No cyber attack on census data centre, optimum security in place, says govt

A multi-layered security approach has been adopted for the safety of census data, MoS Home Nityanand Rai said

A multi-layered security approach has been adopted for the safety of census data and there has been no cyber attack or data hacking incident in the system, Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai said Tuesday.

He said the intent of the government for conducting Census 2021 was notified in the Gazette of India on March 28, 2019, but due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the census and related field activities have been postponed until further orders.

"Multiple layered security approach has been adopted for security and safety of census data. Data is encrypted at the data collection device, during the transmission and at servers and storage.

"Advisories from National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) and Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) are implemented to make the data centres secure," Rai said in Lok Sabha.

Replying to another question, the minister said, "No cyber attack or data hacking incident has been observed in the data centre or its disaster recovery sites of the office of Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India.