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bidirectional sharing of enriched tactical threat intelligence Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, Seychelles, Kingdom of Morocco,
thus helping to build a cyber-resilient ecosystem. The main Finland and Estonia.
goal of CERT-In is to collect, analyse and disseminate cyber
threat intelligence in real time. The exchange of CTI CERT-In is regularly coordinating with leading service
represented in STIX (Structured Threat Information providers and product vendors within and outside the
expression) is communicated through TAXII (Trusted country to obtain advance information on latest cyber
Automated Exchange of Intelligence Information) protocol threats and attack trends and devise appropriate proactive
over HTTPS. and preventive measures.

The information shared as CTI by CERT-In assists in the CERT-In is an operational member of Asia Pacific Computer
technical, operational, tactical and strategic defence of Emergency Response Teams (APCERT). CERT-In is the
network-based assets. convener of two working groups across APCERT namely “IoT
Security working group” and “Secure Digital Payments
The goals of CTIX are: working group” to address security threats and evolve best
practices to secure these domains. The first report of the
• Enable timely and secure sharing of threat information
by CERTt-In, in cyber defender communities in Indian “Secure Digital Payments” working group was completed
Cyber Space and International Trust Partners. and circulated to the APCERT operational members.
• Enable organization to anonymously share intelligence CERT-In is also member of various other working groups
back with CERT-In under APCERT such as Information sharing working group,
• Emerge as a Centre of Excellence in Cyber threat Drill working group, Malware Mitigation working group,
intelligence and acts as National Cyber threat Training Working Group and Tsubame Working Group,
Intelligence Data Store for various stakeholders to Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) &
collaborate and share. Global Research Partner Anti Phishing Working Group
(APWG).
CERT-In via CTIX distributed details to its constituency
regarding 14 malicious campaigns, recommended 5 course Upgradation of Infrastructure
of action, provided details of 126 threat actors, made DNS servers have been upgraded with latest hardware and
available facts related to 42,089 malicious domains, 6,17 security features. With the increase in user data base and
lakh malicious IPs, 35,043 malicious URLs and 539 need of more storage space due to enhanced applications
vulnerabilities being exploited by malicious actors. and users the storage area network has been augmented
with the latest flash technology which has reduced the
Cooperation and Collaboration response time and increased storage capacity. Additional
Strengthening cooperation with all stakeholders to security equipment have been integrated with the unified
effectively deal with cyber security issues has been one of threats management system to handle malicious zero day
the main focus areas of the Government. As such, this attacks. UTM and intrusion prevention equipment at the
aspect is being dealt with by way of security cooperation disaster recovery site have been upgraded in order to handle
arrangements in the form of Memorandum of the increase volume of traffic. Automated scanning tools
Understanding (MoU) between Indian Computer have been deployed in the local area Network to keep the
Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) and its overseas active nodes free from virus and malware.
counterpart agencies, that are willing to work together and
share information in a timely manner for preventing cyber Security awareness, skill development and
attacks as well as collaborating for providing swift response training
to such incidents. At present such MoUs have been signed In order to create security awareness within the
with counterpart agencies / CERTs of United States of government, public and critical sector organisations, CERT-
America (USA), United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, In regularly conducts trainings/workshops to train officials
Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Canada, Vietnam, of Government, critical sector, public sector industry,

"Some breakups are the breakthroughs you've been praying for."

56 PR COMMUNICATION AGE July - December 2020