Key Points

Addressing the Cyber Swachhata Workshop, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) Secretary S. Krishnan emphasised the importance of responsible and judicious use of data.

Speaking at the event held at the Civil Services Officers' Institute (CSOI) on Wednesday, he underscored the need for individuals and organisations to adopt best practices that ensure a clean, safe, and secure cyber environment, thereby strengthening overall digital resilience and trust in online systems, according to an official statement.

The workshop was inspired by the establishment of the Cyber Swachhta Kendra by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) under the MeitY, it said.

The workshop aimed to enhance cybersecurity awareness, promote MeitY's initiatives, and emphasise the need for a robust cyber infrastructure to safeguard public e-Governance systems, it said.

DARPG Secretary V. Srinivas highlighted the use of e-Office analytics and its features. He emphasised reviewing VPN usage, identifying non-users at each level, and deactivating idle accounts after due verification.

He urged departments to avoid the proliferation of part-files and develop the practice of digitally signing eFiles, encouraging them to maintain an average distinct level of four for efficient functioning of e-Office.

CERT-In Director General Sanjay Bahl spoke on initiatives for cyber resilience by CERT-In and elaborated on the concept of cyber resilience as the ability to anticipate, withstand, recover from, and evolve in response to cyber threats.

S.S. Sharma, Scientist-G, CERT-In, spoke about simple yet effective cyber hygiene practices, including maintaining secure passwords, verifying the authenticity of links before clicking, and checking the security certificates of websites.

Anjali Dhingra, Scientist G, NIC, spoke on application security in e-Office, highlighting layered protections, encryption, strong authentication, and monitoring measures to ensure system and user security.

Anil Bansal, Senior Director (IT), DoPPW, discussed the Bhavishya Portal, which facilitates transparent, accountable, and timely pension processing across Central Ministries. The portal covers 99 Ministries, 1,037 Offices, and 9,590 DDOs, issuing around 3 lakh PPOs, and earned the 3rd rank in NeSDA 2021.

Sanjeev Saxena, Senior Technical Director, NIC, DARPG, spoke on security measures in CPGRAMS, the centralised system for receiving, tracking, and resolving citizen grievances.

- IANS