Govt eyes ‘secure comms’ to prevent critical leaks

The decision was taken at a meeting of the Central Development Working Party (CDWP), which also supported the launch of the Pakistan Communication Satellite–2 (PakSat-2) at an estimated cost of Rs37.192 billion, to replace PakSat-IR, which is set to complete its 15-year life later this year. Sources said the Planning Commission was not satisfied with the technical strengths of the Rs709 million ‘PAKAWAZ Secure Mobile Communication Ecosystem’, which aimed to put in place a secure communication mobile application which could support video & audio calls, voice & video messages, file & photo sharing and centrally managed contact lists and text & group messaging besides application servers, mobile handsets, kill switch controls and so on. However, the National Telecommunication Company (NTC), which had come up with the project, was asked to hold further consultations with stakeholders and finalise an unbreakable security system of maximum integrity to ensure confidentiality, integrity, availability, and national data sovereignty. The project is designed to conform to national security requirements by providing an isolated “private 4G LTE Core Network” that is physically or logically air-gapped from the public internet to address shortcoming, identified after the recent war with India, and subsequent lessons learnt from other events across the Middle East. 15 uplift projects The meeting of the CDWP, chai