More than 4,000 employees of the Indian government have been trained in cyber safety in the past three months to help beef up the state’s defences against cyber-attacks.

“More government officials are increasingly applying for the course,” an official was quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times. “We aim to try and train all government employees in the course of six months.”

The minister of state for electronics and information technology, Sanjay Dhotre, last month told Parliament that the websites of 110 central ministries, departments and state governments were hacked in 2018, with the numbers being 54 in 2019 and 59 last year.

The Kudankulam nuclear power plant, Indian Space Research Organisation and the country’s electricity grid have all reportedly been attacked within the last three years.

Online cyber training began in December and has two forms: one-day basic training on avoiding cyber breaches plus information about digital sanitisation, and a five-day, in-depth coverage of the issues concerned.

Among the topics are information security, cyber crimes, data, password and email security, mobile security, social engineering attacks, and cyber ethics. 

The advanced session includes information security policies, network security concepts, information security audits, assessment of cyber security threats and incident responses.

The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing in Hyderabad is providing the training programmes for the government. 

Register to receive the latest cyber security news and analysis straight to your inbox

 

 

Topics