Mayaaa, Maya OS, the homemade Operating System (OS) of India’s Ministry of Defence. As per reports comes after the rising tide of Chinese cyber and malware attacks targeting defence establishments and critical infrastructure nationwide.
As report said that officials will deploy the indigenously-built software on computers in the South Block by 15 August 2023.
What is Maya OS?
Right now, the computers being use by India’s defence ministry are all working on the Windows system.
So, in an attempt to protect its systems, the Ministry of Defence given the idea of its own operating system and the idea of Maya OS was born in 2021.
Maya has work on by a team of experts from various government agencies, including the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), and the National Informatics Centre (NIC).
Also, the help of private Indian software companies and academic institutions.
As per report, sources said that the OS was develop in six months.
Officials saying that Maya OS is root in the open-source Ubuntu platform.
For the unaware, Ubuntu is a free, open-source operating system based on Linux and allows anyone to use and modify it.
People who work in the development of Maya OS have said that Maya OS harnesses the power of free and publicly available software while offering a user interface and functionalities reminiscent of the familiar Windows OS.
Also, it is safer as it inherits the renown security of the Ubuntu platform.
Maya OS also comes with feature of Chakravyuh, an end-point anti-malware and antivirus software that creates a virtual layer between the user and the internet, blocking any malicious attempts to access or compromise the data.
This makes this OS safer and more foolproof against hackers.
As per officials, the OS was easy to use and had a familiar interface, allowing for officials within the ministry to transfer seamlessly, with least amount of issues.
It also supports various applications and software that are commonly use by the ministry, such as Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, AutoCAD and many others.
Also, it offers features such as cloud storage, encryption, digital signature, biometric authentication and others that would enhance its security and functionality.
The Maya OS is being install on the computers of the defence ministry only and not on the rest of the Services.
But it adds that the Services will soon adopt the operating system as the Navy has already clear it and currently it is being evaluate by the Army and the Air Force.
Why Maya?
As per officials, Maya in Hindi means illusion.
They say that this means that hackers will be face with maya or illusion when they try to hack into defence ministry computer systems.
Also, Chakravyuh, the antivirus software in the OS, is also in reference to the multi-layer defensive formation that was use in the epic Mahabharat.
Reason Switching to Maya OS?
This migration to Maya OS comes at a time when incidents of cybercrime and cyber warfare are only rising.
As India witness 13.91 lakh cyber security incidents in 2022, according to official data reveal in Parliament.
Minister of State for Electronics and Information and Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar had then said that these incidents only include information report to and track by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In).
There have many incidents of cyber attacks in India, one of the major instances being report in November 2022.
The Central Depository Services Limited (CSDL) had detect “malwares” in a few of its internal machines.
According to defence ministry officials, many of these attacks come from China.
Late Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat had warn that the cyber threat pose by the Dragon is significant.
In an April 2021 speech, Bipin Rawat had said :
“China is capable of launching cyber attacks on us that can disrupt a large amount of our systems.”
These are all reason that India’s defence ministry is migrating to the new OS.
Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology launch the Indian Web Browser Development Challenge, a programme to support indigenously built web browsers that will compete with the likes of Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge and others.
IT Ministry Launches Indian Web Browser Development Challenge for Startups, Developers
— 2YoDoINDIA News Network (@2yodoindia) August 10, 2023
for more news visit https://t.co/98KV4yIruC#2YoDoINDIA #MinistryOfElectronicsAndInformationTechnology #MEITY #India #ITMinistry #IndianWebBrowserDevelopmentChallenge #IWBDC #Technology pic.twitter.com/0uH6lBqTzt
The primary objective is to create a homegrown web browser for global use, equip with an integrate Controller of Certifying Authorities (CCA) India root certificate.
