A major challenge looms ahead for India’s cyber police, sectors heavily dependent on tech and general public. The India Cyber Threat Report 2025 by the Data Security Council recently raised alerts about AI-driven and deepfake-enabled cyber attacks becoming increasingly prevalent in the new year, with the healthcare and finance sectors featuring among the prime targets.
The report warns that AI will be used to develop highly sophisticated, personalised phishing campaigns using deepfake technology, making them harder to detect.
AI-enabled malware would be able to adapt real-time to evade traditional security, while data poisoning attacks could compromise the integrity of critical AI systems.
It warns of malicious content - including deepfake video or audio messages purportedly from trusted sources - facilitating more effective attacks that allow cybercriminals to trick users into executing malware or revealing sensitive information.
The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre estimates that, till mid-2024, at least 7,000 cybercrime complaints were recorded daily - a 114 percent increase over the cases logged between 2021 and 2023. This is expected to worsen in 2025 with criminals adopting newer methods in the face of a weak prevention and detection mechanism.
In its second annual Data Complexity Report, data infrastructure company NetApp pointed out that 41 percent of global tech executives were bracing for a significant increase in security threats as AI adoption increases - especially in countries such as India, where the rate of adoption is gaining momentum.
Although emphasis on cyber security is expanding beyond the private sector, with the 2024-25 Union budget allocating Rs 759 crore to enhance the government’s efforts, tangible and effective measures need to be explored to bolster detection of a whole range of cybercrime.
The central and state governments need to work as a federally unified unit to stringently crack down on an increasingly popular crime among white-collar criminals.
Dedicated focus is needed on significantly improving investigation and tracking methods to hunt down cyber criminals. The intensified threat perception for 2025 makes the beefing up of cyber security an all-round imperative. It should be accorded more importance than the traditional defence sector, failing which the country’s people and institutions would remain exposed to the constantly-evolving methods of cyber criminals.