India’s cybersecurity establishment is entering a new phase of urgency, as AI-fueled cyber threats escalate in volume and complexity. A recent Rapid7 panel featuring top CISOs from sectors like finance, telecom and public infrastructure revealed growing concerns around deepfakes, autonomous malware and adversarial AI, which are quickly outpacing traditional defence systems.
Executives from Indian organizations noted that cyberattacks are increasingly precise, evasive, and real-time, driven by generative AI models that can craft hyper-personalized phishing attempts or breach simulations. “What took weeks now takes minutes,” remarked one panelist. With national infrastructure, financial systems and citizen data increasingly exposed, Indian cybersecurity leaders are calling for a pivot from reactive defense to AI-assisted, proactive threat hunting.
Key Takeaways:
- AI is both the threat and the shield: Indian cybersecurity teams are investing in AI-powered detection and response tools to match the sophistication of AI-driven attackers.
- Upskilling is urgent: A gap in AI-fluent cyber talent is prompting firms to retrain SOC teams in threat modelling, LLM misuse detection and autonomous red teaming.
- Policy coordination needed: Experts urge the Indian government to fast-track AI security protocols, strengthen CERT-In capabilities and push for data-sharing frameworks between public and private entities.
According to TeamLease Digital, India saw a 200% rise in phishing attacks in early 2025, with over 70% involving AI-generated content. Cybercrime rings are using tools like WormGPT and open-source LLMs to create code-injection malware and voice spoofing scripts targeting banks and insurance firms.
Global reports from the World Economic Forum and MITRE also indicate that India is now among the top five countries most vulnerable to AI-led cyber disruptions, primarily due to its rapid digitalization without parallel infosec scaling.
The conversation is shifting from “how to prevent the next breach” to “how fast can we predict it?” With India’s digital economy growing exponentially across fintech, healthcare and government services the question isn’t whether AI will be weaponized, but whether India can build defences that move just as fast.Read the original article on Rapid7:
India’s Cyber Leaders Prepare for AI-Driven Threats
