PANAJI: Coming out with the information that altogether 17 websites of the state government departments have been hacked since past four years, the Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar, on Wednesday, informed the state legislative assembly that looking at the increase in number of cyber security threats/ concerns, the department of information technology is in process of setting up cyber cell in-house, which would monitor the cyber threats to the government websites.
“Setting up of the cyber cell in-house is an important task and I will expedite the same,” he added, revealing that government is also considering creation of a Cyber Security Force.
The Chief Minister, replying to a related question from the Dabolim MLA Mauvin Godinho, during the Question Hour, said that fortunately, in all these cyber attacks, only defacement of the main page of the websites has occurred, while personal information and data of citizens are not stolen.
“When these websites were hacked, initially the public access to all the hacked websites were blocked, and First Information Report (FIR) was lodged at the Porvorim police station,” Parsekar, who also holds the Information Technology portfolio noted, maintaining that then the cause behind the attack was identified, which was due to the vulnerability identified in the Content Management System that is Joomla, and accordingly all the websites were cleared of the vulnerabilities. “The websites were patched for vulnerability and web servers were hardened for high security,” he added.
“However, as far as the state government websites as well the State Data Centre (SDC) are concerned, the various security policies/ guidelines laid by central government are being put in practice or implemented at the time of hosting the government websites and applications on the SDC,” the Chief Minister stated, mentioning that Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), an agency of the central government, maintains all government websites from the security angle.
It was also informed that the websites of the state government are hosted at the State Data Centre, which has Firewall network security system, and virtual private network, which ensures that no hacking happens for these websites.
Speaking further, Parsekar said that every government website undergoes audit as carried out by the CERT-In.
NT Network Goa News
“Setting up of the cyber cell in-house is an important task and I will expedite the same,” he added, revealing that government is also considering creation of a Cyber Security Force.
The Chief Minister, replying to a related question from the Dabolim MLA Mauvin Godinho, during the Question Hour, said that fortunately, in all these cyber attacks, only defacement of the main page of the websites has occurred, while personal information and data of citizens are not stolen.
“When these websites were hacked, initially the public access to all the hacked websites were blocked, and First Information Report (FIR) was lodged at the Porvorim police station,” Parsekar, who also holds the Information Technology portfolio noted, maintaining that then the cause behind the attack was identified, which was due to the vulnerability identified in the Content Management System that is Joomla, and accordingly all the websites were cleared of the vulnerabilities. “The websites were patched for vulnerability and web servers were hardened for high security,” he added.
“However, as far as the state government websites as well the State Data Centre (SDC) are concerned, the various security policies/ guidelines laid by central government are being put in practice or implemented at the time of hosting the government websites and applications on the SDC,” the Chief Minister stated, mentioning that Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), an agency of the central government, maintains all government websites from the security angle.
It was also informed that the websites of the state government are hosted at the State Data Centre, which has Firewall network security system, and virtual private network, which ensures that no hacking happens for these websites.
Speaking further, Parsekar said that every government website undergoes audit as carried out by the CERT-In.
NT Network Goa News
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