Centre stops e-socialising for officials

Aug 12, 2011 - Namrata Biji Ahuja |

New Delhi

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The Union home ministry has banned its officials and staff from opening “social networking sites such as Google, Facebook... and the websites of free online games” on official government computers after it has received fresh reports of cyber espionage attacks on sensitive government installations, including the home ministry.

The home ministry advisory warns that attackers have used “Google, Facebook and some other social networking web portals” to “identify critical individuals” to “steal information and passwords for further espionage from the infected computer.”

The detailed advisory was sent to all home ministry offices in New Delhi — at North Block, Jaisalmer House and Lok Nayak Bhavan — a fortnight ago.

Close on the heels of the home ministry’s advisory, the National Security Adviser, Mr Shivshankar Menon, said here on Thursday that the government’s main concern was to maintain security of critical data and networks where information was stored.

India faced 8,000 cyber attacks on the Delhi Commonwealth Games’ ticketing and scoring systems but these were repelled, he said while delivering the Prem Bhatia Memorial Lecture.

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