Cyber attack fears high due to work from home: NTRO

NEW DELHI: India’s critical sectors may fall prey to inimical forces which could use relaxations in geofencing restrictions granted to employees working from home to make cyber attacks, said an assessment by the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO). Sectors including government undertakings, strategic and public enterprises, banking and financial services, telecom, power, energy and transport, among others, are susceptible to such attacks.

“In view of the lockdown, several critical sector entities have relaxed their geofencing restrictions to allow their personnel to log-in and work from home. This has increased the attack surface available to threat actors (cyber criminals) from neighbouring countries. Another modus operandi being used by them is to send out legitimate-looking coronarelated advisories impersonating as officials from the government and health organisations, through malicious e-mail attachments,” said an official from the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC).