The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has set up the National Telecom Security Operations and Threat Intelligence Center (nTSOC) to protect the country’s important telecommunications infrastructure and fight cybersecurity threats across the whole country.
With a focus on cybersecurity and threat intelligence, PTA has already established a sector-specific National Telecom Computer Emergency Readiness Team (nTCERT) for collaboration with the industry in 2020. Early in 2021, a web portal was set up to make it easier for CERT and the industry to communicate with each other, as well as to make CERT’s work easier and faster.
They’ll work together to keep a constant eye on telecom cybersecurity, share cutting-edge threat detection, and detect hacking attacks on the telecom sector. Meaningful cooperation with industry for aggressive and quick and efficient defensive measures on significant security alerts, restoration of incidents, and quality enhancement of the cyber nation’s security as a whole will also be made possible by this method.
However, PTA has already begun consultations with domestic and international stakeholders in preparation for a consultation paper on nTSOC. Consultations between the regulator and local vendors are focused on getting local talent and nTSOC options that are made in the United States.
Thanks to the telecom regulator, all licensees now have secure access to the nTCERT portal. Threat intelligence information transfer, security preparation, and cooperation are all being done through the nTCERT portal.
Almost 127 safety recommendations and more than 100 security alerts were issued by the PTA’s cyber security team to telecom operators on the most recent cyber threats and weaknesses.
Securing access to the nTCERT portal has been made available to all licensees by the telecom regulator. The nTCERT portal is currently being used by several telecommunications companies for the exchange of threat intelligence, security readiness, and compliance. A team from the PTA’s cyber security group says that telecom operators have received about 127 security advisories and more than 100 security alerts.
Unified SIEM, SOAR, incident management, case management, and unified cyber threat intelligence are some of the main features of the solution, which is primarily targeted at the security industry. According to the PTA, the tendering process for the establishment of nTSOC is also nearing completion.
