Modi government to release new cyber security strategy- All you need to know

The Narendra Modi Government is likely to release a new cybersecurity strategy this year, National Cybersecurity Coordinator Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) Rajesh Pant said during an event organised by Public Affairs Forum of India (PAFI). 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,” he said. Adding that the new strategy would serve as a guideline to tackle every aspect, whether it is governance or data as a national resource, or building indigenous capabilities or cyber audit, to name a few.  

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“There are about 80 odd deliverables coming out of this new strategy,” he further said. 

Pant was speaking on a theme ‘Cyber Security in the New Normal’.  

“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,” Pant said. 

“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,” the National Cybersecurity Coordinator said. 

“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, Pant said that the Government has a good framework in place. From 2013 to 2021, the threat surface has changed, he pointed out 

“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,” Pant said 

“While other nations have created a black-list of companies that cannot operate in the country, India is the only nation to create a white-list of telecom companies that are allowed to operate in India,” Pant said speaking on the national security narrative of the Telecom sector.  

He emphasised that the companies allowed must be a trusted source. “We were able to create and launch the trusted telecom portal during the pandemic and within six months,” Pant further said. 

PAFI is a corporate and public affairs practitioners’ platform. PAFI has representation from large and medium-sized transnational, Indian and foreign companies, it claims.