STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha on Saturday called for benchmarking of the requisite skill sets, identification of specialized training centers for cyber security, and standardization of cyber tools.
The Lt Governor was addressing the 30th Annual Global Conclave of International Institute of Security & Safety Management (IISSM) on ‘Covid-19 From Survival to Revival: Emerging Paradigms in Security and Safety Services’ through virtual mode.
The Lt Governor observed that in the last 6-7 years, the government has created a well structured and functional policy framework to analyze potential threats, advance early warning systems, and have brought health security, disaster management as an integral part of the overall security infrastructure.
Appreciating the efforts made by IISSM for organizing the conclave, the Lt Governor said that an institution like IISSM can assist industries in formulating security framework, safety protocols, and safety audit to bring about sustainable improvements in the operations.
The Lt Governor suggested the collaboration of Experts with Government and Private entities for working towards broader cyber security perspectives. He further called for launching a campaign for improving the digital literacy of citizens. He said that with the timely measures and quick expansion of health infrastructure, the government fought against Covid-19 and ensured life returns to normalcy for other sectors too.
He asked the industries to focus on capacity building by formulating a dedicated industrial safety cadre, hiring experts and knowledge partners, and providing them with adequate training. He further emphasized upon each and every industrial unit to have proper maintenance checks, emergency crews, and regular safety audits for improving efficiency.
Enabling the core business operations with robust security systems at the transaction level would lay the foundation for the sustainable reforms in Industrial operations, the Lt Governor maintained. He stressed upon setting up enterprise resource planning and installing an automated process control system along with trained safety experts and maximum utilization of Information Technology.
Underscoring the importance of addressing critical issues of the digital sphere, the Lt Governor said that in terms of IT infrastructure in the industrial units, we have world-class facilities like firewalls, access control, encryption of transmission and storage, encryption of communication, virus protection, and audit trailing. We have worked hard towards setting up a comprehensive response system.
Touching upon another important issue of financial crimes in the virtual world, the Lt Governor said that this has also brought new challenges and has given new age fraudsters the opportunity to exploit certain gaps leading to new types of financial crimes like phishing, email-spoofing, social media account hacking, fake Covid products circulation through the dark web, malware attacks, and crypto currency.
Currently, 90 security auditing organizations have been empanelled with the government to support and audit information security best practices. Private entities operating in critical infrastructure must work with them to secure IT infrastructure and mitigate any threat, he added.
There is tremendous scope to do much more in the cyber security sector to fill the collaboration gaps, competency gaps, awareness gaps, and approach gaps. “Artificial Intelligence is going to redefine our work and life, there must be better coordination and a collaborative mechanism to bring all stakeholders together for companies, industrial units and other critical infrastructures, the Lt Governor observed. He asserted to raise the quality of skill development and deploying them in developing core capacities for infrastructure and improving the support environment.
The Lt Governor stressed the need to set up centres of excellence in colleges for sustained digital and cyber awareness campaigns, for sharing of best practices, and for information dissemination at the local level. He also showed an inclination towards creating the quality infrastructure for such innovative ideas and research.
Former Member of Parliament and Executive Chairman of IISSM, RK Sinha; Former DG, NCRB, and Chairman of IISSM, SK Sharma; Security Experts, besides other stakeholders also attended the conclave through the virtual platform.