India fortifies cyber defences against AI-driven threats, says MoS Jitin Prasada

Govt steps up cybersecurity measures against AI threats, committed to safe cyberspace: MoS Jitin Prasada

New Delhi, July 30

The Minister outlined various steps being taken by the government to strengthen cybersecurity measures and address the growing risks associated with AI-enabled cyber threats.

"AI technologies may increase systemic cyber risks by enabling automated reconnaissance, rapid vulnerability exploitation, credential compromise and highly convincing multilingual social engineering campaigns. These capabilities lower attack costs, accelerate weaponisation, and make phishing and impersonation attacks more scalable and difficult to detect," Prasada said.

He further said, "The Government is committed to ensuring an open, safe, trusted and accountable cyberspace. Several legal, technical and administrative policy measures have been implemented to address the risks posed by AI-enabled cyber threats, enhance cyber resilience, and strengthen incident response capabilities."

Prasada said that AI-driven situational awareness systems have been deployed by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) to detect malicious domains and phishing activities for necessary mitigation. CERT-In has also extended AI-enabled vulnerability assessments for public-facing digital assets in a sandbox environment to detect and mitigate vulnerabilities.

Sharing details of CERT-In's initiatives, the Minister said, "It operates an automated cyber threat intelligence exchange platform for sharing tailored alerts with organisations across sectors for proactive threat mitigation actions."

He added that CERT-In conducted 10 tailored cybersecurity exercises and drills on the theme "Building Resilience against Frontier AI-driven Cyber Threats" during June-July 2026. The exercises involved 1,470 participants from 345 government and private organisations across sectors, including power, telecom, banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), transport, education, health and space.

The Minister further said that the Certified Security Professional in Artificial Intelligence (CSPAI) programme was launched by CERT-In and SISA in September 2024. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) National Accreditation Board (ANAB)-approved programme aims to equip cybersecurity professionals with skills to secure AI systems, proactively address AI-related threats and ensure trustworthy AI deployment in business environments.

Highlighting steps taken to upskill the cybersecurity workforce, Prasada said, "CERT-In conducts cybersecurity training programmes in collaboration with industry partners in government, public and private sectors."

He added that CERT-In was among the international partners that co-signed a joint high-level risk analysis report on artificial intelligence titled "Building trust in AI through a cyber-risk-based approach", published by France's National Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI) in February 2025.

Sharing details of the guidelines issued by CERT-In, the Minister said, "CERT-In issues alerts and advisories regarding the latest cyber threats, vulnerabilities, and countermeasures to protect computers, networks, and data on an ongoing basis."

He added that CERT-In issued guidelines in June 2026 requiring all Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and technology providers to implement AI-accelerated vulnerability protection, including AI-assisted security testing, continuous monitoring, patch management and incident response frameworks to defend against AI-driven cyber threats.

Prasada also shared details of various advisories and guidelines issued by CERT-In.

He said that CERT-In issued a "Blueprint for Reducing Exposure and Defending against AI-Assisted Vulnerabilities Exploitation in Digital Infrastructure" in May 2026, aimed at protecting digital infrastructure against rapidly evolving AI-driven cyber threats.

It also issued an advisory titled "Defending Against Frontier AI-Driven Cyber Risks" in April 2026, technical guidelines in July 2025, "Cyber Security Guidelines for Smart City Infrastructure" in February 2025, an advisory on deepfake threats and measures in November 2024, and an advisory on the effective and responsible use of Generative AI solutions in March 2025.

CERT-In also published a white paper in collaboration with Mastercard in August 2023, highlighting the increasing number of attacks on Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and the use of AI to mitigate such attacks.

— ANI