Telangana: Government officials told to cut down use of USB

HYDERABAD: With the cyber attack spreading to every part of the world impacting over 150 countries already, the Telangana government is taking steps to ensure its data is protected. Advisories have been sent to online wings of government departments not to open suspicious mail attachments and to restrict use of pen drives. IT Secretary Jayesh Ranjan says they are taking stock of the situation on a day-to-day basis.

“Response teams have been appointed to update and take necessary steps. Instructions have been given to back up all important documents. We will be sending audit teams to assess if there are adequate controls and procedures in place and to highlight information security and privacy risks,” he said. The IT department is taking inputs from McAfee, the global computer security software firm with which it has a tie-up, on how to be secure from attack.

The Telangana government has not received any SoS calls from the software or banking industry about the ransomware attack affecting them. There were reports of isolated incidents of ransomware attacks in West Bengal, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu, but the Hyderabad IT industry has not been affected. Ranga Pothula, president of the Hyderabad Software Enterprises Association (HYSEA) says no news has come in of any company being a victim of cyber attack.

“All IT companies have been issuing advisories to staff about what not to do for the last few days. A majority of firms have the latest firewall systems in place that can avert these attacks,” he said. But S Jayaram, executive director of SP Software Private Limited, Madhapur, says that private firms would not like it to be known that their systems have been affected because it will be a big embarrassment for them. “It will affect their projects. Clients will be posing questions to the company what secure product it can offer if it is unable to protect its own systems,” he said.