The government has announced plans to deploy artificial intelligence to strengthen India's digital public infrastructure and address growing cybersecurity concerns. According to two finance ministry officials, the government is considering an 'AI-against-AI' approach to identify vulnerabilities and enhance digital public infrastructure security. As per Business Standard, this strategic shift comes amid growing concerns that advanced AI models could make it easier for cyber criminals to exploit critical systems. The move addresses the broader challenge that powerful AI models could dramatically lower the skill required for cyber criminals to discover and exploit vulnerabilities across critical financial and digital infrastructure.
Indian mid-tier banks and financial firms have embraced digital technology aggressively but continue to invest less in cybersecurity compared to their global counterparts, according to a report by the Nasscom-founded Data Security Council of India and BCG. This investment gap has created a significant vulnerability for these institutions, which now face the highest exposure to cyberattacks in the banking, financial services and insurance sector. The global Zero Trust Security Market is witnessing substantial expansion as enterprises worldwide accelerate investments in advanced cybersecurity frameworks to combat ransomware attacks, insider threats, cloud vulnerabilities, and sophisticated cybercrime activities.
Cert-In's latest blueprint acknowledges that AI-assisted cyber threats are compressing attack timelines, with threat actors increasingly using AI to automate reconnaissance, identify exposed services, generate exploits, and orchestrate multi-stage attacks across systems. According to Business Standard, Anthropic's Claude Mythos AI model has claimed the potential to locate dormant vulnerabilities hidden in decades-old code and exploit them. The model can identify and exploit zero-day vulnerabilities across major operating systems and web browsers when directed by a user to do so. Following its pilot launch in April, Anthropic said Mythos Preview had already uncovered thousands of high-severity vulnerabilities, including some affecting every major operating system and web browser. Google recently reported its first confirmed case of a zero-day exploit being developed with AI tools, indicating that exploitation itself is beginning to follow the same acceleration curve.
The report specifically identifies mid-size private banks, small finance banks, NBFCs, and urban cooperative banks as the most vulnerable segments within India's BFSI sector. These mid-tier entities have digitised aggressively but have not matched this technological advancement with proportionate cybersecurity spending, creating a critical gap in their risk management capabilities. According to Business Standard, the Ministry of Finance, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) are working as a task force to strengthen India's cyber defence system. RBI and the finance ministry are also working to ensure banks take pre-emptive measures to secure their information technology systems and safeguard financial resources.
The government's AI-enhanced approach represents a fundamental shift in cybersecurity strategy, with officials emphasizing that manual audits are not enough to fill all gaps; we need to deploy AI to scan the system for older dormant bugs. According to Business Standard, MeitY is in touch with Anthropic and the US government for early access to the AI model to verify its capabilities. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had convened a high-level meeting with heads of banks in April to assess the likely cybersecurity risks related to AI models. Cert-In's framework sets an aggressive benchmark, including a 12-hour patching recommendation, reflecting the growing reality that vulnerability-to-exploit timelines are shrinking rapidly. Public sector banks have also decided to step up spending on IT infrastructure and cyber resilience. India's digital public infrastructure, which handles billions of transactions and underpins welfare transfers, retail payments and banking services, makes cybersecurity vulnerabilities a potential financial stability concern for India rather than merely an IT issue.
