PDD data center sans maintenance contract since 2018

Power department’s data center which was recently cyber attacked by hackers is without an Annual Maintenance Contract (AMC), the officials said.

A senior official of the department told Greater Kashmir on condition of anonymity that soon after its commissioning in 2013, the data centre was brought under AMC and IT solution company WIPRO was given the contract for five years.

   

“The contract,” he said, “expired in 2018 and since then the contract was neither extended nor given to any other company.”

The official said that the annual maintenance contract is the key to maintain the high efficiency of data center and ensure maximum security.

“There is need of frequent software updates. Through the AMC, all software, hardware, security updates, etc. are properly checked, which makes the system less venerable,” said another official.

When contacted chief engineer, PDD, Aijaz Ahmed Dar said that the department “is working on the implementation of AMC and soon the data center will have its AMC renewed”.

“This whole AMC matter is in the process and the department is doing everything so that it is implemented soon. I believe that within next few months we will have AMC implemented in our data center,” he said.

On 24 June, 4 out of 55 computer servers in PDD’s Bemina data center witnessed a major cyber attack crippling the online platforms of power department.

It has been over a week since the cyber attack yet the services like online billing and other web driven services are still defunct.

Officials maintain that the IT experts are on job and the systems will be restored within few days.

The officials with expertise in IT said that not having AMC makes the systems more vulnerable to malware attacks.

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