NEW DELHI: Union Minister of State for Information and Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Monday that India was tackling rising cybersecurity threats by revamping its policies and focusing on legacy systems , such as strengthening Cert-In, to meet any challenges that come its way.

“Cybersecurity incidents are on the rise due to people’s delayed awareness of the issue of cybersecurity, and a culture of cybersecurity needs to be further developed so that more people causing [such issues] are aware of how to combat harm to users,” he said.

Chandrasekhar made the comments in response to the recent hacking of Bharatiya Janata Party Chairman JP Nadda’s Twitter account. However, he is not the only one to have been targeted. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s account has also been compromised twice in the past two years, including once for declaring the cryptocurrency legal tender in India. The government also had to deal with several phishing mails on their official email addresses which tricked officials into clicking on fraudulent links.

excluding tax reported last week that India is working on a targeted cybersecurity strategy which proposes a separate legislative framework for cyberspace and the creation of an apex body to deal with threats, responses and complaints, is pending with the government central for more than a year.

Currently, response to cyber security threats can be taken under the Information Technology Act and Indian Penal Code. India’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) deals with incident response and the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Center (NCIIPC) was established in 2008 to deal with critical infrastructure.

Chandrasekhar added that India is also working on cross-border cooperation to ensure cyber security threats can be dealt with effectively as it partners with private partners to provide better resources to tackle cyber incidents. “Cyberspace has no jurisdiction,” he said. “We will focus on strengthening and expanding Cert-In’s mandate.”

He added that cyberspace is characterized by growth, but it continually needs policy interventions to ensure that the Internet can be a safe and reliable space. The government is also working on a separate policy for social media companies to ensure that the internet, without the pitfalls of user harm, can be made accessible to everyone. “India is the fastest growing digital economy,” Chandrasekhar said. “We need to ensure that access is also provided at the point of service, where, with care, you can ensure that people use the internet fairly, free and safely.”