Islamabad: The federal cabinet, in a meeting, approved the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) Rules 2023. The primary aim of the rules is to counter cyber threats & hacking activities that harm the public sector at a large scale. Under the new rules, a CERT council will operate through the Ministry of IT & Telecom to advise computer emergency response groups. The council will establish special teams to respond to cybersecurity incidents at different levels including, national, government, and defence.
According to Federal IT Minister Syed Aminul Haque, the CERTs will set the direction for identifying & prioritising protective measures regarding cyber-security. He added that the rules were required to streamline the process of countering the risks of cyber-attacks.
Under the CERTs, a national team will develop an infrastructure that will coordinate response to threats against critical infrastructure, information systems, critical infrastructure data, and widespread attacks on information systems.
The new developments also aimed to enhance capability in supporting incident reporting, including government, military, telecommunication, commercial, academic, banking, and finance.
Meanwhile, a federal response team will make sure that cybersecurity threats are averted by the federal government & other public sector bodies. Similarly, a provincial team will keep safe all digital assets of relevant provincial public sector entities.