Tag: National Informatics Centre

Website hacking on a rise in last four years: Ravi Shankar Prasad

NEW DELHI: A total number of 21699, 27605, 28481 and 32323 websites were hacked by various hacker groups spread across the world from 2011 to 2014, clearly showing an increase in incidents of hacking.

According to the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), these also include a total number of 308, 371, 189 and 155 Government websites hosted under ‘gov.in’ and ‘nic.in’ domains during the year 2011 to 2014.

Among the comprehensive measures to tackle the problem, the Government says all Central Government Ministries / Departments and State / Union Territory Governments have been advised to conduct security auditing of entire Information Technology infrastructure.

All the new government websites and applications are to be audited with respect to cyber security prior to their hosting. The auditing of the websites and applications is to be conducted on a regular basis after hosting also. CERT-In provides necessary expertise to audit IT infrastructure of critical and other ICT sectors.

It has been mandated that all government websites are to be hosted on infrastructure of National Informatics Centre (NIC), Education and Research Network (ERNET) or any other secure infrastructure service provider in the country.

NIC, which hosts the government websites is continuously engaged in upgrading and improving the security posture of its hosting infrastructure. NIC has been directed not to host websites, which are not audited with respect to cyber security.

All major websites are being monitored regularly to detect malicious activities, Communication and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told Parliament today.

CERT-In issues alerts and advisories regarding latest cyber threats and countermeasures on regular basis and has published guidelines for securing the websites, which are available on its website (www.cert-in.org.in). It also conducts regular training programmes to make the system administrators aware about secure hosting of the websites.

The hacking of websites is tracked on a 24×7 basis and alerts issued to the concerned website owners to restore the hacked websites and taking further actions to secure the websites.

March 21, 2015
Doordarshan relaunches website to increase accessibility

NEW DELHI: In keeping with its pledge to give a new look to all its properties, Doordarshan has revamped its website www.ddindia.gov.in.

The new look of the website is fresh, vibrant, contemporary and colourful. The emphasis is as much on aesthetic appeal as it is on content and administration related details. The new website also offers ease of navigation as it has dedicated pages of each national channels including one for DD Kisan channel, which is yet to be launched.

Touted to be the corporate website, Doordarshan’s new launched website further links the user to all regional channels existing websites. The latest topics on the homepage range from specific details on the only free to air DD Free Dish to news headlines to scheduled movies of the week and easy social media accessibility. Also, via website, users would be able to access the live streaming of DD News.

The website also offers a clickable option for the users to view the website in four different colour themes. The users can also change the sizes of the fonts for ease of legibility. An added new feature that merits mention is the dynamically updated programme schedule of national channels with regular update being done remotely by “What’s On India.” This channel guide allows users to view the programmes being telecast for that particular time band on each channel, as well as the programmes lined up for the entire day.

The multi-media gallery section incorporated in the newly launched website details the users on the latest developments and upcoming events at Doordarshan.

For greater speed and ease of navigation, superior technology has been incorporated while designing the website. Access to sub-sections has been made quicker and easier. The browsing experience on www.ddindia.gov.in has been made richer.

This mobile-friendly and content rich website is being maintained by the National Informatics Centre.

January 22, 2015
MyGov.in to increase government-citizen interaction

NEW DELHI: A new portal, MyGov.in, a platform for the people, especially the youth, to connect with the government actively, has been launched by the central government.

Department of Electronics and Information Technology secretary RS Sharma said that the portal, managed by the National Informatics Centre, empowers people to contribute towards good governance through various tasks and discussions.

Citizens can upload documents, case studies, pictures, videos, other work plans etc. on the platform. They can volunteer for various tasks and submit their entries. These tasks would then be reviewed by other members and experts. Once approved, these tasks can be shared by other members on MyGov. Every approved task would earn credit points for completing the task. Thus, MyGov presents an opportunity to the citizens to participate in multiple theme-based discussions and to share their thoughts and ideas with a wide range of people.

The platform has been divided into various groups namely Clean Ganga, Girl Child Education, Clean India, Skilled India, Digital India, Job Creation etc. Each group consists of online and on-ground tasks that can be taken up the contributors. The objective of each group is to bring about a qualitative change in that sphere through people’s participation.

Sharma said the platforms ‘Discuss’ and ‘Do’ will take feedback from the community and improve on a continuous basis. He said his department has plan to have a mobile app for mygov.in, for people to contribute while on the move and enable them to send theme-related pictures, report in-context problems and issues etc.

The platform may even be extended to act like public audit platform for government projects. For example, citizens giving feedback on status of completed infrastructure projects, on availability of various social sector programmes etc.

July 28, 2014
Govt Appstore launched to bring in efficiency in e-functioning

NEW DELHI: The government has launched the pilot e-Gov application store to will bring functional efficiencies in the government and enable citizen to receive services in a more streamlined manner.

This e-Gov Appstore has been designed, developed and hosted by the Department of Information Technology through the National Informatics Centre.

Launching the Appstore, Communications and Information Technology Minister Kapil Sibal said the App Store governance aims to reduce uncertainty and improve transparency.

The e-Gov Appstore aims to be a National level common repository of productised applications, components and web services that can be used by various of government agencies/departments at Centre and in the States. This will enable acceleration of delivery of e-services as envisaged under NeGP and optimise the ICT spending of the government.

Core and common applications that have high demand and are replicable across the central and state levels would be available on the e-Gov Appstore, which shall be hosted on the National Cloud.

Currently 20 Applications, 8 Components and 1 Web Services are hosted. These applications are sourced from 8 distinct States/UTs and provide a gamut of G2C/G2B services. Going ahead, the applications will be productized and made available on the e-Gov Appstore for use

The present version of the e-Gov Appstore has the following features: (1) Sharing of applications (2) Search for applications (3) Provides basic information about an application on selection (4) Allows users to provide feedback and rate an application (5) Has two level approval process for contributing applications (6) Allows authenticated users to download application for consumption

This e-Gov Appstore will be augmented to include applications and components developed by various departments and agencies at Centre and States and by private players; and a complete eco-system will be established (including mechanism for funding, charge back, contract management, SLAs) and will become a part of the GI Cloud initiative under government of India.

June 1, 2013