Dehradun, Oct 6 (PTI) Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami held a high-level meeting reviewing the recent malware attack that temporarily closed down the state's data centre.
Taking stock of the situation, he directed the officials to complete the scanning of the state's data centre and restore all the important websites and online services by Monday.
Malware is a type of computer virus used to steal data.
He said, "It should be ensured that all websites start operating by Monday."
During the meeting, State Information Technology Secretary Nitesh Jha said that there has been no data loss due to malware on virtual machines in the data centre of the Information Technology Development Agency.
He said that out of 1378 machines, 11 were affected by malware. The data centre has been scanned several times in the last two days. Many websites, including e-office and CM helpline, have been restored.
The chief minister said that to prevent the recurrence of such cases, a 'Cyber Security Task Force' will be formed in the state.
Dhami said that with the help of the best agencies of the Government of India working in the field of Information Technology, the security system of the State Data Centre should be improvised.
Dhami also directed the officials to conduct a security audit of the 'State Data Centre' and the website.
He asked the officials to set up a Disaster Recovery Centre for the security of online forums and retrieval of online data related to various departments.
He directed the officials to review the company doing technical work in the Information Technology Development Agency (ITDA) and said that if any kind of negligence is found, action should be taken against the company.
Dhami asked the ITDA to ensure that the 'anti-virus system' is updated in every government office so that such incidents can be avoided.
The cyber attack took place on Wednesday, on a government holiday. Due to the shutdown of the online system, some of the work was done manually. Other works including verification of ration card holders were closed.
An official said that an investigation into the malware attack is underway.