Govt launches malware cleaning centre

THE MINISTRY of Electronics and Information Technology on Tuesday launched a botnet and malware cleaning centre, which would help analyse malware and botnets. The cleaning centre will cost the exchequer around Rs 90 crore over a period of five years, but its services would be provided free of cost.

The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) would collect data of infected systems that are connected with the internet service providers and banks that have come onboard and informed them of any threats. A senior IT ministry official informed that so far 58 service providers have come onboard, but only 13 banks are sharing their information for cleaning of malware from their systems. “We can’t do much till such a time all banks share their IP addresses for us to monitor,” the official said.

Earlier this month, according to a reply in Lok Sabha, as per the information tracked by CERT-IN, a total number of 44,679, 49,455 and 50,362 cyber security incidents were observed in 2014, 2015 and 2016, respectively.

At the launch, IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that apart from CERT-IN and the cyber security response centre for the financial sector CERT-FIN — as announced in the Union Budget 2017-18 – several other sectoral CERT’S including for the power and the communications sector are being planned.

“I would like ISPS to encourage their consumers to come on board; there is a free service available. Come and use it in the event some malware has sneaked in to the system,” Prasad said. The government has tied up with anti-virus company Quick Heal Technologies Ltd for providing the free botnet and malware removal tools.

44,679, 49,455 and 50,362 cyber security incidents were seen in 2014, 2015 and 2016, respectively