NIC plans to set up two security operations centres at new Parliament building to prevent cyberattacks

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The National Informatics Centre, which looks after the IT infrastructure of ministries, departments and government bodies, is looking to set up a secure, encrypted network infrastructure for the new Parliament building.

Special emphasis is being put on cyber security, with NIC planning to set up two different security operations centres -- one for the internet-integrated network and another for the airgapped network (intranet and isolated from the remaining network).

A security operations centre (SOC) aims to protect organisations against cyber threats and analysts at SOCs perform round-the-clock monitoring of its network and investigate any potential security incidents

This comes at a time when a cyberattack crippled the entire digital system of the All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS), the hospital-cum-medical institution in New Delhi.

Not just AIIMS, but several other critical infrastructure of the country such as power, has recently been targeted by hackers, thus highlighting the need to amp up the country's cyber security architecture.

For the new Parliament building, the NIC is looking for a managed service provider who can implement cyber security solution among other things and integrate it with existing IT infrastructure at the new Parliament building and current Parliament building.

The selected managed service provider will be hired for a period of three years, extendible to another two years. However, the NIC will have strategic control over the operation and maintenance of the IT infrastructure.

"This is critical to ensure proper systems, processes and structures are put in place in order to achieve the required objectives. Service provider shall not change the architecture, configuration or carry out unauthorised changes to the deployment or architecture," NIC said in an RFP floated to select a service provider.

Moneycontrol has reached out to the NIC for further comments on the matter, and the article will be updated when a response is received.

The SOCs operations will monitor the network activity of 2,500 internet nodes, 1,500 airgapped nodes and 2,000 devices on WiFi in the new Parliament building.

NIC in the RFP said that two SOCs should be compliant with internal guidelines, regulatory requirements and country-wide regulations and laws.

"At the minimum, (it) should effectively and efficiently manage security operations by preparing for and responding to cyber risks/threats, facilitate continuity and recovery from cyber-attacks/incidents," the RFP read.

The tender document also said that the service provider has to ensure that security-related logs are securely stored and transferred to a location that will be identified by the NIC.

• 24X7 security incidents/attacks tracking.
• Provide real-time detection of security threats that can impact the new Parliament building.
• Rapid response to cyber security incidents.
• Identify security incidents as critical, high, medium and low in consultation with NIC.