• The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has set up the working group committee so as to relook its information and security guidelines.
• The need to set up the panel was felt in the aftermath of exponential increase in cyberattacks across the world amid the ongoing covid-19 pandemic.
• The economic situation particularly the financial sector has seen an exponential increase in cyber-attacks amid the pandemic.
• The rising threat of the cyberattacks has necessitated the Regulators to relook into the Cyber Security Guidelines.
• These guidelines will be applicable to all the regulated entities to protect financial systems.
• As per the guidelines, the Insurers’ Risk Management Committee will be responsible for an annual comprehensive assurance audit.
• The committee will also be responsible for conducting the Vulnerability Assessment & Penetration Test (VA&PT).
• After the audit has been done, they are required to report the findings to IRDAI.

Role of working group committee :

• The committee will review if the applicability of the guidelines for the insurers can be extended to other entities under regulatory measures of IRDAI.
• It will also look after how one can apply the Guidelines to the extent applicable to entities who are accessing the Insurers IT System.
• It will further consider whether there is a need to update guidelines to cover the cyber security issues in fintech solutions, work from remote location, mobile-based applications, and cloud sourcing.