The Indian Navy is creating a dedicated cadre of officers specialising in Information Technology to protect its critical networks from attacks by hackers.

The Navy, which is moving towards connecting all its war-fighting assets through safe and secure e-networks for acquiring network centric capabilities, will also use these officers for administering and managing these IT networks.

"We are creating a dedicated cadre of officers for managing, administering and protecting our critical networks," Navy officials said here today.

The Navy has issued advertisements inviting IT professionals to join the Naval work force.

"The officers would be posted on board navy ships and establishments for carrying out IT duties and they would be handling state-of-the-art and niche applications both in operational and administrative areas," Navy officials said.

They said the officers' "job profile would involve designing and implanting secure and critical networks including manning of security operations and network centric operations centres."

The Navy , which is a highly technical force, has now decided to induct only technical officers in its ranks and from 2013 onwards, all its officers would be Bachelors in Technology (B Tech).

Navy officials clarified that these officers would be required only to protect networks and not carry out offensive attacks on other networks as part of their job profile.

Its networks were recently attacked by Chinese hackers in Vishakhapatnam after which the force had to order a Board of Inquiry (BoI) against some of its officers for breaching IT security.