PUNE: While server snags in various government departments are causing inconvenience to people, officials are hoping that opting for cloud computing technology may save them from such problems and provide better services to people.
The Government Information Technology (IT) Department has asked other departments to move their IT applications to a cloud platform before October 30. Officials of government departments like stamps and registration, land records and others have frequently complained of server snags as one of the reasons causing hindrance in providing good service to people.
An official from the Land Records Department said that the work of providing document online has slowed down due to server issues. The government has several times changed the deadline for completing the work of online 7/12 extracts. Government officials are now planning to make use of innovative technologies like cloud computing and blockchain technology which will be convenient for government officials and people. Cyber experts claim that shifting to cloud and blockchain technology will be challenging, the major challenge will be to provide a secure IT environment so that the system is strong enough to render its services.
Cyber Expert Pankajj Ghode, Founder, and Chairman of Global Blockchain Foundation said, “Blockchain technology is one step further of cloud computing in terms of cybersecurity. Blockchain keeps your data in an encrypted format.”
Speaking about security in cloud and blockchain technologies, Ghode said that facility of network, database, platform, operating system security needs to be addressed while shifting to these technologies. “The network should have firewall protection. Web applications should be on HTTPS (secure communication) protocol. Similarly, Linux cloud servers will be better for security,” he added.
Speaking on social engineering to phish data, Ghode said that government officials should be made aware of social engineering as in many cases, it is observed that social engineering was used to launch a cyber attack. The IT department (DIT) has asked government officials to chose Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Net Magic or Control-S as cloud service provider(CSP).
DIT has also laid norms for the security to be followed by the CSPs.
Speaking about the security of cloud platform, cyber expert Anil Raj of Cybervault Security Solutions said that as cloud will host a number of servers, it becomes the duty of all, in this case, all government departments to follow highest norms of cyber safety.
“The security level of cloud environment can be increased based on the use of technology but in the initial stage, we must also think of ease of doing business. If we use a lot of technologies to make cloud secure, the users would not be able to use the technology and hence, the security should be increased gradually,” he added.
