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Critical Information Infrastructures targeted by ransomware attacks in 2023: DoPT report

Posted 12 Nov 2024

2 min read

According to report, 2023 marked registration of complex cyber-dependent crimes with national security implications. E.g. Malware attack in a ministry, Data breaches and a massive DDOS attack on critical Infrastructure and airport.

  • DDOS stands for distributed denial-of-service, a malicious attempt disrupting normal traffic and making website unavailable to legitimate users.

Critical Information Infrastructure (CII): 

  • Definition: Section 70 of IT Act 2000 defines CII as a computer resource, incapacitation or destruction of which, shall have debilitating impact on national security, economy, public health or safety.
    • E.g. Banking, Transportation systems, Water supply, Mobile networks, Defense etc.

Previous cases of Cyber-attacks on CII: 

  • AIIMS ransomware attack (2023), Kudankulum Nuclear Power Plant cyberattack (2019), ICMR Data breach(2023) etc.
    • Apart from this an Overall surge in Cyber-attacks has been observed in India e.g. India reported ~1.6 million security incidents in 2023 compared to ~53,000 in 2017 (CERT-IN).

Key Reasons behind Vulnerability of India’s Critical Infrastructure: 

  • Budget constraints, relying on third parties, difficulties in continuous monitoring and real-time threat detection, lack of specialized cyber security personnel.

Steps taken for Protection of CII

  • National Security Council Secretariat: Now, it provides overall coordination and strategic direction for Cyber Security.
  • National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC): Established to protect the Critical Information Infrastructure (CII).
  • Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C): A framework for law enforcement to deal with cybercrimes.
  • Others: Cyber Surakshit Bharat Initiative, Defence Cyber Agency (DCyA) etc.
  • Tags :
  • Cyberattack
  • Critical Information Infrastructure (CII)
  • Kudankulum
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