In the wake of cyber hackers breaking into 21 State Government department sites recently, the Andhra Pradesh Government has decided to quickly put in place what it calls a high level “IT security policy’.
The Government has formed a committee with members from the Information Technology and Communications (IT&C) department, Nasscom, National Informatics Centre (NIC), Data Centre Operator (Wipro) and Security specialists from Cyber Security works.
The draft of the proposed policy will be available by March 10. It will be circulated to all the stakeholders, according to the State Minister for IT&C, Mr Ponnala Lakshmaiah. This was decided at a top level meeting on cyber security.
Wipro has also been asked to report unusual traffic hits on the Web, so that remedial steps can be initiated by IT&C department.
Just a day before the presentation of the annual State Budget on February 17, hackers had broken into 21 Government Web sites, including the Finance Department at AP State Data Centre. After a week, 15 Web sites have been restored, while some are under review and testing, the Minister said.
He claimed that the attack was not targeted and there was no financial loss. There was no impact on data pertaining to the State Budget, which was presented last Friday by the Finance Minister, Mr Anam Ramnarayan Reddy.