Contrary to news reports, the Minister of State for Communication and Information Technology, Sachin Pilot, on Wednesday said that the website of Ministry of External Affairs (www.mea.gov.in) hosted and maintained by National Informatics Centre (NIC) was not been hacked.
Pilot also listed out the specific steps taken by government to ensure cyber security.
- All the new government websites and applications are to be audited with respect to cyber security prior to their hosting. The auditing of the websites and applications will be conducted on a regular basis after hosting also.
- National Informatics Centre (NIC) has been directed not to host web sites which are not audited with respect to cyber security.
- NIC which hosts the governments are websites is continuously engaged in upgrading and improving the security posture of its hosting infrastructure.
- All the ministries/ departments of Central Government and state governments are implementing the crisis management plan to counter cyber attacks and cyber terrorism.
- The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) issues alerts and advisories regarding latest cyber threats and countermeasures on regular basis.
- The existing government websites are periodically audited from security perspective and vulnerabilities found are plugged.