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Reimagining cybersecurity in India’s financial sector, ETCISO
Over 86% of the households in India is now connected to the internet. But the flipside to this is that cyberattacks have become exponentially high.
Seqrite’s India Cyber Threat Report 2026 reveals that over 265.52 million detections were made across 8 million endpoints last year. This is around 505 threat detections every single minute.
Over the last few years, the BFSI landscape has been evolving commendably with advanced tech integrations and sensible policy-level changes. At the flipside, creative and sophisticated attacks have increased as well.
Shifting From System-led To Behavioral Attacks
One of the refreshing changes in BFSI (and other sectors) is that cybersecurity is now seen as a necessity rather than an ancillary. This has led to the development and deployment of AI-powered threat detection systems that can autonomously identify and mitigate network anomalies and fraud.
As systems and code become uncrackable, hackers have levelled up their game. They have been moving from hacking machines to hacking humans.
With the use of GenAI tools, sophisticated attacks that exploit human psychology over technical loopholes are being carried out. Some of the real-world instances we experience daily include:
- Hyper-realistic deepfakes that the elderly can immediately trust
- Emails and texts with impeccable language, where typos and poor formatting that shattered their guise of scam emails are things of the past
- The rise of Frankenstein identities, a blend of real and fake data, to gain more trust
- Increasing instances of digital arrests for real-time extortion and more
Fraud Prevention: A Shared Responsibility
As the nature of frauds evolve and targeting becomes an artform rather than mechanical execution, mitigation becomes a collective responsibility. To understand this, let’s take the context of Authorised Push Payment (APP) frauds.This is where attackers trick vulnerable customers into sending money to themselves. Why the intervention and contextual awareness of a BFSI professional becomes mandatory here is because at the backend, this is a legitimate transaction to an authentic credential. However, a deeper look will reveal that a customer might be coached, digitally arrested, or even impersonated with AI.
At this crossroads, the onus is now on BFSI professionals across hierarchies to identify, tackle, and prevent fraud. From siloed operations, we now head towards an ecosystem, where cyber-vigilance is a core capability. In the real-world, here’s how this could translate to:
- Frontline Sales Professionals – first-line of defense against behavioral attacks, where they help identify coached customers and deepfake indicators in real-time
- Operations Teams – mule and lifecycle monitoring where they spot Frankenstein accounts and any suspicious pace of transactions
- Customer Service – defense against social engineering attacks to recognize urgency tactics and verify caller/scammer identities through behavioral biometrics
- Product Development & Tech Teams – taking a fraud-proof-by-design approach in developing tech infrastructure and product suites
The Need For Cyber-vigilance Training In India’s BFSI Professionals
The fact that the nation leads the world in real-time digital payments through UPI is also the reason caution and vigilance are inevitable. Over the layer of convenience lies a massive surface area for sophisticated digital fraud.
An economy defined by high speed is also attributed to high stakes, and this is the inflection point for moving beyond mere digital literacy.
Apart from the real-time transaction paradox, compliance is a critical aspect as well. With the RBI directing a risk-based approach over a checklist-based approach, professionals are required to interpret the spirit of the law.
Increased awareness of Early Warning Signals (EWS) when dealing with loan accounts that might be overlooked by algorithms become crucial for enterprises to stay future-proofed against mandatory regulatory audits.
This shift also demands redefining what vigilance means in the context of BFSI cybersecurity. Approached more from a post-incident investigative procedure, emphasis should be on proactive vigilance at a more cultural level.
With the right training, BFSI professionals in India can operate both as a blackbox and human firewalls who not only crunch numbers for an institution but also gain the public trust to fuel larger visions as well.
The author is Dr. Soumyadip Roy, Associate Professor, and In-Charge Director at Manipal Academy of BFSI.
Disclaimer: The views expressed are solely of the author and ETCISO does not necessarily subscribe to it. ETCISO shall not be responsible for any damage caused to any person/organization directly or indirectly.
