Government sounds attentive for possible ‘zero-day’ attack

The government recently has announced an alert for a likely assault on its information technology apparatus, the warning that dodge in software and the set-up at large could be oppressed by assailants to paralyse the system.

What is zero-day attack? A cyber assault, where a system's weakness is being oppressed by the hackers, so as to put on unlawful access to penetrate malware or spyware, is known as a 'zero-day' attack.

In the stir of the all new and fresh 'Wannacry' ransomware attack that crippled hundreds of thousands of systems in at least 100 countries, the government's heightened vigil comes in the middle of augmented worry about malware attacks on critical installations. 

The Union information technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that in an effort to control the threats, a National Cyber Coordination Centre (NCCC) is being set up to answer security threats and fortify the IT security tools. "We are strengthening the cyber-security walls, and this is being undertaken on a proactive basis," Prasad told TOI, "It is a 24X7 vigil." A government report has pointed at "security threats" to official infrastructure through laptops, desktops and mobile phones being used by senior officers.

As per the report, a "central control" should be there on the browsing, and these events should be rolled out through the National Informatics Centre (NIC) and the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In). Prasad also said that the cyber coordination centre was being set up in order to have real-time situational awareness and raise a rapid reply to cyber security occurrences. "It will generate the necessary situational awareness of existing and potential cyber-security threats, and enable timely sharing of this information for proactive preventive and protective actions by individual entities," he added.

It was the government's prompt response to warnings that minimised the impact of WannaCry in India. Prasad said that CERT-In had issued a "vulnerability note" regarding a potential cyber attack as early as March 15, and came out with a response on May 13 when the attack hit computers and software systems in the country. CERT-In also alerted the RBI as well as Sebi, besides key organisations in banking and finance, power, defence, telecom, income tax, and central and state governments.

Well that’s not all, in a move to counter hackers, cyber terrorists and online attackers, the government has also put together a crisis management plan to "This will be implemented by all the ministries and departments of the central and state governments as well as organisations in critical sectors."