In response to questions on `Cyberattack trends and enhancements in cyber resilience for critical sectors’ asked by MP (Rajya Sabha) from Ludhiana Sanjeev Arora in the ongoing budget session of Rajya Sabha, the Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Jitin Prasada has provided data of the total number of cyber security incidents in the last five years, which reveals that there is an approximately 76.25% increase in the number of cybersecurity incidents from 2020 to 2024.

According to Arora, the Minister mentioned in his answer that as per the information reported to and tracked by CERT-In, the year-wise total number of cyber security incidents in the last five years are as under: 2020 (11,58,208), 2021 (14,02,809), 2022 (13,91,457), 2023 (15,92,917) and 2024 (20,41,360).

According to Arora, the Minister mentioned in his answer that as per the information reported to and tracked by CERT-In, the year-wise total number of cyber security incidents in the last five years are as under: 2020 (11,58,208), 2021 (14,02,809), 2022 (13,91,457), 2023 (15,92,917) and 2024 (20,41,360).The Minister mentioned in his answer that the policies of the Government are aimed at ensuring an open, safe, trusted and accountable internet for its users. The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) is designated as the national agency for responding to cyber security incidents under the provisions of section 70B of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

The following measures have been taken for sharing alerts with organisations across sectors:

*Training Sessions: AI-powered cybersecurity threats and IoT security training by CERT-In with industry experts.

*Threat Intelligence Exchange: Automated platform by CERT-In for sharing tailored alerts across sectors.

*National Cyber Coordination Centre (NCCC): Scans cyberspace for threats, facilitating coordination among agencies.

*Security Auditing Organisations: 191 organisations empanelled by CERT-In to support information security best practices.

*Cyber Swachhta Kendra: Detects and removes malicious programs, providing tools and best practices.

*Alerts and Advisories: Ongoing alerts on cyber threats, vulnerabilities, and countermeasures.

-*Cyber Crisis Management Plan: For all government and critical sector organisations to counter cyber-attacks and enhance resilience.

*Cyber Security Mock Drills: 108 drills conducted, involving 1,435 organisations to assess cybersecurity posture.

*Cyber Security Directions: Issued in April 2022, covering information security practices and incident reporting.

*Secure Application Design Guidelines: Issued in September 2023, and SBOM guidelines in October 2024 for public sector entities.

*Information Security Guidelines: Issued in June 2023 for government entities, covering various security domains.

*CSIRT-Fin Operations: Responding to cybersecurity incidents in the financial sector.

*Training Programmes: Regular training for network and system administrators and CISOs, with 12,014 officials trained in 2024.