Govt warns against using Indian/Israeli IT services in state departments

ISLAMABAD: (Adnan hameed)The Federal government has warned of the use of Indian/Israeli IT related Products and Services in departments. According to media report, the attach department of Cabinet Division, NTISB, in its latest advisory pertaining to Cyber threats associated with Indian/Israeli IT related Products and Services revealed that some government Organizations including Critical Information Infrastructure (CII) are using Indian/Israeli origin IT products and services probably on the pretext of being low-cost option in comparison with other market competitors. However, the possibility of presence of backdoors or malware in these solutions cannot be ruled out and therefore, pose a considerable cyber security concern, it warned. In the recent past, many incidents of such nature in the public sector revealed involvement of Indian based threat actors which has not only caused discontinuity of services/loss of data but also became a source of reputational loss for the organizations. It emerged in September 2022 that the National Information Technology Board had produced Mobile Device Management (MDM) software from Chennai-based Indian company Zoho Corporation and installed it in the tablets given to Federal Cabinet members. The Prime Minister had taken notice of this but later on, the cabinet division after the briefing of NITB officials kept mum with regard to changing of software in tablets. NTISB in its latest advisory suggested to all Federal Ministries, Divisions, Provincial Governments, affiliated/attached departments, autonomous bodies and sectoral regulators to appropriately safeguard businesses and critical data. It suggested that IT hardware solutions must not be procured in line with ban already imposed on goods from these countries by Commerce Division vide SRO 927(1)/2019. In addition, IT security solutions like Intrusion Detection System/ Intrusion Prevention System, Security Information and Event Management, Extended Detection and Response, Mobile Device Management and DDOS Mitigation Solution may not be procured from these countries or their partners owing to strong possibility of presence of backdoors or malware. NTISB has also asked organizations to discontinue use of online software solutions on priority and migrate to alternate solutions keeping business continuity in consideration. It also recommended use of offline solutions with associated risk acceptance, without applying updates/patches or connecting to the internet. According to NTISB, Vendor/OEM to render a certificate that no backdoor eavesdropping or remote access mechanism is present and Identification of avenues for unauthorized access/data leakage at any stage may lead to cancellation of contract along with blacklisting of the firm. SLA (If applicable) to include relevant security clauses to ensure safety of businesses and critical data, it added. In case of critical information infrastructure, code walkthrough and detailed security assessment be planned through PTA approved auditing firms. Furthermore, random penetration testing may also be ensured. It is worth mentioning that all Government Organizations are responsible for ng and implementing Cyber Security measures in their respective domains, therefore, cautious approach may be adopted by all.