Cyber Attack On PDD

Last week, the Power Development Department came under ‘cyber attack. The department is facing the risk of losing data of lakhs of consumers as a consequence of it. The attack has already left ‘Bijli Sahuliyat’ Application and other online services defunct for an unspecified period.
One of the saving factors for the consumers and department is that bills for the last month were already generated and dispatched to the consumers. It avoided confusion and made possible payment through the concerned Bank. However, thousands of consumers have been forced to submit the bill at bank branches which is taxing to a number of people for varied reasons especially amid present novel coronovirus pandemic. While cyber attacks is a reality in fast changing technological driven world, the power development department has rightly decided not to haste towards the resumption as operating the same till proper screening was conducted by the cyber experts would be unsafe. In other words, it would amount to compromising valuable data.
By acknowledging the attack, the power development department has done better to address the vulnerabilities found and it needs to improve processes and build capacity to respond faster.
The cyber attacks are nothing new. In fact, as a reality, they needed to be effectively dealt with. Like that of other parts of the country, there are many online services which are presently provided in Jammu and Kashmir. The online services including the commerce and the governance are also prone to cybersecurity breaches and it was confirmed by Internal Security Threat Report by one of the leading providers of security, storage and systems management solutions in India.
There have been many data breach-related issues reported in India from last several years.
The experts in the field would say that there is no such thing as a perfectly secure system. Those looking to attack critical infrastructure can wait for years for a single mistake to be made.
Given the huge number of online users and continued efforts on affordable access, cybersecurity needs to be integrated into every aspect of policy and planning. The administration needs to quickly frame an appropriate and updated cyber security policy, create an adequate infrastructure to deal quickly with such attacks.

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