Digital Swachh Bharat: Government Agency Efforts Lead To 51 Percent Fall In Malware Infections

Owing to the efforts of the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), malware infections across all networks in the country have fallen by 51 per cent, the Economic Times has reported.

The agency, which comes under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, had launched the Cyber Swachhta Kendra or the Botnet Cleaning and Malware Analysis Centre last year which monitors internet traffic across Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and alerts them to unexpected behaviour that can be attributed to malware. The ISPs can then alert their users of possible botnet malware in their devices and redirect them to a website for remediation.

Botnet malware, once it gains access to a device, lets it be remotely controlled by and allows its use to spread the malware to other devices. The swarm of affected machines can then be used to lead cyberattacks on vulnerable networks.

Since the centre’s launch, 121 ISPs and 40 financial institutions have been configured to receive daily bot threat updates, a government official associated with the centre said. The centre has also developed a bot removal tool in collaboration with Quick Heal, which is getting popular as awareness about malware spreads.

According to a 2017 study by Symantec, a United States-based cybersecurity firm, India is the third-largest country in terms of ransomware attacks, and it is also the sixth-most bot-infected country in the world.

Government estimates have suggested that botnet infections in the banking sector - one of the sectors most affected by botnet malware, are down by 74.3 per cent from June till November 2017 owing to the centre’s efforts.