National Cyber Security Policy

In 2013, Ministry of Communication and Information Technology of the Government of India had released the National Cyber Security Policy to protect information, such as personal information, financial/banking information, sovereign data etc.

The policy has proposed to set up different bodies to deal with various levels of threat, along with a national nodal agency, to coordinate all matters related to cyber security. The government has also proposed to set up a National Critical Information Protection Centre (NCIIPC), which will act as a 24*7 centre to ward off cyber security threats in strategic areas such as air control, nuclear and space. It will function under the National Technical Research Organization, a technical intelligence gathering agency controlled directly by the National Security Adviser in the Prime Minister’s Office. The existing agency, Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) will handle all public and private infrastructures.

As part of the policy, the government has proposed to create a workforce of around 500,000 trained in cyber security. It also proposes to provide fiscal benefits to businesses to adopt best security practices.

The salient features of the policy cover the following aspects:

• A vision and mission statement aimed at building a secure and resilient cyber space for citizens, businesses and the Government.
• Enabling goals aimed at reducing national vulnerability to cyber attacks, preventing cyber attacks and cyber crimes, minimizing response and recover time and effective cyber crime investigation and prosecution.
• Focused action at the level of Government, public-private partnership arrangements, cyber security related technology actions, protection of critical information infrastructure and national alerts and advice mechanism, awareness & capacity building and promoting information sharing and cooperation. 
• Enhancing cooperation and coordination between all the stakeholder entities within the country. 
• Objectives and strategies in support of the National cyber security vision and mission. 
• Framework and initiatives that can be pursued at the Govt. level, sectoral levels as well as in public private partnership mode. 

Facilitating monitoring key trends at the national level such as trends in cyber security compliance, cyber attacks, cyber crime and cyber infrastructure growth.