Saturday , April 19 2025

India publishes “Information Security Practices for Government Entities”

India is fast becoming one of the world’s largest connected nations – with over 80 Crore Indians (Digital Nagriks) presently connected and using the Internet and cyberspace – and with this number is expected to touch 120 Crores in the coming few years. The Digital Nagriks of the country are using the Internet for business, education, finance and various applications and services including Digital Government services. Internet provides growth and innovation and at the same time it has seen rise in cybercrimes, user harm and other challenges to online safety.

The policies of the Government are aimed at ensuring an Open, Safe & Trusted and Accountable Internet for its users. Government is fully cognizant and aware of the growing cyber security threats and attacks. It is the Government of India’s objective to ensure that Digital Nagriks experience a Safe & Trusted Internet. Along with ubiquitous applications of Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) in almost all facets of service delivery and operations, continuously evolving cyber threats have become a concern for the Government. Cyber-attacks can come in the form of malware, ransomware, phishing, data breach etc., that adversely affect an organisation’s information and systems.

CVE-2025-2492
ASUS warns of critical auth bypass flaw in routers

Hackers can exploit a vulnerability in Asus routers to execute unauthorized functions. This serious issue, rated 9.2 out of 10,...
Read More
CVE-2025-2492  ASUS warns of critical auth bypass flaw in routers

16,000+ Fortinet devices compromised with symlink backdoor, Mostly in Asia

According to Shadowserver Foundation around 17,000 Fortinet devices worldwide have been compromised using a new technique called "symlink". This number...
Read More
16,000+  Fortinet devices compromised with symlink backdoor, Mostly in Asia

Patch now! Critical Erlang/OTP SSH Vuln Allows UCE

A critical security flaw has been found in the Erlang/Open Telecom Platform (OTP) SSH implementation, allowing an attacker to run...
Read More
Patch now! Critical Erlang/OTP SSH Vuln Allows UCE

CISA warns of increasing risk tied to Oracle legacy Cloud leak

On Wednesday, CISA alerted about increased breach risks due to the earlier compromise of legacy Oracle Cloud servers, emphasizing the...
Read More
CISA warns of increasing risk tied to Oracle legacy Cloud leak

CVE-2025-20236
Cisco Patches Unauthenticated RCE Flaw in Webex App

Cisco issued a security advisory about a serious vulnerability in its Webex App that allows unauthenticated remote code execution (RCE)...
Read More
CVE-2025-20236  Cisco Patches Unauthenticated RCE Flaw in Webex App

Apple released emergency security updates for 2 zero-day vulns

On Wednesday, Apple released urgent operating system updates to address two security vulnerabilities that had already been exploited in highly...
Read More
Apple released emergency security updates for 2 zero-day vulns

Oracle Released Patched for 378 flaws for April 2025

On April 15, 2025, Oracle released a Critical Patch Update for 378 flaws for its products. The patch update covers...
Read More
Oracle Released Patched for 378 flaws for April 2025

CVE-2025-24054
Hackers Exploiting NTLM Spoofing Windows Vuln the in Wild

Check Point Research warns of the active exploitation of a new vulnerability, CVE-2025-24054, which lets hackers leak NTLMv2-SSP hashes using...
Read More
CVE-2025-24054  Hackers Exploiting NTLM Spoofing Windows Vuln the in Wild

Bengaluru firm got ransomware attack, Hacker demanded $70,000

Bengaluru's Whiteboard Technologies Pvt Ltd was hit by a ransomware attack, with hackers demanding a ransom of up to $70,000...
Read More
Bengaluru firm got ransomware attack, Hacker demanded $70,000

MITRE warns: U.S. Govt. Funding for MITRE’s CVE Ends Today

MITRE Vice President Yosry Barsoum warned that U.S. government funding for the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) and Common Weakness...
Read More
MITRE warns: U.S. Govt. Funding for MITRE’s CVE Ends Today

Cyber threats leading to cyber-attacks or incidents can compromise the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of an organisation’s information and systems and can have far reaching impact on essential services and national interests. To protect against cyber threats, it is important for government entities to implement strong cybersecurity measures and follow best practices. As ICT infrastructure of the Government entities is one of the preferred targets of the malicious actors, responsibility of implementing good cyber security practices for protecting computers, servers, applications, electronic systems, networks, and data from digital attacks, also remain with the ICT assets’ owner i.e. Government entity.

“Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In)” has been established and appointed as national agency in respect of cyber incidents and cyber security incidents in terms of the provisions of section 70B of Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000 (IT Act, 2000) to perform

The following functions in the area of cyber security: –

  1. a) collection, analysis and dissemination of information on cyber incidents;
  2. b) forecast and alerts of cyber security incidents;
  3. c) emergency measures for handling cyber security incidents;
  4. d) coordination of cyber incidents response activities;
  5. e) issue guidelines, advisories, vulnerability notes and whitepapers relating to information security practices, procedures, prevention, response and reporting of cyber incidents;
  6. f) such other functions relating to cyber security as may be prescribed.

Guidelines on Information Security Practices for Government Entities The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team(CERT-In) is satisfied that for the purposes of performing the aforesaid functions, it is necessary and expedient in the interest of cyber security that guidelines relating to information security practices, procedures, prevention and response be issued in exercise of the powers conferred by clause (e) of sub-section (4) of section 70B of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (21 of 2000) for all the Ministries, Departments, Secretariats and Offices specified in the First Schedule to the Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules, 1961, their attached and subordinate offices, and all government institutions, public sector enterprises and other government agencies under their administrative purview (hereinafter collectively referred to as “government entities”); and it is expected that the said guidelines be carried out by all government entities by doing necessary acts and things required in this regard;

The purpose of these guidelines is to establish a prioritized baseline for cyber security measures and controls within government organizations and their associated organizations. The guideline shall assist security teams to implement baseline and essential controls and procedures to protect their Cyber infrastructure from prominent threats. These guidelines shall also act as a baseline document for administration and audit teams (internal, external/ Third-party auditors) to evaluate an organization’s security posture against cyber security baseline requirements. These guidelines cover best practices segregated in different security domains such as Network Security, Application Security, Data Security, Auditing, Third Party Outsourcing. Due to the ever-evolving threat landscape, this document is envisaged to be an organic document and would be updated as per changing threat landscape.

Click Here to download.

 

Check Also

FortiGate Firewall

Hackers Allegedly Advertise To Sell FortiGate Firewall 0-Day Exploit

A threat actor is reportedly advertised to sell a zero-day exploit for Fortinet’s FortiGate firewalls …

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *