office of NCSC and share details about all network gear they plan to deploy in India.

The ‘trusted telecom’ portal was also launched last year under the Cyber wing of the National Security Council Secretariat. The portal acts as a certifying window and network gear suppliers empanelled with the authority can track the progress of approval of their applications.

Under the process, network vendors or original equipment makers (OEMs) are required to provide detailed active components that go into the network gear along with the place of manufacturing and the company’s headquarters, ownership structure of the organisation and details about the intellectual property rights. Additionally, they have to also provide similar information about software that powers the equipment.