Cybersecurity: Definition, Types & India’s Measures
Gajendra Singh Godara
Oct 25, 2025
20
mins read
India’s rapid digital transformation seen in growing online banking, e-governance, and nationwide digital payment systems has brought unprecedented growth and convenience. But this digital leap has also exposed citizens, businesses, and crucial public services to a new wave of sophisticated cyber threats. Recent data shows cyberattacks are rising sharply, targeting everything from individual bank accounts to major power grids, putting personal privacy and national security at risk.
In 2020, India recorded 1,158,208 cybersecurity incidents, a dramatic 193% increase from 394,499 in 2019, according to a CERT-In report. Recent official PIB data shows 22.68 lakh incidents in 2024.
This evolving landscape makes cybersecurity a critical priority, shaping debates on governance and public safety. Notably, India has climbed into the top 10 of the World Economic Forum’s Global Cybersecurity Index, highlighting both the country’s progress and the urgent need to stay ahead in defending our digital future.
Cybersecurity Definition and Overview
Cybersecurity is the practice of protecting computer systems, networks, and data from unauthorized access, attacks, or damage. It involves a coordinated approach that combines technology, processes, and people to ensure the security of digital information. With India rapidly advancing towards a digital society, cybersecurity has become critical for safeguarding national security, economic stability, and the privacy of individuals in the era of Digital India.
At the core of cybersecurity are three fundamental goals are as follows:
Confidentiality: Ensuring that sensitive information is accessible only to authorized individuals, preventing unauthorized access and information leaks.
Integrity: Maintaining the accuracy and trustworthiness of data by preventing unauthorized modifications or tampering.
Availability: Guaranteeing that data and systems are accessible and operational whenever required by legitimate users, minimizing downtime or disruptions.
Together, these principles form the foundation necessary to build a resilient digital environment protecting citizens, businesses, and government infrastructure.
Why is Cybersecurity Important?
Growing Cybersecurity Threats.
India registered over 22.68 lakh cybersecurity incidents in 2024, more than doubling from 10.29 lakh cases in 2022, according to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology via the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal.
Cybercriminals have moved from opportunistic to planned and organized attacks. The growth of ransomware, phishing, and malware attacks shows a distinct move to organized cybercriminal operations.
Concerns Over National Security.
Defensive, power, and telecommunication sectors are becoming more vulnerable to attacks by foreign-state sponsored hacker groups.
Breaches of sensitive government databases are exposing citizen data and threatening national strategic autonomy.
Impact on Economy and Business
Financial Damage: Global cybercrime costs in 2025 are estimated at $1.2–$1.5 trillion annually, which means growth and confidence from investors will be affected greatly.
Corporate Weaknesses: According to IBM 2023, the average cost to organizations in India of handling security incidents is approximately ₹17.9 crore.
Increasing Digital Expansion
Service Digitalisation: As more banking, health, and e-governance services go online, more critical services are at risk with every online security breach.
Cyber Threats to Critical Structures: Cyber threats can easily disrupt interconnected systems in electricity, transport, and telecom.
Technological Advancements and New Threats
AI-Driven Attacks: Automated phishing attacks, deep fakes, and AI-based malware make detection and response increasingly difficult.
Internet of Things (IoT): With billions of connected devices, even more entry points for attackers are unlocked which requires sustained oversight and more aggressive encryption.
Human and Institutional Challenges
Lack of Cyber Awareness: Users and employees still lacking the most basic cyber hygiene means systems are more susceptible to social engineering attacks.
Skill Shortage: The lack of trained cyber security professionals in India negatively impacts the ability to respond to threats in a timely manner.
Policy and Governance Issues
Regulatory Gaps: The absence of a consolidated National Cybersecurity Law and poorly integrated systems allows the lack of unified response.
Implementation Delays: Policies such as the National Cyber Security Policy (2013) are overdue for revisions to address the shift in threats.
Types of Cyber Threats
Cybercrime:
People commit cybercrime when they abuse computers and networks to commit fraud, steal someone’s identity, or pull off scams online.
Some examples are phishing, UPI scam links, and ransomware where someone encrypts your data and demands money to unlock it.
CERT-In stated that India experienced over 14 lakh cyber incidents in 2023, and the majority of these incidents involved financial fraud and data theft.
Cyber-Espionage:
Cyber-Espionage is the act of taking private information from people, businesses, or governments for mostly political or strategic reasons.
Cyber-Espionage is practiced by targeting the channels of communication for diplomacy or data for defense, predominantly hacking the data for sensitive research from the associated institutes.
3. Cyberwarfare:
Cyberwarfare refers to cyberattacks conducted by nation-states or their proxies intended to disrupt, damage, or gain strategic advantage over adversaries.
These attacks target critical infrastructure such as power grids, communication networks, and military systems to weaken an opponent’s defense or economy.
Examples include hacking attempts on crucial systems, like the documented 2022 attempts by Chinese threat actors to infiltrate power grid control systems in Ladakh, aiming to compromise national security through sabotage and intelligence theft.
4. Cyberterrorism:
Cyber terrorism incites fear, interferes with critical services, and causes harm through digital means.
Interrupting the services of hospitals, hacking into and manipulating airport control systems, and cyber-attacking smart city systems.
In 2022, AIIMS Delhi’s hospital servers were the target of a major ransomware attack which came from abroad. It affected patient care and access to digital data for several days.
Common Cyber Attacks
Malware (Malicious Software)
Malware refers to all types of malicious software that infiltrate computer systems to damage, steal, or lock data, including viruses, worms, Trojans, and ransomware.
Malware, once installed, is capable of corrupting, stealing, or holding data hostage for ransom.
For example, the 2017 ransomware attack WannaCry affected computers and networks in over 150 countries including India’s healthcare and banking systems, holding them hostage until producers of the affected systems paid in cryptocurrency. India was the third worst-hit nation with approximately 40,000–48,000 affected systems
Phishing
Phishing is the creation and dissemination of fraudulent emails, messages, or websites to trick a person or a group into disclosing sensitive data, such as passwords, OTPs, or banking credentials.
Phishing works by masquerading as a trusted entity such as a bank, a governmental site, or a delivery company to extract credentials.
An example of this is the use of fake vaccination registration sites during the COVID-19 pandemic to capture the Aadhaar and banking information of unsuspecting citizens.
Denial-of-Service (DoS) and Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS)
A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack is characterized by overwhelming the volume of traffic on a network or server, cornering it, and eventually bringing it down.
Such an attack is enormously disruptive, bringing down websites, thwarting online transactions, and rendering digital services unavailable, with the downtime spanning several hours or days.
DDoS attacks on the websites of Indian Airports (Delhi, Mumbai, and Kochi) in April 2023, allegedly from overseas hacker groups, temporarily affected the services that provided information on flights.
Insider Threats:
A system breach can be perpetrated by authorized individuals, i.e. employees, contractors, or partners, who either in colludes or out of the lines and breach internal systems.
In several Indian companies, employees unknowingly installed malicious apps or used weak passwords, exposing sensitive financial data.
Cybersecurity Laws and Acts in India to Combat Cyberthreats
Information Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act)
The inception of the IT Act laid the foundation for the first cyber law in India since the recognition of electronic transactions and adjudication of cybercrimes was introduced.
Key Cybersecurity Provisions and Impact:
Establishes and punishes hacking, data theft, phishing, and identity fraud, and other crimes gives rise to legal consequences that serve as deterrence.
Empowers the state to defend Critical Information Infrastructure (CII), protection of the banking system, telecommunication, and energy sector from cyber attacks.
Empowers agencies like CERT-In to be the national nodal agency for cyber incident response and issue directives of various organizations.
Improves India`s national policy for Online National Security by enabling the punishability of Cyber Terrorism (Sec 66F) through the 2008 Amendment.
Significance:
As India’s foundational cybersecurity legislation, the IT Act remains crucial. However, it requires further updates to effectively address emerging threats such as crypto fraud and AI-powered malware.
Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act)
The DPDP Act, 2023 constitutes strengthening privacy and building digital trust, which are vital components of cybersecurity.
Key Cybersecurity Provisions and Impact:
Act’s provisions of secure data storage and processing minimize the chances of data leaks and unauthorized access.
The Act’s mandates on technical safeguards impose cryptography, segmentation, and routine access control evaluations.
The right of the citizens to control, rectify, and delete their data imposes accountability on the data holders.
Inadequate provisions of safeguards and the non-compliance of the Act’s provisions attracting penalties of ₹250 crore will compel organizations to implement more robust cybersecurity.
National Cyber Security Policy, 2013
The National Cyber Security Policy outlines the approach to the protection of India’s digital assets and critical infrastructure.
Key Cybersecurity Provisions and Impact:
The policy’s vision of a coordinated approach to securing cyberspace involves the government, the industry, and the digital community in every sphere of the economy.
The policy’s emphasis on building the cyber workforce is paramount, especially its target of 500,000 professionals.
The strengthening of Protection of National Critical Information Infrastructure focuses on the critical sectors of the economy
Significance:
For the first time, the policy built the conceptual framework for national preparedness. The unprecedented threat of AI, techno-IP-based warfare, and hybrid IoT vulnerabilities underscore the need for a revision.
Key Government Institutions for Cybersecurity Governance in India
National Cyber Security Coordinator (NCSC)
As one of the most crucial officials, the NCSC positions the National Cyber Security Coordinator to craft and manage the country's cyber security strategy across all government Departments.
Acts as a single point of coordination among the ministries, law enforcement, defense, and intel agencies.
Provides advice to the government considering the preparedness and policies of cyber security at a national level.
Ensures the centralized and harmonized approaches to building critical structures within the polity and the nation respond to and recover from a cyber attack and the loss that follows.
CERT-In (Indian Computer Emergency Response Team)
It was set up under Section 70B of the IT Act, 2000.
As the national cyber security incident response entity, CERT-In, the Indian Computer Response Team, is the agency of Government of India responsible for the communication and discourse of cyber security incident response.
Functions:
Alerts and Advisories: The agency communicates warnings to the public on cyber threats like malware and the like.
Conducting incident response: The cyber security response team responds to a cyber attack by tracing and tracking the attack and threat as well as providing technical support to users of the compromised system.
Conducting awareness training and capacity building in IT for Cyber security.
Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C)
I4C is controlled by the centre and is under the Ministry of Home Affairs.
With the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, I4C is the national central point for cyber crime reporting and the coordination of all the relevant investigation and forensic support.
Functions:
Enables citizens to report cybercrimes.
Provides investigative cybercrime-focused digital forensics tools to law enforcement agencies.
Offers training to police and law enforcement agencies on cybercrime detection and investigation.
Connects state and central agencies for intelligence and computational strategy coordination on cybercrime.
4. National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC)
Established under the National Cyber Security Policy 2013, functioning as a specialized agency of the Government of India.
NCIIPC serves as the central agency responsible for the protection of Critical Information Infrastructure (CII) across various sectors vital to national security, economy, and public safety.
Functions:
Identifies and designates assets constituting National Critical Information Infrastructure.
Coordinates cybersecurity measures and responses among various public and private sector stakeholders to protect CII against cyber threats.
Issues advisories, guidelines, and incident reports to CII operators and government entities.
Facilitates threat intelligence sharing and capacity building specific to critical infrastructure protection.
Suggested Measures and Way Forward
Strengthening the Laws and Governance of Cybersecurity
There needs to be a complete Cybersecurity Act in India that combines all the disparate frameworks relating to the protection of data, network security, and cyber threats.
Updated legislation concerning modern cyber crimes clarifying and defining identity fraud, ransomware incidents, and breach of sequestered and secured information.
Outdated legislation in the IT Act (2000) needs to be responsive to cloud security challenges, theft of intellectual property, and misuse of confidential information to enhance the resilience of the digital ecosystem in India.
Ensuring Rigorous Data Security and Protection
Organizations must implement stringent policies governing data security, and supervision to prevent the breach of sensitive information.
Strengthening confidentiality, integrity, and the availability triad of data will mitigate the potential of data leaks, and will prevent the manipulation of the data.
3. Developing Technical and Institutional Infrastructure
NCIIPC and CERT-In must enhance their capabilities in the real-time detection and the response components of the cyber attack life cycle.
The domain of cyber security encompasses endpoint security, network monitoring, and cloud security. The creation of a trained cyber security professional pool is core to all these domains.
The ground level response to security breaches can be augmented by the expansion of state level cyber cells and forensic laboratories.
4. Promoting the Fundamentals of Cybersecurity and Cybersecurity Awareness
Practicing the fundamentals of cybersecurity is important and entails the use of strong passwords, system updating, and the avoidance of questionable links.
Protecting oneself against identity theft, phishing scams, and the unauthorized use of cloud services should be the focus of awareness campaigns.
Building a responsible digital culture requires cyber hygiene and data protection training to be included in the curriculum of educational institutions.
Promoting Homegrown Innovation, Research, and Collaboration
Indigenous cyber security research should be prioritized focusing on AI cyber defense, cloud security, and data encryption.
Encouraging partnerships among cyber security experts, educational institutions, and start-ups to devise novel cyber defense tools that ensure data and system integrity, is important.
Collaborate on a global scale in the sharing of cutting-edge cyber defense tactics, tools, and cyber threat intelligence to holistically address global cyber threats.
UPSC Previous Year Questions
Q. What are the different elements of cyber security? Keeping in view the challenges in cyber security examine the extent to which India has successfully developed a comprehensive National Cyber Security Strategy. (UPSC Mains 2022)
Q. Keeping in view India’s internal security, analyze the impact of cross-border cyber attacks. Also, discuss defensive measures against these sophisticated attacks. (UPSC Mains 2021)
Q. Discuss different types of cybercrimes and measures required to be taken to fight the menace. (UPSC Mains 2020)
In today's world, foundational principles of Cybersecurity are essential. India must develop a progressive Cybersecurity Act, advocate for the implementation of cybersecurity standards, and cultivate talented cybersecurity practitioners.
Protecting citizens, enterprises, and the country as a whole from sophisticated cyber-attacks of the future, threats must be addressed with a secure framework for ensuring data and network security in compliance with the principles of data confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
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