Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly becoming a double-edged sword in India’s cybersecurity landscape. According to a new survey conducted by IDC and commissioned by Fortinet, one of the world’s leading cybersecurity firms, the adoption of AI by cybercriminals is accelerating the frequency, scale, and sophistication of cyberattacks across the country.
The report warns that Indian enterprises are grappling with an evolved threat environment—one where attackers are moving faster, operating with greater stealth, and targeting systemic vulnerabilities that traditional defenses struggle to counter. With AI now central to attack strategies, cybercrime is shifting from episodic incidents to a constant state of exposure.
AI-Enabled Threats Surge, Outpace Defenses
Nearly 72% of Indian organizations surveyed reported encountering AI-powered threats in the last year, with 70% experiencing a twofold increase and 12% seeing a tripling in such incidents. These AI-driven attacks, including deepfake business email compromise (BEC), AI-assisted credential stuffing, and polymorphic malware, are proving harder to detect and respond to.
Attackers are increasingly leveraging machine learning algorithms to automate reconnaissance, manipulate content, and bypass authentication measures. The report underscores a significant readiness gap—only 14% of Indian firms feel “very confident” in their ability to defend against AI threats, while 36% admit that their detection capabilities are being outpaced, and 21% lack visibility altogether.
A Shift From High-Profile to High-Impact Threats
While ransomware and phishing remain persistent, the study notes a strategic pivot among threat actors toward quieter but more damaging attacks. Leading threats now include software supply chain intrusions (64%), cloud vulnerabilities (60%), zero-day exploits (50%), and insider threats—all of which exploit fragmented visibility and misconfigured environments.
“These aren’t just technical breaches—they’re operational blind spots,” said Vishak Raman, Vice President, Sales – India, SAARC & Southeast Asia at Fortinet. “AI allows attackers to exploit human error, supply chain complexity, and governance gaps at scale.”
Notably, traditional threats such as phishing and basic malware continue to grow at a modest rate (~10%) due to improved endpoint defenses and user education. In contrast, ransomware attacks grew by 22%, supply chain breaches by 18%, and insider threats by 16%—a reflection of their increasing sophistication and impact.
Business Implications Intensify
The financial and reputational stakes of cyberattacks are rising sharply. More than half of Indian organizations (56%) experienced monetary losses from breaches, with 20% reporting damages exceeding $500,000 per incident. Beyond financial fallout, the leading business impacts cited were data loss (60%), loss of customer trust (50%), regulatory penalties (46%), and operational disruption (42%).
The report suggests that AI is reshaping the economics of cybercrime, enabling low-cost, high-impact attacks that can be quickly adapted and replicated across sectors.
Talent Gaps Compound Risk Exposure
Amid rising threat volumes, Indian organizations continue to struggle with limited cybersecurity capacity. On average, only 7% of a company’s workforce is dedicated to IT, and just 13% of that subset focuses on cybersecurity—effectively leaving less than one cybersecurity professional per 100 employees.
Furthermore, only 15% of organizations have a standalone Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), while the majority (63%) merge cybersecurity responsibilities into broader IT roles. Just 6% maintain dedicated threat-hunting or security operations teams, leading to fragmented response strategies and increased burnout.
The top challenges reported include overwhelming alert volume (54%), shortage of skilled talent (52%), and tool sprawl and integration complexity (44%). These pressures are forcing under-resourced teams to manage an increasingly complex attack surface with limited visibility and automation.
Security Spending Still Trails Risk
While awareness of cyber risk has improved, investment levels remain modest relative to threat severity. On average, just 15% of IT budgets are allocated to cybersecurity—translating to roughly 1.4% of total corporate revenue. Although 80% of surveyed firms reported a budget increase in the past year, most of those rises were below 10%, signaling a cautious approach to security spending.
Organizations are, however, prioritizing more strategic areas. Top investment focus areas include identity and access management, network security modernization, SASE and Zero Trust architectures, cyber resilience frameworks, and cloud-native application protection. These shifts reflect a move from perimeter-based defenses to access-centric and risk-aligned security models.
Despite these positive signs, critical areas such as OT/IoT security, DevSecOps integration, and security training for staff continue to receive limited funding—even as threat activity in these domains accelerates.
Platform Convergence Emerges as a Key Trend
One of the report’s more promising findings is the rapid convergence of networking and security platforms. 88% of Indian respondents indicated active convergence efforts, with many adopting platform-based approaches that integrate firewalls, endpoint protection, access controls, and threat intelligence under a unified architecture.
This trend, according to Fortinet, enables greater automation, faster response times, and reduced complexity, especially for organizations managing hybrid cloud and remote work environments.
