Ministry of Home Affairs has now issued an internet usage guidelines for the government officials at the center. Moreover, the government employees have been cautioned against the accessing of social media on official devices, which includes computers, smartphones unless permitted.
The government has also directed the officials to not to carry out classified work on computers which are connected to the private cloud services such as the Dropbox, Google Drive and iCloud and instead use the standalone systems.
The ministry of cyber and information security division deals with the cybercrime, the National information security policy, and guidelines, and implementation of NISPG. The move even aims to prevent the security breach and thus ensuring the sensitivity of data.
“On an average, 30 attempts are made every day by foreign entities to hack into or deface government portals and unlawfully extract confidential information,” a government official was quoted as saying by ET.
The government has also urged employees to set up Media Access Control or ‘MAC’ address filters in wireless routers, which will only allow those type of MAC Addresses that have been whitelisted to access the internet.
According to the report of the World Economic Forum’s 14th edition of Global risks report of 2019, the world ability to foster collective action in the face of the urgent major crisis has already reached the critical levels, with worsening international relations hindering action across a growing array of serious challenges which includes the cybersecurity.
“Malicious cyber-attacks and lax cybersecurity protocols again led to massive breaches worldwide of personal information in 2018 and the largest were in India,” the report mentioned.
The gain in the Number of Bogus news items
Lately, India has witnessed a spike in the number of bogus news items inflow, particularly around WhatsApp and Facebook.
In 2018, bogus information that has been circulated on WhatsApp resulted in the lynching of five guys who had been crushed to death at Rainpada, Maharashtra. When the agencies requested WhatsApp to assist them in monitoring this article’s source, WhatsApp refused, mentioning its guarantee of complete encryption. On the other hand, the messaging program offered finance research to avoid the spread of fake news. WhatsApp also expanded aid to the authorities using a public education effort in India, its most extensive global sector.
Social Networking websites reluctant to discuss info
After being aware of this government’s program, WhatsApp, on Wednesday, issued a statement mentioning it won’t compromise safety. It said that this movement is likely to make people feel much less secure to utilize WhatsApp. It further ensured the messaging program works closely together with all the top security specialists to prevent misuse of any type. WhatsApp intends to do so without sacrificing privacy, Bloomberg said.
Tech firms and civil rights groups view this as a hazard, particularly after the Pegasus situation. The case was discovered in September this past year.
