Govt taking all necessary steps to tackle hacking

New Delhi, Mar 11 (UNI) The government is taking all necessary steps to tackle the problem of hacking, which is a 'common' concern throughout the World, said a top official of the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology.

''With the growth of the Internet, 'hacking' is growing not only in India, but all over the world. However, we are trying to be as careful as possible and are trying to take all necessary steps to tackle the problem,'' Ministry of Communications and Information Technology Secretary (IT) Jainder Singh told reporters here.

The number of government websites hacked during the period January 2005 to February 2008 was quite significant, according to the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In).

The websites were hacked by exploiting technical vulnerabilities in the operating system, web server, database software and application software, Mr Singh said.

The websites hacked included those belonging to the Department of Information Technology itself, along with Ministry of Railways, National Institute of Health and Family Welfare, National Institute of Social Defence, Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, Wireless Planning and Coordination Wing, BSNL, TRAI and Anthropological Survey of India.

Giving details about the remedial measures, Mr Singh said CERT-In has published a 'Security Guideline' for websites and these have been widely circulated for implementation.

Security alerts and advisories have also been issued to prevent occurrence of cyber incidents along with security workshops and training programs being held on a regular basis to enhance user awareness, he added.

The organisations operating critical information infrastructure have been advised to implement information security management practises based on International standard ISO 27001, while other departments have been advised to perform security audit of all the existing websites to ensure minimising incidents of hacking.

Organisations like National Informatics Centre are doing round the clock monitoring of security incidents to ensure timely action to mitigate hacking incidents.

UNI BJR SR RS1627