Cisco signs MoU with Modi govt to work on cybersecurity threat in India

Government’s cybersecurity arm – CERT-In and Cisco will establish a threat intelligence sharing program to work together on cybersecurity issues.

With number of digital transaction increasing significantly in the light of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi push for demonetisation, global network security giant, Cisco, has announced slew of measures aimed at cybersecurity in India, including an MoU with government’s cybersecurity arm – CERT-In.

Under this MoU, Cisco and CERT-In will establish a threat intelligence sharing program wherein personnel from Cisco and CERT-In will work together on cybersecurity issues. Cisco will create threat reports and trends and share the same with government and company will also help government in case of cyber attack.

“India is one of the most strategic market for us. As economy gets cashless, cybersecurity will become important. That is why we have signed this MoU with CERT-In,” said Dinesh Malkani, president, Cisco India and SAARC, adding that for helping government, Cisco is setting up Security & Trust Office (S&TO) in India, which is the third centre in the world after France and Germany.

According to Cisco, S&TO will start functioning in three months. It will advise and help the government on the national cybersecurity strategy and initiatives. The centre will also work with public and private sector organisations to help analyse their infrastructure and understand cyber risk to mitigate vulnerabilities.

In addition, Cisco will open a new Security Operations Center (SOC) in Pune to provide a broad range of services from monitoring and management to comprehensive threat solutions and hosted security that can be customised to meet organisation’s needs. Cisco has three Security Operations Centers worldwide, located in Poland, the U.S. and Japan.

San Jose, California headquartered company also announced the launch of the Cisco Cyber Range Lab in its Gurgaon facility. The lab will provide specialised technical training workshops to help security staff build the skills and experience necessary to combat new-age cyber threats.

According to Malkani, the Cyber Range Lab will simulate an environment that allows staff to play the role of both attacker and defender to learn the latest methods of vulnerability exploitation and the use of advanced tools and techniques to mitigate and remove threats. Malkani said, “Even government and private firms who are buying security solutions, can test their products here before deploying it.”

These investment are part of Cisco’s commitment of $100 million investment in India by March 2018 towards Indian startups, creating digital skills, opening six new innovation labs and three centres of expertise, apart from collaborating with universities.

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