01 FEB , Delhi: The Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Shri Alkesh Kumar Sharma inaugurated the G20 Cyber Security Exercise and Drill for more than 400 domestic and international participants under India’s G20 presidency, here yesterday.The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) conducted this Cyber Security Exercise and drill in hybrid mode (Physical and Virtual) where international participants from more than 12 countries joined through online mode while domestic participants from diverse sectors such as Finance, Education, Telecom, Ports & Shipping, Energy, IT/ITeS and others attended in-person as well as in virtual mode.Secretary, MeitY, Shri Alkesh Kumar Sharma delivering Keynote address In his keynote address, Shri Alkesh Kumar Sharma highlighted the fact that cyber incidents are increasingly becoming sophisticated & disrupting affecting not only a nation but having trans-national impact and there is an urgent need to work collectively to build joint resilience to counter cyber-attacks.The Special Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Ms. Sivagami Sundari Nanda in her special address to audience highlighted the need for whole of government response to counter cyber challenges including cooperation with Law Enforcement Agencies (LEA) at both domestic and international level.The Director General, CERT-In, Dr. Sanjay Bahl welcomed the participants and setup the context for the exercise and drill in his address. Commander Chris Waters, Regional Director South Asia, Australia; Mr. Abdul-Hakeem Ajijola (AhA), Global Cybersecurity professionals’ influencer and thought leader, Nigeria; and Mr. Martin Stewart, First Secretary Cyber Security, UK addressed the participants and shared their experience & insights on effective ways for communities to deal with cyber threats.The event further progressed with conducting of Strategic Table Top Exercise (TTX) and Operational Drill using CERT-In Exercise Platform.
