The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances organised a workshop on Cyber Security on 8th of October at CSOI to enhance cyber security awareness and promote initiative of Ministry of Electronics and Information Security during the ongoing Special Campaign 5.0

The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) organized a comprehensive workshop on Cyber Security at the Civil Services Officers’ Institute (CSOI), Vinay Marg, New Delhi. The initiative was inspired by the establishment of the Cyber Swachhta Kendra by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). The workshop aimed to enhance cybersecurity awareness, promote MeitY’s initiatives, and emphasize the need for a robust cyber infrastructure to safeguard public e-Governance systems.

The workshop began with a welcome address and context setting by Shri Puneet Yadav, Additional Secretary, DARPG.

Shri S. Krishnan, Secretary of MeitY, in his address at the Cyber Swachhata Workshop organized by DARPG, emphasized the critical importance of responsible and judicious use of data in today’s digital world. He underscored the need for individuals and organizations to adopt best practices that ensure a clean, safe, and secure cyber environment, thereby strengthening overall digital resilience and trust in online systems.

Dr. Sanjay Bahl, Director General, CERT-In, spoke on initiatives for cyber resilience by CERT-In and elaborated on the concept of cyber resilience as the ability to anticipate, withstand, recover from, and evolve in response to cyber threats.

Shri V. Srinivas, Secretary, DARPG, highlighted the use of e-Office analytics and its features. He emphasized reviewing VPN usage, identifying non-users at each level, and deactivating idle accounts after due verification. He urged departments to avoid the proliferation of part-files and develop practice of digitally signing of eFiles He further encouraged to maintain average distinct level of four for efficient functioning of e-Office.

Shri S.S. Sharma, Scientist-G, CERT-In, spoke on simple yet effective cyber hygiene practices such as maintaining secure passwords, verifying the authenticity of links before clicking, and checking the security certificates of websites.

Ms. Anjali Dhingra, Scientist G, NIC, spoke on application security in e-Office, highlighting layered protections, encryption, strong authentication, and monitoring measures to ensure system and user security.

Shri Anil Bansal, Senior Director (IT), DoPPW, discussed the Bhavishya Portal, which facilitates transparent, accountable, and timely pension processing across Central Ministries. The portal covers 99 Ministries, 1,037 Offices, and 9,590 DDOs, issuing around 3 lakh PPOs, and earned the 3rd rank in NeSDA 2021.

Shri Sanjeev Saxena, Senior Technical Director, NIC, DARPG, spoke on security measures in CPGRAMS, the centralized system for receiving, tracking, and resolving citizen grievances.

The workshop concluded with a vote of thanks by Shri Puneet Yadav, Additional Secretary, DARPG.