- Why in news
- On 23 January 2026, PIB published a explainer on CERT-In, listing its 2025 record of 29.44 lakh incidents handled, 231 empanelled audit bodies and Cyber Swachhta Kendra coverage.
- What it is
- CERT-In is India's national agency for cyber incident response. It works under the Ministry of Electronics and IT and draws its powers from the IT Act, 2000. It issues alerts and advisories, runs drills and audits, and coordinates sectoral and State response teams.
- Legal basis
- CERT-In's mandate comes from section 70B of the IT Act, 2000, covering prevention of cyberattacks, monitoring and coordinated response.
- Parent ministry
- CERT-In operates under MeitY.
- NCCC
- The National Cyber Coordination Centre, implemented by CERT-In, monitors cyberspace at metadata level for situational awareness.
- CSIRTs
- CERT-In oversees sectoral CSIRTs (finance, power, telecom) and State/UT CSIRTs.
- 2025 numbers
- CERT-In handled over 29.44 lakh incidents and issued 1,530 alerts, 390 vulnerability notes and 65 advisories.
Don’t confuse with CERT-In vs NCCC: CERT-In is the incident response agency; NCCC is a monitoring centre implemented by it for metadata-level threat detection.
Don’t confuse with CERT-In vs CSIRTs: CSIRTs are sectoral or State teams that work under CERT-In's oversight; CERT-In is the national body.
Laws, judgments and statutory bodies: 30 Prelims questions since 2013 (what the law says, who chairs, legal basis). In Mains, 44 news-triggered questions, most in GS2, asking for provisions and challenges.
Why it matters
- Gives India a single national agency for coordinating response to cyber incidents across government, industry and citizens.
- Protects critical infrastructure such as power and finance as digital payments and services expand.
Problems
- Attack surface keeps widening with digital growth, and incident volumes are very large.
- Cybersecurity allocation of ₹782 crore in Budget 2025-26 is small against the scale of threats.
Way forward
- Strengthen sectoral and State CSIRTs and expand trained manpower.
- Mandate regular audits and drills, and keep issuing guidelines on emerging risks such as AI and quantum.
Put in your answer
Digital scale: UPI processed over 21 billion transactions worth over ₹27 lakh crore in December 2025, showing the widening attack surface.
Budget support: Union Budget 2025-26 allocated ₹782 crore for cybersecurity.
- 2013Mains GS3 · Q23Define cyber warfare, outline India's cyber threats and preparedness.
- 2022Mains GS3 · Q19Elements of cyber security and India's National Cyber Security Strategy success.
- 2017Mains GS3 · Q9Discuss potential cyber attack threats and the security framework to prevent them.
- 2017Prelims Q85Which entities are legally mandated to report cyber security incidents in India?
UPSC’s own questions that come close to this issue, from our Prelims and Mains banks.
No practice question for this one; the card may still help an answer. Why: CERT-In is a lasting statutory body on the syllabus, but this release is mostly routine data; few facts for statements. Only 7 of 327 Prelims questions were on statutory bodies.
Worth revising until Prelims 2027: most news questions come within two years of the event.