CERT-In has advised remedial steps to contain damage

A total of 34 incidents of infections from the two global ransomware attacks, WannaCry and Petya, were reported to the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) by organisations and individuals, Parliament was informed on Wednesday.

“Remedial measures to contain the damage and prevent such incidents have been advised by CERT-In,” Minister of State for Electronics and IT, P.P. Chaudhary, said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

WannaCry and Petya infected thousands of computers worldwide in May and June, respectively.

The attackers in both cases had sought about $300 in Bitcoin as ransom. Ransomware is a type of malicious software that infects a computer and restricts users’ access to affected files by encrypting them until a ransom is paid to unlock it.

Asked if the government planned to amend the existing regulations for promotion of cybersecurity, the Minister replied in the negative. “At present, there is no proposal with the government to amend the Information Technology Act, 2000,” he said.

In a separate reply, Mr. Chaudhary said the IT Act provided a legal framework to deal with cybersecurity breaches.

Further, Parliament was informed that “as per the information reported to and tracked by CERT-In,” a total of 44,679, 49,455, 50,362 and 27,482 cybersecurity incidents “were observed” during the years 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 (till June), respectively. These included phishing, scanning/probing, website intrusions and defacements, virus/malicious code, ransomware, and denial of service attacks.