Delhi govt to audit cybersecurity measures of depts in line with Centre’s directions

New Delhi: The Delhi government will soon carry out an audit of cybersecurity measures taken by its departments in line with the Centre’s directions from time to time, officials said on Wednesday.

Earlier this year, the Information and Technology (IT) department of the Delhi government had asked other departments to appoint senior-level officers as chief information security officer (CISO) and sought an action taken report about various safety measures taken by them.

“As cyber and information security is the prime concern for the government, all departments are requested to provide attention to it. The government will soon start an audit for the compliance of security measures in the department,” said a recent circular issued by the IT department to heads of departments.

Previously, the secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MietY) had written to the states and Union Territories (UTs) to take immediate measures to enhance the cybersecurity measures in the government.

According to the directions from MietY, the departments were to ensure MAC (media access control) binding to prevent unauthorised access, upgrade the operating system of all computers and

devices to the latest version and remove obsolete equipment from the cyber network.

It was also instructed that admin rights of the systems should be taken from the users and controlled by the chief information safety officer at the departments. All devices should be connected via a single network gateway of the National Informatics Centre (NIC). Other connectivity like broadband and 3G/4G networks should be phased out, said an IT department communication.

It also recommended banning pirated operating systems and applications with immediate effect and need-based internet connectivity

through NICNet to the selected users with approval of the CISO at departments.

Further, the departments were also asked to deploy antivirus software and take out unmanaged local area network (LAN) devise from the cyber network. The departments were asked to furnish an action taken report but they had yet to be filed by many, said a senior IT department officer.

The departments were also asked to pay attention to the role and responsibilities of the CISOs as outlined by the India Computer Emergency Response Team. “The process of boosting cyber security is underway at different levels and the audit exercise will help find out gaps and prepare the departments to plug them to avoid any cyber threat,” said the officer.