Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Saturday took a very strong exception to the above captioned news item published in Business Recorder on May 12th, 2022 which is misleading in its content and malicious in intent.

FBR has clarified that the National Telecom and Information Technology Security Board (NTISB) as well as other agencies issued routine cyber security threat advisories, alerting the government departments about possible risks to their IT systems, said a press release issued by FBR here.

The advisory referred to in the news item in the above issued on 30th April, 2022 by NTISB  was addressed to all government departments including FBR, so the captioned title gives a misleading impression that only FBR is under risk of cyber-attack.

It is further clarified that whenever such advisories are received, the same are circulated within FBR to create awareness and to further educate the users about cyber-security and preventive measures that each user needs to take to avoid any issues.

FBR further reiterated that the organisation was fully cognizant of the prevailing cyber threats environment, and had been regularly upgrading its cyber-defenses. It is very clear that email-borne threats, known as “phishing”, are one of the major threat vectors globally and no organisation in the world is immune to such malicious emails which are disguised to look as harmless.

Furthermore, recognizing this global threat of malicious emails, FBR has already procured and implemented a top-rated Email Gateway Security Solution in order to protect itself from possible email-borne attacks.

In addition, FBR has procured many other top-ranked international cyber-security software and solutions to protect its systems from all kinds of cyber threats. It has also engaged a full-time Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and established a Security Operations Centre SOC) wherein over 25 resident engineers monitor the threat/risk environment round-the-clock.

Keeping the above in view, it is further reiterated that contrary to the misleading captioned news item, FBR is not under immediate cyber-attack at the moment. The organisation has implemented all possible defence measures to avert such threats.