The government has sought proposals for research and development (R&D) in the cybersecurity space in thrust areas including, digital forensics, internet of things (IoT) security, mobile security, data security as well as network and system security.
The proposals are called by the Cyber Security Research and Development (CSRD) group of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).
According to a statement by MeitY, the expert group (working group on CSRD) would consider the proposals for feasibility and carry out technical and financial evaluation and accordingly recommend for financial support by MeitY. Additionally, appraised projects are processed further based on the recommendations of the working group and the priority areas of the ministry.
The R&D project proposals for grants-in-aid support may be submitted by researchers, scientists, engineers, technologists, and faculty members working in universities, academic institutions, registered scientific societies, R&D institutions, laboratories, or autonomous R&D organisations of the government with due approval of competent authority. Moreover, the process of selection would include assessing the new technology development leading to prototypes/products aligned with the defined thrust areas.
Further, delivery for pilot scale demonstration, field trial/deployment and commercialisation within 24 months would also be evaluated, while keeping a check that the proposal should target development of technology readiness level (TRL) of 4 or higher.
As per the notification, in digital forensics, the recovery of deleted and overwritten data, intelligent imaging of storage media, attribution and fingerprinting of devices and users and privacy preserving digital forensic investigations were among the focus areas. Similarly, in loT security, blockchain-assisted IoT security and the security of sensors/IoT devices in electric vehicles were important areas, in addition to things like hardware-enabled data security technologies or privacy and accidental leakage prevention were core to data security.
Furthermore, device fingerprinting, side channels impacting mobile security and blockchain enabled mobile security were among the thrust areas in mobile security, while next generation hashing, encryption and applications in network security, zero-trust, privacy and security in cloud and networks were critical to network and system.
