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The Indian economy today stands at a crossroads of a profound digital transformation, in which technology has seamlessly woven its way into the fabric of everyday life, in both cities and remote villages. Smartphones and internet connectivity are transforming the way people live, work and transact around the country.
UPI powered digital banking, e-commerce, and the widespread shift toward remote work have all contributed to the rapid evolution of the country into a digital first economy. However, behind the impressive progress made in the past few years, there is a darker reality: cyberattacks that threaten to undermine the very foundations of this transformation.
In the healthcare, banking, and industrial sectors, as digital tools become increasingly commonplace, they are also facing unprecedented security challenges.
As a consequence, the healthcare industry, as well as its associated industries, has emerged as one of the most vulnerable frontlines in the world, with numerous high-profile cyber incidents demonstrating how a cyber incident can threaten the safety of patients, disrupt crucial services, and undermine public trust.
A chief information security officer (CISO) is responsible for safeguarding critical systems and sensitive data, even though they must deal with legacy infrastructure, shortages of workforce, and rapidly evolving threats all while struggling to protect their critical systems and sensitive data.
Despite the benefits of artificial intelligence as a means of alleviating operational burdens, it also brings with it complex security demands, which makes cyber leaders a priority to ensure resilience in the future.
In a rapidly emerging world filled with increasing risks, cybersecurity is no longer an optional skill but rather a necessity—a crucial tool for professionals, organisations, and citizens alike as India advances in its digital revolution.
India's critical sectors are experiencing a surge in cyberattacks, with an average of 4.1 million attacks occurring in the financial services industry, insurance industry, banking industry, and healthcare industry between January and June 2025.
In spite of the fact that India remained the primary target, countries such as the United States, France, Singapore and Germany all contributed to this wave of malicious activities.
A wide range of vulnerabilities, ranging from system flaws to employee accounts, were exploited, testing the resilience of digital infrastructure. Insurers, which depend heavily on consumer data, have experienced threefold increases in the number of vulnerabilities exploited, as well as 350 per cent increases in distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.
It has emerged that Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), often overlooked yet central to digital ecosystems, have become a major weak point, with targeted attacks soaring by 126 per cent and DDoS attacks soaring by 3per cent. Even though supply chains and production systems are increasingly vulnerable, the manufacturing and industrial sectors have been hit hard.
Overall breaches increased by 31 per cent, including a staggering increase of 427 per cent in DDoS attacks, highlighting the need to protect these systems.
There was also an increase of 46 per cent in employee-focused attacks and 17 per cent in politically motivated disruptions, and that resulted in increased DDoS activity of 1 per cent during peak operations during the financial year.
Even though smaller businesses often have limited resources, they have not been spared—attacks against their websites have gone up by 202 per cent, while cloud-based intrusions have increased seventy-fourfold during this period.
There has been a surge in attacks on the healthcare sector, which have risen by 247 per cent, posing a grave threat to patient data and life-critical hospital services.
Despite being viewed as low-hanging fruit for cybercriminals, retail and e-commerce platforms experienced 42 per cent higher DDoS attacks, along with an increase in credential theft and fraudulent card transactions.
Cybercrime has the potential to significantly impact national security as well as economic stability in the near future as a result of this massive increase in attacks.
The cybercrime specialist Professor Triveni Singh, who is also a former IPS officer, said that artificial intelligence and advanced detection systems have prevented more than 4.26 billion attempted breaches worldwide by preventing them from being attempted.
As India's digital economy accelerates, it requires stronger technologies, skilled professionals, continuous monitoring, and robust policies strengthened by international cooperation as well as stronger technology.
A major component of the Indian cyber landscape has emerged as a complex and vulnerable healthcare sector. Hospitals and medical groups operate in high-stakes environments, which can be very difficult for anyone to deal with.
Even a few minutes of system downtime could mean the difference between life and death for the patient. In light of this, ransomware groups have targeted them as prime targets, exploiting the urgency of care to extract money from patients.
A growing number of medical Internet of Things (MIoT) devices, including heart monitors, infusion pumps, and many other devices that interact with the internet, has led to a widening of attack surfaces in recent years. In spite of the promises of these technologies, their historically weak security makes them more appealing to threat actors that are powered by artificial intelligence, raising the possibility of patient data being stolen or even being interfered with directly.
As telehealth has increased in popularity, the risks have increased further, as both patients and providers are at risk of being attacked via the internet, which can harvest sensitive information from patients. It is important to note that India's healthcare sector continues to struggle with legacy systems, financial constraints, and a shortage of cybersecurity experts, which leaves small and mid-sized institutions particularly vulnerable, despite the country's progress in digitisation.
Despite the fragmentation of national regulations, frameworks like the Information Technology Act, SPDI Rules, and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act have only limited coverage, and there are still many gaps to fill in systemic coverage, according to industry bodies such as the Data Security Council of India and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).
One real-world example of this problem can be found in August last year, when an artificial intelligence-driven ransomware attack crippled a healthcare provider specialising in artificial intelligence, making the urgency of the issue clear. The malware was triggered by a phishing email, and after a few minutes, it had encrypted electronic patient records, billing systems, and admissions, forcing surgeries to be delayed and critical procedures rerouted.
However, even though the organisation did not pay the ransom and instead cooperated with law enforcement, there was a severe fallout from the incident: patient trust was shattered, data was compromised, and the incident highlighted India's healthcare cybersecurity posture as being extremely fragile.
It is becoming increasingly apparent that cyber threats are evolving at an alarming rate, posing an increasing threat to individuals as well as organisations.
In the era where millions of devices are connected to the internet, attackers have access to a larger pool of entry points, so they can exploit weaknesses across both personal and corporate networks more easily.
A report from Seqrite, which tracked over eight million endpoints, revealed that millions of malware infections were detected in just a matter of seconds, demonstrating how large the problem is.
It has become increasingly common for cybercriminals to take advantage of the surge in digital services, whether it is small businesses' adoption of online platforms or individuals sharing their personal information on social media.
For instance, a newly established organisation without adequate security can become a target for ransomware or phishing attacks, while an individual who shares too much information online may be unwittingly vulnerable to identity theft because of it.
It has been warned that as technology adoption grows, so will the sophistication of threats, requiring stronger security strategies across every sector.
The digital expansion of India is undeniably one of the world’s largest markets, but it is also accompanied by many vulnerabilities, making awareness and resilience crucial for long-term growth. India is speeding ahead on the digital journey, but it must maintain a balance between innovation and resiliency to achieve long-term growth.
No sector is immune to the impact of cyberattacks, as evidenced by the increasingly widespread attacks affecting industries such as healthcare, banking, and small businesses, all of which are rising at an alarming rate.
The price of inaction will only increase over time.
It is still important to keep in mind that technology is only one factor of cybersecurity - creating a culture of cyber awareness, strengthening digital hygiene, and hiring skilled talent will prove to be just as important as deploying advanced firewalls and artificial intelligence services.
For organisations with limited resources, policymakers, regulators, and industry leaders must work in tandem in order to develop a comprehensive framework aimed at enforcing data protection as well as incentivising proactive security measures. In order to effectively combat cybercrime, it is vital that we foster international collaboration. Cybercrime transcends national boundaries, which requires collective intelligence to combat.
Individuals are advised to protect their personal information, to exercise caution online, and to update their digital practices in order to combat the threat at the grassroots level. In addition to protecting India's critical infrastructure, India will also inspire global confidence that it can lead a secure, technology-driven future as long as it combines security with the very foundations of its digital revolution.
