The Ministry of Interior has put into operation the AlertPIC application, an instant and direct messaging tool with which operators of critical and essential services for the State can communicate to the National Center for Infrastructure Protection and Cybersecurity any cyber incident.
This service, which has been operating since November 28, covers the Climate Summit (COP25) that is being held in Madrid. The AlertPIC application has a specific section "Climate Summit" from which operators can communicate to the CNPIC any information that they have knowledge of and that may affect its normal development.
AlertPIC was born in response to the different limitations that have been observed in some cyber incidents when communicating them to the CNPIC, an organ of the Ministry of Interior that is responsible for support, management and resolution when they affect some of the so-called critical infrastructure for the State (health, energy, financial and tax system, water, transportation, food, among others).
Difficulties in communication can be caused in some cases by blocking computers, shutting down computers or email servers. For this reason, the CNPIC raised the need to have a complementary communication tool to the usual channels that allows safe and direct interaction between the agents involved in infrastructure protection.
AlertPIC was created on the basis of the police application for citizen assistance AlertCops. Your communications are encrypted point to point, which guarantees the confidentiality and integrity of the information.
Once the application is installed on a mobile device and authorized its use by the CNPIC, the operator has access to a messaging service based on interest groups or rooms, where it is possible to transmit text, multimedia and voice information.