Massive increase in the cyber attacks in 2020 as compared to 2019

Massive increase in the cyber attacks in 2020 as compared to 2019

The government informed the Lok Sabha that India has experienced a sharp increase in cyber attacks by nearly 200 per cent last year amid Covid-19 pandemic. Having over 1.5 million reported cybersecurity incidents in the last two years, out of which 1.15 million of them were recorded in 2020 itself.

The information reported and tracked by Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) shows that 394,499 and 1,158,208 cybersecurity incidents were observed during 2019 and 2020, respectively showing a two-fold increase in the cybersecurity incidents over the last two year.

This shows that a total of 3,137 cybersecurity-related issues on average was reported every day during the year. As per the statistics, 115,000 cyber-attacks were reported every month from September to December, aggregating to nearly 460,000 cyber attacks during these four months.

Speaking on the issue, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, G Kishan Reddy said, "Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) is serving as the national agency for responding to cybersecurity incidents in accordance with the provisions of Section 70B of the Information Technology Act, 2000. The CERT-In receives inputs from its situational awareness systems and threat intelligence sources about malware infections in networks of entities across sectors. Whenever any incident comes to the notice of CERT-In, it issues alerts and advisories to the entities concerned and sectoral Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) for remedial measures."

Comparing to the last three years, the cyber issues has been increased to the next level with 53,117 cases of cyber attacks in 2017, which rose to 208,456 in 2018 and 394,499 in 2019, which are likely to increase in 2021 with sectors such as education, healthcare, manufacturing, etc. are more prone to such incidents.

The government has also instituted regular cybersecurity audits and mock drills, among other measures. The National Cyber Coordination Centre (NCCC) is working to create situational awareness of existing and future cybersecurity threats and Phase-I of the programme is operational, the ministry said.