Maharashtra plans to set up ‘Computer Emergency Response Team’, ‘Data Analytics Centre’ to combat cyber security threats

Mumbai, February 22: To strengthen cybersecurity system Maharashtra set to come up with self-owned Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) to deal with cybersecurity cases and cybercrime investigation. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis mentioned about CERT project in 2015. 

Maharashtra government may come up with a system to strengthen cybersecurity within six months.

At present, CERT-In is the only national nodal agency to deal computer security incidents across the nation. Maharashtra government also aims to set up ‘Data Analytics Centre’ at the cost of Rs 1000Crores to analyse and combat cyber threats.

Back in March 2015, CM Devendra Fadnavis announced CERT-Maharashtra project. The state is now planning to execute it in the next six months. Once comes into existence, the team will help prevent cyber-attacks on corporate and government infrastructure as well as to lessen their effects.

India witnessed more than 27,000 cybersecurity threat incidents in the first half of 2017, according to Minister of State for Electronics and IT P P Chaudhary’s reply in Rajya Sabha. Threats reported include phishing attacks, website intrusions and defacements or damages to data as well as ransomware attacks, the minister’s reply added.

CERT-In is an emergency response team set up under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology for dealing with a range of cyber-attacks. Apart from this, the Government of India has four Sectoral Computer Emergency Response Teams to address Cyber Security Threats in Power Systems: Transmission, Thermal, Hydro and Distribution.