Legion threat: IT Ministry asks Twitter to strengthen its network; takes measures to boost cyber security

The ministry of electronics and IT has ordered a series of measures in view of the recent hacking incidents in the country. The measures include audit of the financial sector with the National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI), review of the IT Act and setting up a crack team to respond to unusual incidents.

The decision to review the entire IT infra has been taken to make it stronger.

Also, micro blogging website Twitter has been asked to make its network strong. The ministry has asked the financial industry including payment and wallet firms to immediately report any hacking incident.

All retail payments systems in the country come under the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).

Union minister of electronics and IT, Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the security wall needs to be hardened and has ordered a review of the "entire IT infrastructure".

"There is huge traffic flowing through the IT platforms, if there is any mishap, the systems have to be resilient and we have to take appropriate measures," said Prasad. 

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CERT-In, an agency which monitors the internet traffic on real-time basis as cashless payments in the country are on a rise after demonetisation, now has a digital payment section.

"We have to be alert, there is nothing to be scared of," he added. Prasad also called for a meeting of the security and technical staff of banks on Tuesday. The meeting was attended by over 50 officers from banks such as IDFC, ICICI, SBI, Canara BankBSE -0.38 % among others. 

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Prasad said that they ministry has asked all digital payment firms to report any unusual movement to CERT as it is mandatory under the IT Act to report cyber incidents to CERT-In.

"We have sought details from all the people whose accounts have been hacked and Twitter has also been asked to strengthen its security and to pay attention to any unusual movement," said Prasad.