A Parliamentary Committee has expressed concerns about the performance of the Cyber Security Cell in view of the recent episodes of cyber attacks on several government websites.
This was stated by the Standing Committee on Information Technology (IT) and Telecommunication at a briefing about the operations of the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication (MoITT) on Monday.
Headed by MNA Mir Khan Muhammad Jamali, the Standing Committee revealed that it is dissatisfied with the performance of various departments under the MoITT, and the Cyber Security Cell, in particular, and ordered the MoITT to rectify the latter’s incompetence.
Committee member, Naz Baloch, alleged that the Federal Board of Revenue’s (FBR) website, which contains sensitive information about all Pakistani citizens, had been hacked twice recently.
MoITT officials also informed the committee that work on the Cyber Security Policy has begun, which is why the National Cyber Security Authority (NCSA), the National Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), and the Sectoral CERT will be set up accordingly. Additionally, efforts to hire professionals and build advanced laboratories for national certification are also underway.
They also mentioned that the MoITT has drafted the CERT guidelines that will be sent to the Cabinet after approval of the Ministry of Law.
Furthermore, it highlighted the development of the revised Cyber Crime, Cyber Security, and Social Media Rules as Pakistan has a history of banning social media services on the pretext of the content that appears on their sites.
Besides this, the committee remarked that it is displeased with the attempts for the restoration of telecommunications infrastructure after the recent floods that affected half the country.
📢 For the latest Tech & Telecom news, videos and analysis join ProPakistani's WhatsApp Group now!
Follow ProPakistani on Google News & scroll through your favourite content faster!
Support independent journalism
If you want to join us in our mission to share independent, global journalism to the world, we’d love to have you on our side. If you can, please support us on a monthly basis. It takes less than a minute to set up, and you can rest assured that you’re making a big impact every single month in support of open, independent journalism. Thank you.
It is indeed a reality. Govt IT dept mostly filled with people those not even qualified for data entry jobs in private sector. To date national saving website footer was not fixed neither property tax calculator. Don’t ask about fbr iris that totally lacks definition of each header and we lament on low tax payers.
People of Pakistan have been calling their own elected governments incompetent for decades, and now the govt. is calling themselves incompetent. The question is, is there anything that can be done to correct the said incompetence?