In a bid to enhance cybersecurity, the Jammu and Kashmir government on 25 August issued an order prohibiting the use of pen drives on official devices at all administrative departments in the civil secretariat and deputy commissioners’ offices across districts. It said the failure to adherence to it would invite serious disciplinary action.
The order, released by M Raju, Commissioner Secretary, General Administration Department (GAD), also includes a prohibition on WhatsApp or unsecured online services such as iLovePDF for processing, sharing or storing official or confidential materials, which will maintain data sovereignty and avoid security breaches.
What does the order banning pen drives on official devices in J&K say?
“All sensitive technical information, including ICT architecture diagrams, system configurations, vulnerability assessments, IP addressing schemes, and strategic technology plans, must be classified as confidential and handled exclusively through approved secure channels in accordance with Information Security Best Practices by MHA, CERT-In directives, and departmental data classification policies,” the order read, according to ANI.
“In exceptional cases where operational needs justify their use, controlled whitelisting may be permitted for up to 2-3 pen drives per department upon formal requests routed through the respective administrative head to the state informatics officer (SIO), National Informatics Centre. After approval, the pen drive must be physically submitted to the respective NIC cell for reconfiguration, authorisation, and ownership registration prior to use,” the order added, PTI reported.
As a more secure option, departments are strongly urged to switch to GovDrive, a cloud-based, multi-tenant platform that provides each government official with 50 GB of protected storage, along with centralised access and device synchronisation, it stated.
The order mentioned, “Failure to adhere to these instructions shall be viewed seriously and may invite disciplinary action under relevant rules governing official conduct, IT usage and administrative responsibility. All the departments are advised to accord top priority to the implementation of these guidelines in the interest of secure and safe e-governance.”
During Operation Sindoor in May, a majority of official websites in Jammu and Kashmir, including those related to the power sector, were reportedly targeted by cyberattacks, with some still facing difficulties in being fully restored.
These attacks disrupted public services and impacted the functioning of several government departments. Following the incident, Union Power Minister Manohar Lal Khattar revealed that the power sector across India had faced around two lakh cyberattacks. He had stated, “Two lakh cyberattacks on power system have taken place. All these attacks have been thwarted.”
(With inputs from agencies)
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