Over the past several years, constant cyberattacks have debilitated Indian infrastructure. Now, the government is doubling down on cybersecurity.

The problem is so widespread that 83% of Indian companies have reported cybersecurity incidents. India has risen to be the fourth most targeted country in the world by hackers, right behind Vietnam.

In Q1 2024, the amount of reported attacks was up 33% over the past year. Over 16 million incidents were responded to by India’s CERT team in 2023. In 2024, hackers only became more aggressive and attacks became more frequent.

Looking at a larger timeline, cyberattacks in India have risen by more than 6,000% over the past 15 years. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is now warning banks that if they don’t begin improving their cybersecurity defenses, they won’t be safe from hackers.

Public and government sectors and top officials have echoed their agreement with the RBI. Both sectors have seen staggering increases in incidents, many have risen by as much as 50% since 2023.

The cause for the rapid increase in attacks is the rapid development of artificial intelligence.

“AI-enabled phishing and aggressive social engineering have elevated ransomware to the top concern,” said Manu Dwivedi. “While cloud-related threats are concerning, greater interconnectivity between IT and OT environments and increased usage of open-source components in software are increasing the available threat surface for attackers to exploit.

“Threat actors are expected to use AI to generate customized and polymorphic malware based on system exploits. Going forward, it may be more difficult to determine how all types of threat actors are misusing GenAI.”

Many criticize India’s CERT expansion as being a mistake. The argument is that it requires businesses to keep logs for 180 days and adds more layers of bureaucracy and cumbersome rules for dealing with incidents, rather than helping businesses on the prevention level. Others blame the lack of laws requiring businesses to report cybersecurity crimes in a timely fashion.

Despite the arguments from various experts, India is seeking to empower its national defenses and expand its government’s ability to respond to threats in time.