Govt to Unveil National Cyber Security Strategy Soon says Lt Gen Rajesh Pant

The government is going to release a new cybersecurity strategy this year, National Cyber Security Coordinator Lt Gen (Retd) Rajesh Pant, National Cybersecurity Coordinator, Prime Minister’s Office, Government of India, said on Friday at an event organized by Public Affairs Forum of India.

He added that the strategy would holistically cover the entire ecosystem of cyber space in India. The vision of this strategy is to ensure safe, secure, resilient, vibrant, and trusted cyber space," Pant said.

The new strategy would serve as a guideline to tackle various aspects, be it data as a national resource, building indigenous capabilities or cyber audit. There are about 80 odd deliverables coming out of this new strategy.

Lt. Gen. Pant said, “Pandemic has shot up the cyber-crimes in India by 500% and India is one of the top 3 attacked countries in the world as far as cyber-attacks are concerned.”

There are emerging threats from the proliferation of new technologies like drones and IoT devices. To ensure a safe, secure and trusted cyberspace, the government has taken a series of initiatives.

“Cybercrimes are increasing. Attribution is the difficult part and now (cyber criminals) they have started taking advantage of dark web. Pandemic gave the perfect storm to the cyber criminals.”, he added.

Highlighting the Prime Minister’s focus on the importance of cyber security, Lt. Gen. said that, “the Government has a good framework in place. From 2013 to 2021, the threat surface has changed... Pandemic and work-from-home has exponentially expanded the threat surface. Cyber security, from the Government of India perspective, has become an essential service... Government is also looking at revising the IT Act, besides the new cyber strategy that is being worked upon.”