Indian banks have identified 25 original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) whose tools and applications are widely deployed across the banking sector for partnerships aimed at addressing risks arising from emerging artificial intelligence models. According to reports from The Economic Times, this initiative comes as the banking regulator has flagged AI-enabled cyber threats as the top perceived systemic risk to the domestic financial sector. The partnership reflects a broader global trend, as Singapore's Minister Josephine Teo highlighted that 17 CII owners will be expected to detect, respond, and recover from attacks, marking a fundamental shift from relying on perimeter defences to actively defending against threats.
A working group led by the State Bank of India is developing a broader framework to help lenders identify potential gaps and vulnerabilities that could be exploited while strengthening safeguards against cyberattacks. As reported by The Economic Times, the working group has representation from nine banks besides the finance ministry, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the National Payments Corporation of India and the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In). This aligns with Singapore's approach of organizing themselves better for the new threat environment, where boards and senior management will be held directly accountable for cyber resilience.
Banks will reduce network attack surface area by deploying defensive AI agents as part of their cybersecurity strategy. According to reports from The Economic Times, internal controls may not prevent exposure through weak vendors or third-party components, while vulnerabilities in embedded code can spread flaws across multiple financial institutions. Singapore's Minister Josephine Teo emphasized that AI-assisted security operations have been shown to compress months of security testing into days, with the bottleneck shifting from discovery to action. The Cybersecurity Agency (CSA) has launched a sandbox focusing on using AI for cybersecurity to pilot AI-enabled security operations across critical infrastructure.
Recent developments demonstrate how AI has challenged the longstanding assumption that OT system complexity keeps them safe from attack. As highlighted by Minister Josephine Teo, an attacker in Mexico used commercial AI tools to gain access to a municipal water utility's IT network, identify a server connected to the SCADA environment, and generate login credentials for an automated attack. Similarly, an attacker in Poland targeted more than 30 wind and solar farms, along with a combined heat and power plant and a manufacturing company in late December 2025. These attacks show how an attacker can coordinate disruptive activities across multiple sites, including OT environments, making cybersecurity a shared responsibility across the entire ecosystem.
To address the evolving threat landscape, Singapore is implementing comprehensive measures including launching a separate Cybersecurity Code of Practice (CCoP) for Cloud later this year to extend security requirements to cloud environments. Minister Josephine Teo encouraged that leading original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and technology providers of OT have committed to be certified under Singapore's Cyber Trust Mark, demonstrating that they have implemented robust cybersecurity practices within their organizations. This certification will ensure that the products and services they deliver meet a recognised standard, creating a trusted and secure supply chain that is foundational to critical infrastructure resilience.
