India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has unveiled new security rules for telecom equipment, according to local reports.
One of these rules reportedly stipulates that mobile operators will be held responsible for any security breach caused by…
India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has unveiled new security rules for telecom equipment, according to local reports.
One of these rules reportedly stipulates that mobile operators will be held responsible for any security breach caused by imported equipment and may be fined up to Rs500m (US$11m).
According to the Times of India, previous rules stipulated that the vendor, and not the cellco, was responsible for a potential security breach.
This change in regulation comes after Indian mobile operators feared said they feared that their expansion plans would be undermined by the ban imposed on certain countries, including China, to import telecom equipment on national security grounds, wrote the Economic Times.
The ban on Chinese vendors, which most notably include Huawei and ZTE, was lifted in September 2010, and these new regulations are seen as a further attempt to ease potential concerns.
One rule also reportedly requires cellcos to appoint only Indian employees as chief technical officers and chief information security officers to be in charge of monitoring networks.
But vendors are no longer required to employ only Indian engineers to maintain the networks of local cellcos, explained the Economic Times. Only top personnel at vendors will need to be Indian.