674,021 cyber incidents in India till June: CERT-In

The ministry of Home Affairs on July 19 told the Parliament that there have been 674,021 cyber security incidents as of June 2022.

Minister of State in Home Affairs Ajay Kumar Mishra while responding to a question in the Lok Sabha said that there have been 394,499 such incidents in 2019, 1,158,208 in 2020, and 1,402,809 incidents in 2021.

The rising number of cyber security incidents is especially alarming since the country still does not have a National Cybersecurity Strategy or a data protection regulation in place.

On July 18, flight booking platform Cleartrip reported a customer data breach on its platform.

In regards to steps taken to prevent cyber attacks, the government said that it is operating an automated cyber threat exchange for collecting, analysing and sharing alerts with organisatons across sectors for threat mitigation.

Apart from that, Mishra also said that the government has issued guidelines for Chief Information Security Officers of government bodies for cyber security purposes and formulated a cyber crisis management plan (CCMP).

However, as Moneycontrol had reported before only around half of the total number of departments and ministries in the Indian government, have their own CCMPs.

Apart from that, CERT-In has also come out with a new set of directions in April, which has been a bone of contention for many body corporates. Almost all of its provisions came into force in June.