Bihar News: Nationwide Cyber Audit Planned for Government Departments Amid Rising Threats

In response to increasing cyber crimes, the state government has appointed the Economic Offence Unit to conduct a comprehensive cyber security audit across all departments. This initiative aims to enhance online security standards and address vulnerabilities.

The security of government departments and installations has emerged as a major challenge because of rising incidents of cyber crimes in the state.

In view of this, the state government has nominated Economic Offence Unit (EOU) as the nodal agency for ensuring "cyber security" at state level. As part of the exercise, cyber audit will be carried out in all the government departments and installations. The move would make it clear that online activities including the websites of government departments, online services or transactions will be subjected to cyber related security standards. The discrepancies or anomalies found out during the audit will be removed at the earliest.

The entire exercise of cyber audit will be carried out with the cooperation of C-DAC (Centre for Development of Advance Computing), I4C (Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre) and other agencies. A special strategy is being finalised for carrying out audit. Measures will be taken to maintain cyber protocol & also to check cyber hygiene in all the government departments in order to find out where the problem lies and also clear the entire situation which would help in taking remedial measures.

The incidents of cyber crimes have increased significantly in recent times. Several incidents of cyber attacks have also taken place at various government installations and departments' websites. Recently, the incident of system failure was reported at AIIMS, Patna. The websites of Smart city, Dial 112 and public utilities websites were also came under cyber attack which led to the need for cyber audit.

"The cyber audit exercise will be carried out in all the government departments and other government installations. A strategic planning is being prepared for carrying out cyber audit. The cyber related crime incidents have emerged as the biggest challenge. The cyber gangs' nexus has also come to the fore and swift and stern action will be taken against them," said Nayyar.