ISLAMABAD: Following the emergence of audio leaks of Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), the government has decided to procure better and safer tablets for cabinet meetings.
Sources have informed Pakistan Today that the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecom has floated a summary to the federal cabinet for procurement of new better and safer tablets for cabinet meetings.
“The ministry of IT has proposed to replace NRTC tablets with Samsung or any other company tablets as they are considered more secure and have updated features,” the sources said.Â
Pakistan Today on September 14, 2022 reported that the sensitive data of the country’s highest decision-making forum, Federal Cabinet, was at risk due to usage of India’s Chennai-based company Zoho’ MDM software to run the portal of the E-Cabinet.Â
It may be mentioned here that the National Information Technology Board (NITB) had procured tablets with Chennai-based company Zoho’ MDM software and provided them to federal cabinet members in May 2021 after getting from NRTC.
Presently, the Cabinet Division is managing all the matters such regarding tablets as submission of summaries to the Cabinet Members.
Sources said that the high-ups of the Ministry of IT&T and cabinet division, after the PM’s notice, conducted an inquiry into the possible data leakage. The team in its initial findings found the platform credentials satisfactory after the re-validation of the e-cabinet system.
Sources said that hackers also hacked the server of the Prime Minister secretariat a few months back. An inquiry had been conducted on this matter also but reportedly no initiatives have been taken to curtail the data leakage or improve the system.
Sources said that over 150,000 foreign hacking attempts are made on govt websites daily and recently, they not only hacked the Ministry of commerce’s Export Development Fund (EDF) website but FBR and National Bank of Pakistan websites also.
The international hackers have also made public confidential details of companies’ CEO and directors details available with SECP and departments are also probing this matter also.             Â
It is pertinent to note that the Government of Pakistan in every IT related tendering makes sure that no Indian software be purchased. However, despite its precautions, the NITB had purchased MDM solutions from the Indian firm.
As per the information publicly available that National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval in last year appointed Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu as member of National Security Advisory Board (NSAB).
Former ED NITB Shabahat Ali Shah also tweeted that Cabinet Tablets are the most secure devices one can have as part of Fed Govt paperless environment.
“Cabinet system has never been on the Internet and accessible only on local Intranet and no one could access tablets through the Internet,” he asserted.
