Security Firewall to Protect Indian Government Sites from Hackers
The government of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh wants to ensure that hackers will have a hard time breaching their official websites and it's determined to implement a “security firewall” to protect them.
HYDERABAD — The Andhra Pradesh government, rattled by the recent cyber attacks targeting its websites, has decided to formulate a high-level IT security policy to provide greater security for its online portals.
The new policy will focus on providing security firewall for all the government websites to minimise the scope of hacking, official sources said. The State Government has constituted a committee with members from the Information Technology and Communications (IT&C) department, Nasscom, National Informatics Centre (NIC), Data Centre Operator (Wipro) and Security specialists from Cyber Security works.
The draft of the proposed policy will be available by March 10. It would be circulated to all the stakeholders for necessary feedback and suggestions for further improvement, Information Technology Minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah said. IT major Wipro has also been asked to report unusual traffic hits on the Web, so that remedial steps can be initiated by IT&C department. The decision to formulate an IT security policy came in the backdrop of cyber attack targeting 21 government websites.
Just a day before the presentation of the annual State Budget on February 17, the hackers had wreaked havoc, breaking into 21 government websites, including the Finance Department at AP State Data Centre. After a week, 15 websites have been restored, while some are under review and testing, the minister said, adding that the hacking, however, had no impact on the data pertaining to the annual Budget which was presented in the Assembly as per schedule by the Finance Minister Anam Ramnarayan Reddy.
The hackers did not deface the home pages of departmental websites but added additional pages with their messages indicating that the cyber intruders were not radical hackers and that their intention was not to steal any information. It was just a case of hackers trying to demonstrate their capabilities, the officials said. A CID probe into the hacking revealed that it was not a targeted attack as there was no financial loss. The government has now decided to hold periodic internal security audits. It has also been decided to create web application security walls to monitor traffic and locate the origin of unusual traffic.
Source: Softpedia & khaleejtimes