Govt orders audit of official computers

Indian government has ordered security audit of official computers and security vetting of staff of major Ministries and departments following detection of corporate espionage. The decisions have been taken at a high-level meeting convened by Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth and attended by top officials, including Home Secretary L C Goyal, on Tuesday. It was also decided that present access control mechanism in the ministries and departments will undergo sweeping changes while electronic surveillance will be upgraded to ensure a “leak-proof” system, official sources said. Each ministry and department will appoint a Joint Secretary-level officer as departmental security officer to ensure foolproof security of official documents and computers.

The meeting decided that manual of departmental security instructions prepared by the Home Ministry will be issued to each of the ministry and department, sources said. Following the detection of corporate espionage case, government has decided to crackdown on those who are involved in leaking of official documents. The decisions of the high-level meeting were part of the government’s move to tighten security of ministries and departments and stop leakage of documents and other information.