Cyber incidents more than double to 24.39 lakh in two years

By: Team India Tracker

Digital scale is no longer enough. India’s next test is whether its networks, payments and AI systems are resilient enough to withstand attack

India has spent years building a digital economy at remarkable speed. At present, it is discovering the downside of moving fast: every new digital connection is also another door for a criminal to try to open. 

Cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), digital payments and connected devices are making businesses more efficient. They are also making the economy more exposed. The growth in cyber incidents suggests that cybersecurity is no longer a technical issue tucked away in an IT department. It is becoming a cost of doing business—and potentially a constraint on economic growth. 

The numbers are difficult to ignore. Cybersecurity incidents detected across government and financial institutions rose from 11.46 lakh in 2023 to 18.73 lakh in 2024 and 24.39 lakh in 2025, according to data presented in Parliament in July 2026. In two years, the number has more than doubled. 

Banking and healthcare are particularly attractive targets because they combine valuable data with services that cannot easily stop. A government report presented in August found that official agencies, including the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), detected more than 3.6 lakh cyber-threat incidents across the two sectors in the first six months of 2026. Banks alone faced 17 targeted intrusion campaigns. 

Financial institutions recorded 3.09 lakh malicious scanning and probing incidents in the first half of the year. Another 39,319 incidents involved vulnerable services, taking the total to 3.49 lakh. Healthcare institutions recorded 18,259 malicious scanning and probing incidents and 596 involving vulnerable services. 

These are not merely numbers for security specialists. A cyberattack on a bank can interrupt payments and undermine confidence. An attack on a hospital can interfere with essential services. A breach at an insurance company or financial platform can expose sensitive information and impose large costs on customers and firms. 

Recent incidents involving Bank of Baroda, Tata Electronics, Angel One, Niva Bupa Health Insurance and cryptocurrency exchange WazirX illustrate the variety of targets. Criminals are going after employee credentials, cloud resources, sensitive information and digital assets. 

And the bill is rising. IBM’s 2026 Cost of a Data Breach Report puts the average organisational cost of a data breach in India at a record Rs 25.5 crore. 

AI changes the economics of crime 

Artificial intelligence makes the problem harder because it can increase the productivity of both defenders and attackers. 

Companies are using AI to detect threats, predict attacks, automate security tasks and respond faster. Criminals can use it to automate reconnaissance, identify weaknesses and produce more convincing phishing attacks. The result is a race in which the cost and time required to attack can fall. 

The evidence is already visible. Between October 2024 and May 2026, Seqrite Labs recorded 15.63 crore detections across more than 77 lakh endpoints—an average of more than 700,000 detections a day, according to Harish Kumar GS, CEO of Quick Heal Technologies. 

Trojans and file infectors made up 70 per cent of detections. Ransomware, network exploits, credential theft and AI-assisted phishing are becoming more sophisticated. Education, healthcare and manufacturing accounted for 47 per cent of detections. 

The weakest point may no longer be the company's firewall. It may be a password, an employee or a supplier. Security must move ahead of the attacker 

India's problem is therefore not simply that attacks are increasing. It is that digital adoption may be advancing faster than security practices. 

Experts argue that India’s digital success should not outpace its security maturity. The country needs more cybersecurity talent, modern infrastructure and AI-driven defences. Most importantly, companies need to move from reacting to attacks to preventing them. 

That shift is already beginning. Gartner expects pre-emptive cybersecurity solutions to account for 50 per cent of IT-security spending by 2030, compared with less than 5 per cent in 2024. 

The threat is also spreading beyond malware and ransomware to social engineering, email compromise, synthetic identities, biometric fraud, deepfakes, IoT vulnerabilities and autonomous malware. 

Regulation can help, but regulation alone is no substitute for competence. CERT-In requires organisations operating digital systems to undergo a comprehensive third-party cybersecurity audit at least once a year, with stricter requirements for regulated sectors. 

India also needs greater self-reliance in cybersecurity software and hardware. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act provides another incentive. Its compliance deadline is May 13, 2027, after which companies facing data leaks could face penalties of up to Rs 250 crore. 

The economic lesson is simple. Digitalisation creates productivity gains, but it also creates risks that markets and companies must price into their decisions. A bank that saves money by underinvesting in security may simply be shifting the cost to customers, shareholders or the wider economy. 

India’s digital revolution should not be slowed. It should be made harder to break. 

The next test of India’s digital success will therefore not be how many people it can connect, how many payments it can process or how quickly it can deploy AI. It will be whether the country can make all those connections strong enough to survive the people trying to break them.