MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI KAPIL SIBAL)
(a) to (e); A Statement is laid on the Table of the House.
STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO LOK SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO. 137 FOR 14.08.2013
REGARDING NATIONAL CYBER SECURITY POLICY
(a) and (b): As per the data tracked and reported to the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In),
the number of incidents pertaining to cyber security threats and hacking have risen from 23 in 2004 to 22060 in
2012. These security incidents are related to scanning/probing, spam, malware infection, denial of service,
website hacking and email & system hacking. These attacks have been observed to be directed from cyber
space of different countries. Over a period, the nature and pattern of incidents have become more
sophisticated and complex.
(c): There have been attempts from time to time to launch cyber attacks on the Information Technology (IT)
infrastructure of Government organizations. These attacks are of the nature of web site hacking, injecting
malware, targeted denial of service and hacking of emails. The number of cases of hacking of web sites
of Central Ministries/Departments and State Governments increased to 371 in the year 2012 from 308 in
the year 2011.
(d) and (e): In June 2013, foreign media reports disclosed extensive electronic surveillance programmes
deployed by the U.S. agencies to collect internet and telephony data.
Government has expressed concerns over reported U.S. monitoring of internet traffic from India. Concerns with
regard to violation of any of Indian laws relating to privacy of information of ordinary Indian citizens as well as
intrusive data capture deployed against Indian citizens or Government infrastructure have been conveyed to
the U.S. Government. In addition, the issue of U.S. cyber surveillance activities was discussed during the
India-US Strategic Dialogue meeting held in New Delhi on 24 June 2013.
Government is taking appropriate protective measures by way of an integrated approach with a series
of legal, technical and administrative steps to ensure that necessary systems are in place to address
the growing threat of cyber attacks. In this direction,
Government has approved a framework for cyber security, including protection of critical sectors in
country that envisages a multi-layered approach for ensuring defence-in-depth with clear demarcation of
responsibilities among various agencies and departments. Government is also working towards promoting
the evolution of better international internet governance-norms, through ongoing discussions at international fora.
Besides this, in order to address the issues of cyber security in a holistic manner, the Government has
released the `National Cyber Security Policy - 2013` for public use and implementation with all relevant
stakeholders. The objective of the policy is to create a framework for comprehensive, collaborative and
collective response to deal with the issue of cyber security at all levels within the country.
