M U Nair appointed as new national cyber security coordinator

The National Cyber Coordination Centre (NCCC), the cybersecurity and e-surveillance agency in the government of India, has appointed Lt Gen MU Nair as the new National Cyber Security Coordinator (NCSC) replacing Lt Gen (retd.) Dr Rajesh Pant.

Nair, who becomes the third cyber security chief after Pant and first chief Gulshan Rai, has extensive expertise in cyber warfare, signal intelligence and communication and information technology at  both national and global levels. He served as the commandant of the Military College of Telecommunication Engineering prior to his appointment as the NCSC.

An alumnus of the esteemed National Defence Academy, he took up the role of the 28th signal officer-in-chief in July 2022. He has also held other important positions including the additional director general, signal intelligence, chief of staff of a corps and command.

The NCSC operates under the National Security Council Secretariat and plays a pivotal role in coordinating with various central-level agencies on matters of national and critical importance pertaining to cybersecurity. One of the agency's key responsibilities is to monitor communication metadata, providing valuable inputs to law enforcement agencies for investigating potential cases of cybercrime.

The NCSC is currently working on updating and replacing the 2013 National Cyber Security Strategy which will emphasise a ‘common but differentiated approach’. This would mean having tailored goals for government organisations, private institutions, academia and other stakeholders, even though the overall cybersecurity objective remains consistent for all stakeholders.

The upcoming National Cyber Security Reference Framework (NCRF), which will replace the 2013 strategy, will act as a document to guide critical sectors such as banking, telecom, power and energy, banking and financial services, transportation, strategic and government enterprises, healthcare companies, among others in areas of internet governance and network management as well as response strategies in the event of cyber-attacks. The document will also have the best practices for recovering and restoring operations after systems have been compromised.