Prime Minister briefed on upcoming National Cybersecurity Strategy: Rajesh Pant

Representative image.

The long-awaited National Cybersecurity Strategy is currently with the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and PM Narendra Modi was recently briefed on the upcoming regulation, National Cyber Security Coordinator Lt. General (Retd) Rajesh Pant said on July 1.

Pant, who was speaking at “Cyber Manthan: Consultation on Securing India’s Cyber Space from Emerging Threats” organised by Microsoft and Indian Future Foundation, said, “We are all waiting for the National Cybersecurity Strategy. It is currently in the PMO.”

“In fact, when the Prime Minister went to Germany G7 (the G7 summit), he asked for a briefing on the flight on the strategy. This is the interest that he is taking,” Pant said during the event.

The strategy proposes a separate legislative framework for the digital space and the creation of a body to address cyber threats, responses and complaints.

Pant also informed that the National Malware Repository which his office has been working on for a while has 90 million malware samples already. “We intend on launching the repository on August 3,” he said.

Pant, who was addressing several industry stakeholders including Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and technical experts from companies, said that the government was also planning on creating a National Cyber Registry.

Pant said that as of now there was no way to find cyber security experts whom the government has trained as an Offensive Cyber Security Professional (OSCP), Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) who could be called upon if there was any need.

“So we intend to create a National Cyber Registry of human resources. In the same registry, you will find indigenous tools and the products that are already available. So that there is no duplication in case somebody wants to develop something. They can have a look at that and then do something else,” Pant added.

In 2015, the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) had proposed creation of the Indian National Cyber Registry, which was to be a platform for directly connecting IT professionals with various government agencies. However, that evidently didn’t see the light of the day.