Nation's security is our priority: C-DAC

MUMBAI, INDIA: As India marches ahead in the 21st century as an emerging 'super power,' the nation has set its key priorities for setting up high speed information networks across the country interlinked with the essential services and commodities such as national critical infrastructures (NCI) which include government services, state wide networks, telecom networks, banking and financial services, airports and railway networks, power grids, nuclear stations and so forth.

Also read: C-DAC launches BOSS Linux version 3.0

However, considering the cost and security aspects, India also needs indigenously developed technologies and systems that provide a cost effective option against the technologies and products of multi-national corporations (MNCs). Towards this end, the Center for Development of Advance Computing (C-DAC) has been striving by playing a key role in fulfilling nation's needs in the field of computing and software, technology and IT tools via its continuous efforts in research and development.

Recently, C-DAC Mumbai indigenously developed security products and solutions for enhancing the security of NCI.

Zia Saquib, executive director of C-DAC Mumbai talks to Pankaj Maru of CyberMedia News about the threat scenario in India in terms of both physical and cyber security and its impact on the industry, C-DAC's new security products and its plan to enter into open market. She also shares his view on foreign vendors and other countries about the security concerns for India.

Excerpts...

As the Indian government is stressing on digitization across the nation with various Internet based governmental services, how do you see the possible security threats to it?

As the quantum of digital information increases, so will be the cyber attacks. The cyber assets in such a case will be government databases, e-forms and common service centers. The consequences of such attacks can be disastrous in terms of financial loss, loss of privacy of citizens and loss of credibility of government program.

With IT linked with major national critical infrastructures, what kind of new threats could the nation face in today's time? Is the existing security mechanism strong enough to thwart any kind of attacks?

The existing security mechanisms are not designed to cater to critical infrastructure. The modern critical infrastructure is latency sensitive and cannot tolerate packet drops. Moreover, a small successful attack can create havoc, that in turn can be disastrous for the national economy in the long term

Recently, C-DAC indigenously developed new security products and solutions for national critical infrastructure. So, is C-DAC planning to offer these solutions in the open market in India?

C-DAC will offer the newly developed technologies through a network of OEM's and enabled partners. Enabled partners can bundle our products along with their own services.

How is C-DAC moving ahead with time in helping the country become self sufficient in the field of IT?

It is our belief that all cyber security products to protect critical infrastructure should be developed indigenously and hopefully C-DAC can be an important player in this arena. C-DAC has a very strong competency to thwart cyber attacks from not-so-friendly countries.