Cyber attacks in India have been on the upsurge since the pandemic started. According to the Economic Times, India has already seen a 37% rise in the cyber-attacks in the year 2020. The picture on the whole doesn’t look good for e-businesses today. So, if you are an online business owner in 2020, your online platform’s security should be your topmost priority. One such security measure is installing necessary security certificates. Through this blog, we will discuss in detail the importance of CERT-In certification in the IT industry and how to get one.
It is clear from the above image that the attacks on eCommerce, financial, and educational institutions are not new. The biggest data breach experienced by India was in 2016 that included several private as well as public banks. Before jumping into the process of getting CERT-In certification, let’s discuss CERT-In and its features.
What is CERT-In?
CERT-In (Computer Emergency Response Team) is an initiative of the Government of India to deal with the daily emerging challenges in the field of cybersecurity and country-level risks. It was founded in January 2004. The main purpose of CERT-In is to identify security threats and take necessary actions to promote IT security audit practices in the country. Some of the features of CERT-In are:
- Collection and analysis of information on various cyber-attacks and its dissemination.
- To forecast the alerts related to cybersecurity incidents.
- Implementation of emergency measures to handle cybersecurity incidents.
- To coordinate response activities of cyberattacks.
- It also issues security guidelines, vulnerability notes, and advisories related to security practices of cyber incidents.
Some of the other features of CERT-In certification are:
- Security Assessment and Audit Services: It enlists security auditors to perform an information security audit. It also includes vulnerability assessment and penetration testing of the infrastructure of the critical sector and government organizations.
- CERT-In is also capable of extracting and analyzing the data from a digital device involved in a crime.
Why CERT-In certification?
The following features make CERT-In certification a necessity in a business:
- Improves the professional credibility of your website.
- Enhances productivity and creates a competitive environment in the organization.
- It assesses community involvement benefits.
- Improves opportunities for employment.
How to get a CERT-In certification?
The first step to get CERT-In certified is by performing a complete security audit of your website by an empaneled CERT-In auditor. An impaneled auditor will perform a comprehensive website security audit of your system according to security audit guidelines of CERT-In.
An overview of the procedure for CERT-In certification:
- Perform a comprehensive security audit of your entire system including your website or applications and make a detailed report on the vulnerabilities found on your website.
- After performing the audit, the next step is to patch the vulnerabilities found in the report from the first step.
- Once the vulnerabilities are patched, the auditor will issue a certificate in line with CERT-In containing all the relevant documents and compliance reports.
List of organizations and companies that need CERT-In certification:
- Companies that host an application or portal at NIC (National Informatics Center).
- All the companies that sell hardware, software, and other services to the Government of India.
- Any company that falls under the guidelines of the Cyber Security Framework of RBI.
- Companies falling under the guidelines of RBI guidelines for Payment Aggregators and Payment Gateways.
- Any company that falls under the guidelines of the Cyber Security Framework for Urban cooperative banks of RBI
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