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Critical Information Infrastructure News Articles
- Critical Information Infrastructure India: Tampering or unauthorized access to the data related to Census applications, NPR database or the data centres of the Registrar General of India (RGI) will be punishable by 10 years imprisonment.
- Notified Critical Information Infrastructure:
- Census Monitoring and Management System
- Self Enumeration and Civil Registration System (CRS) web portals
- Mobile applications for House Listing
- Population Enumeration and National Population Register updation
- NPR database, Census database and CRS database
- Computer resources setup and installed at National Data Centre, Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, Delhi, and Disaster Recovery Site and Data Centres at Bengaluru and Lucknow
What is Critical Information Infrastructure
- Under IT Act, 2008, Critical Information Infrastructure is a computer resource, whose incapacitation or destruction shall have deep impact on national security, economy, public health, or safety.
- Declaration: Under Section 70 of the IT Act, the Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, declare any computer resource which directly or indirectly affects the facility of Critical Information Infrastructure, to be a protected system.
- Nodal agency: National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) is the nodal agency in India that is responsible for protecting Critical Information Infrastructure.
- It is part of the National Technical Research Organization (NTRO) and comes under the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).
Critical Information Infrastructure Needs in India
- Backbone of country’s infrastructure: IT resources form the backbone of countless critical operations in a country’s infrastructure, and disruptions can have a cascading effect across sectors, considering the interconnectedness between various sectors.
- Critical sector protection: Information technology failure at a power grid can cause power outages crippling critical sectors like healthcare and banking services.
- Fortifying assets: There are chances of hostile state and non-state actors attacking internet-dependent critical systems in a country, and hence there is a need to fortify such assets.
- Example 1: In 2020, the electric grid supply to Mumbai failed, hitting the city’s hospitals, trains and businesses. A study claimed that this power outage could have been a cyber attack.
- Example 2: In 2007, a denial-of-service attacks, targeted major Estonian banks, government bodies and media outlets.
National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC)
- The government agency was created under the Section 70A of the Information Technology Act, 2000(amended 2008).
- The main objective of the agency is to facilitate safe, secure and resilient Information Infrastructure for Critical Sectors of the Nation.
- It has identified following as Critical Information Infrastructure:
- Power & Energy
- Banking, Financial Services & Insurance
- Telecom
- Transport
- Government
- Strategic & Public Enterprises
- Functions:
- Identification of all critical information infrastructure elements in the country
- Provide strategic leadership and coherence to respond to cyber security threats
- Coordinate, share, monitor, collect, analyze and forecast, national level threat to critical information infrastructure.
- Undertaking research and development, providing funding (including grants-in-aid) for creating, collaborating and development of innovative future technology
- Developing or organizing training and awareness programs for protection of Critical Information Infrastructure.
- Exchanging cyber incidents and vulnerabilities with Indian Computer Emergency Response Team and other concerned organizations in the field.
National Technical Research Organization (NTRO)
- The National Technical Research Organization (NTRO) is a technical intelligence agencyunder the National Security Advisor in the Prime Minister’s Office.
- It follows the same “norms of conduct” as the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW).
- Its functions include remote sensing, data gathering and processing, geospatial information gathering, cryptology, cyber security, strategic hardware and software development and strategic monitoring.
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