Govt mulls nodal body to secure power grids
The government will create a computer security incident response team, or CSIRT, at the Central Electricity Authority to avert cyber attacks on the country’s power grid, said Alok Kumar, secretary, union power ministry.
According to media reports, cyber attackers linked to the Chinese military had infiltrated the network of seven power grid hubs in north India in April.
The emergency response team will be monitoring cyberattacks and make initial analysis. “Cyber security is an important area, and the Centre reviews it from time to time. It has issued guidelines to build capacity of the utilities,” Kumar said.
“We will have a CSIRT. There are computer emergency response teams (CERTs) for each sector. CSIRT is the central nodal point at the Central Electricity Authority, which will gradually have the capacity to monitor cyber attacks and also take initial analysis in coordination with CERT-In.”
Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, or CERT-In, coordinates with the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre to oversee cybersecurity operations for critical sectors.
In April, power minister R.K. Singh said three attacks were carried out on the power grid in strategically-located Ladakh since December 2021 but the hackers did not succeed because safeguards were in place to thwart such intrusions.“Our defence against cyber attack is strong. There were probing attacks in December, January and February, but they did not succeed,” he had said.
On 17 March, Mint exclusively reported that the…
