In the wake of recent cyber attacks on the website of CBI, the government today said all ministries and departments will have to carry out security audit of their websites before making them available for online visitors.

"It has been decided that all websites of ministries and departments should be audited with respect to quality and security prior to the hosting," Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology Sachin Pilot said.

Besides, the government had instructed the National Informatics Centre (NIC), a body which mans computer servers across the country, to host websites only after the user department produces security certification of their websites.

The Minister today held a meeting with officers of Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Home Affairs, Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), Natinal Informatics Centre (NIC), CBI, and others to review the security measures.

The move comes after the website of investigating agency CBI was hacked by people identifying themselves as 'Pakistani CyberArmy' earlier this month.

The number of Indian websites has increased from 1.7 lakh in 2005 to about 1 crore now.

"This has necessitated that Ministries, Departments and Public Sector Enterprises at both Central and state Government levels pay close attention to cyber security guidelines followed by them," he said.

The ministries and departments have also been instructed to audit their websites on regular basis and whenever there are any major changes in the website applications.

CERT-In, the unit under DIT which looks at cyber security, has empanelled more than 50 IT Security Auditors for auditing IT infrastructure of the organisations.