In a critical response to India's escalating cyber crisis, top cybersecurity experts have gathered in Guwahati to demand artificial intelligence-powered defense systems and enhanced public awareness. The urgent call comes as the nation recorded staggering financial losses from cybercrime, revealing vulnerabilities in the country's digital infrastructure.
Alarming Financial Losses and Growing Threats
During the national conference on cybersecurity, digital forensics, and intelligence, Microsoft's public sector head Keshri Kumar Asthana revealed shocking statistics about India's cyber fraud situation. India suffered losses amounting to ₹22,845 crore in 2024 alone, representing a dramatic 205.6 percent increase compared to the previous year.
The scale of the problem becomes even more apparent when examining the number of incidents. Over 36 lakh financial fraud cases were reported during the year, while approximately 20.5 lakh cybersecurity incidents were flagged with the national nodal agency CERT-In. This marks a significant rise from the 15.9 lakh incidents reported in 2023, demonstrating the accelerating pace of cyber attacks targeting Indian citizens and institutions.
The AI Solution to Investigation Challenges
Experts identified several critical obstacles hampering effective cybercrime investigations. These include technical limitations in IT systems, numerous disconnected investigative threads, selective data extraction processes, and restricted remote capabilities. The consensus emerged that implementing appropriate artificial intelligence tools could significantly overcome these hurdles while improving user skills.
Asthana emphasized the financial impact of data breaches, noting that the average cost of a data breach in India for 2025 is projected at ₹22 crore – the highest figure ever recorded. He attributed these massive costs to governance gaps and security weaknesses, explaining that incidents are often detected too late to prevent substantial damage.
"The cost is high as the incidents are being caught late," Asthana stated. "The attackers are not thinking linearly but in graphs, and the defense too has to think on graphs to stop their graphical thinking."
Digital Evidence Becomes Crucial in Criminal Cases
The conference highlighted the growing importance of digital evidence in legal proceedings. According to expert presentations, 90 percent of criminal cases now include digital evidence, with 98 percent of prosecutors considering it pivotal for successful outcomes.
Sandesh Jadhav, global data privacy officer at Wipro, cautioned social media users about continuous monitoring. "You are being watched continuously," he warned, urging greater public awareness about digital privacy and security practices.
Shreekrishna Ashutosh from Cellebrite provided insights into investigative challenges, revealing that 50 percent of agencies report case backlogs year-on-year. Additionally, 60 percent of investigators still depend on outdated methods, spending an average of 69 hours per case reviewing digital evidence.
The two-day conference, themed "Cyber Secure Bharat: Fortifying India's Digital Future," was organized by NIELIT Assam & Nagaland under the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology. The event featured collaboration with Assam Police and Gauhati University, with support from the Assam Government's IT department and The United Service Institution of India.
Notable attendees included L Lanuwabang, director of NIELIT Assam & Nagaland, KS Gopinath Narayan (principal secretary, IT, Government of Assam), Prof. Nani Gopal Mahanta (vice chancellor, Gauhati University), and Surendra Kumar (additional DGP, Assam), underscoring the event's significance for India's cybersecurity landscape.
