IN a major decision Wednesday, the Modi cabinet approved a National Security Directive on Telecom, aimed at securing the country’s 5G roll out from any hostile takeover or sabotage by an enemy by setting up an architecture to allow only trusted vendors and products to participate in the technology transition. Without naming China, the new framework aims at weeding out those products or vendors who could pose a national cyber security threat using the 5G network.
The Directive would achieve this by creating a layer of oversight through a committee headed by one of the deputy National Security Advisors. Called the National Security Committee of Telecom, it would have members from relevant departments and ministries, as also experts from the industry and academia, sources informed.
The Committee would be charged with the screening of applications of the Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) on parameters of national security as decided from time to time. The government would declare a list of Trusted Products (TPs) on telecom based on recommendations of the National Cyber Security Coordinator, and all TSPs would need to comply with the guidelines for their devices and equipment to become trusted vendors.
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