Daily Times

KARACHI: Different government organizations/institutions are availing telecom services (voice/data) from private operators without obtaining NOC from National Telecommunication Corporation (NTC) which may lead to serious breach of information and compromise national interest, Daily Times learnt.

NTC said if telecommunication services from private operators are obtained which however may look attractive due to various packages but they may have backdoor, since the owner of all major private telecom companies including Pakistan Telecommunicating Company Limited (PTCL) in Pakistan are foreigners and may result in to severe breach of security and cyber threat.

The government of Pakistan established NTC in 1996 under the Telecom Reorganization Act 1996. The mandate of NTC is to provide information and communication technology (ICT) service to federal government, armed forces, defense projects, provincial governments and to all government institutions (autonomous/semi-autonomous bodies etc).

However, Cabinet Division, government of Pakistan, has observed with great concern that contrary to instructions different government are availing telecom services (voice/data) from private operators without obtaining NOC from NTC.

In this regard, Cabinet Division has issued several directives directing that all ministries/divisions/government departments and organizations must obtain telecom service (voice/data) only from NTC since non-obliging the needful may lead to serious breach and compromise national security owing to cyber attacks hacking and security threat to the integrity of the government communication networks.

But, Sindh Police has sought proposals recently from private telecom operators through advertisement regarding provision of VPN connectivity and last mile optical fiber connectivity despite the fact that NTC has already submitted the proposals for VPN connectivity and last mile optical fiber connectivity to Sindh Police.

Accordingly, NTC wrote a letter wrote to Chief Secretary Sindh requesting him to cancel the tender for VPN connectivity and last mile optical fiber connectivity and acquire the same from NTC. ‘Non compliance of thereof may result in cyber threat hacking of data or breach of information security for which the respective offices/organizations shall surely be responsible in this regard’, added NTC.

According to NTC, the latest incidents of Panama leaks and Wiki leaks are an eye opener for the public sector organizations for vulnerability of their information /data when the internet web hosting data storage and all other ICT services are acquired from private operators.

NTC said that where billions of government exchequer is being spent on physical security of government assets/installations but the telecom information being the most vulnerable component, which is clearly evident form the incidents in recent past where the leakage of data has jeopardized the national security concerns of many countries, is being ignored.

Daily Times contacted to spokesmen of different departments of Sindh Police to get the official version, but they were unable to comment on the above-mentioned issue.

Published in Daily Times, July 13^th , 2017.