Guidelines for cybersecurity released by Govt. for the first time

Somya Bansal

October 7, 2021

To create a secure cyber ecosystem, the release of guidelines for cybersecurity in the power sector were announced for the first time by the govt. on Thursday under the direction of Union Power and New & Renewable Energy Minister RK Singh. They have to be adhered to by all power sector utilities, as framed by the Central Electricity Authority(CEA) under the provision of Section 3(10) on cybersecurity in the 'Central Electricity Authority (Technical Standards for Connectivity to the Grid) (Amendment) Regulations, 2019'. The guidelines lay down actions required to raise the level of cybersecurity preparedness for the power sector. After intensive deliberations stakeholders and inputs from expert agencies in the field of cybersecurity, such as CERT-In, NCIIPC, NSCS and IIT-Kanpur, the norms have been prepared followed by deliberations in the power ministry too. It offers numerous advantages including a cyber assurance framework, strengthening the regulatory framework, putting the mechanisms for security threat early warning in place, vulnerability management and security threats, and securing remote operations and services. All the responsible responsible entities as well as system integrators, equipment manufacturers, suppliers/ vendors, service providers, and IT hardware and software OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) engaged in the Indian power supply system are relevant to the given norms. The guidelines mandate ICT-based procurement from identified 'trusted sources' and 'trusted products' and before deployment for use in the power supply system network, the product has to be tested for malware/ hardware trojan, thus promoting research and development in cybersecurity. It opens up the market for setting up cyber testing infra in public as well as private sectors in the country. The ministry has said that the CEA is also working on cybersecurity regulations with the cybersecurity guidelines as their precursor.

Abridged fromIndia TV