Tirupati: With cashless transactions being aggressively promoted by the government, people want to know just how safe these transactions are. The fact is that currently, mobiles and apps, including those related to financial transactions, do not have cyber security certification. It is only now that India is working on bringing in cyber security certification for mobile phones and apps.
G. Narendranath, deputy director-general (Security) of the Department of Telecommunications speaking on cyber security said, “Mobile phone devices sold by multiple vendors do have radiation certification, but not the security certificate. In the United States, there are some regulations. We want to see how we can adopt them.” He said, “at the same time we do not want to bring in Licence Raj. Apps will access all information and modify the mobile phone software. So, we are suggesting an app repository which contains only the apps that are secure.”
Prof. N. Balakrishnan, a computer scientist at the Indian Institute of Science, said, “Mobile apps that are into financial transactions like Paytm do not have cyber security certification because in India we do not have any agency that can certify. “India is going to set up a certifying agency. We are expecting a large number of attacks in the coming days due to the renewed thrust on digital transactions. There is a urgent need to set up Cyber Security Authority of India,” he said.
