KSEB to go in for cyber security audits

Caught napping while hackers messed up its website in August, the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) is out to make sure it doesn’t get mauled again in cyberspace.

 Experts from Government of India’s Standardisation Testing and Quality Certification Directorate (STQ
C) will soon give a thorough checkup to softwares used by the state-run power utility, KSEB officials said. This, according to them, is the beginning of a new era where periodic cyber security audits will become routine affairs in the KSEB as more and more of its services go online, and evolving technologies like Smart Grid on the cards.

“We are in touch with STQC. They will audit softwares like ORUMA developed in-house by the KSEB,’’  KSEB IT head and safety commissioner Angus Sudley Cardoza said.  Services offered to consumers like bill payments and KSEB’s own day-to-day functions are increasingly going online.

Kerala is also one of 14 states where the Union Power Ministry proposes to pilot the Smart Grid, where information and communication technology will be used to spruce up service delivery.

 ‘’In future, such security audits will be performed parallel with the development of services which are essentially IT-enabled, like the R-APDRP schemes,’’  Cardoza said.

 Right now, the KSEB’s IT wing has two officers taking care of the cyber security element. But in August, the KSEB got a taste of the vicious side of cyberspace when Indonesian hackers mutilated www.kseb.in, its website. At its latest meeting held in Thiruvananthapuram in September, the Southern Regional Power Committee which discusses the operations of the southern grid too had underscored the importance of cyber security.