Cyberattacks on the rise in India: one every 10 minutes

Over 27,000 incidents of cybersecurity violation were reported in the first six months of this year to the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), Parliament was informed today.

This means India saw one incident of cybercrime every 10 minutes in the first six months of 2017, or 144 per day, ranging from major ransomware attacks to phishing rackets.

Last year, one case was reported every 12 minutes: 120 per day.

The incidents include phishing, website intrusions and defacements as well as ransomware attacks.

"As per the information reported to and tracked by CERT-In, a total number of 44,679, 49,455, 50,362 and 27,482 cyber security incidents were observed during the year 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 (till June), respectively," P P Chaudhary, Minister of State for Electronics and IT, said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha. If the trend continues, the number will cross 50,000 by 2017 end.

He added that the types of cyber security incidents including phishing, scanning / probing, website intrusions and defacements, virus / malicious code, ransomware, denial of service attacks, and others. Ransomware attacks are a new addition to the list.

The minister said CERT-In issues alerts and advisories regarding latest cyber threats / vulnerabilities and counter measures to protect IT systems and mobile devices.

"In addition, tailored alerts are being sent to key organisations in public and private sector regarding latest cyber threats and counter measures," he added.

The government has also formulated Crisis Management Plan for countering cyberattacks and cyber-terrorism for implementation by all ministries / departments of Central government, state government and their organisations and critical sectors.

Besides, cyber security mock drills are being conducted regularly to enable assessment of cyber security posture and preparedness of organisations in the government and critical sectors, including corporate sector.

The minister said 15 such drills have so far been conducted by CERT-In, where 148 organisations from different states and sectors such as finance, defence, power, telecom, transport, energy, space, IT / ITeS, etc participated.

Also, the government has empanelled 54 security audit organisations to support an audit implementation of information security best practices.