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Tsaaro got CERT-IN Empanelled | MeitY has published the DPDP Rules, 2023.
Tsaaro got CERT-IN Empanelled | MeitY has published the DPDP Rules, 2023.
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Research Team (Tsaaro)
Election Commission of India Prevents 68 Lakh Cyberattacks as ECINET Manages Unprecedented Counting Day Traffic
Mar 3, 2026
India's Election Commission revealed that its integrated election management platform, ECINET, successfully countered over 68 lakh malicious hits on the counting day of assembly elections, with attacks originating from both within India and abroad. Despite the volume and intensity of the attacks, ECINET maintained uninterrupted service throughout the counting process, ensuring that results were transmitted and published without any security-related delay.
The platform recorded a staggering peak of 3 crore hits per minute and processed 98.3 crore total hits across all polling days combined, figures that place ECINET among the most heavily trafficked government platforms in the country's history. Security teams reportedly deployed multi-layered defences, including AI-based anomaly detection, rate limiting, and geo-IP filtering, to isolate and neutralise malicious traffic while ensuring legitimate users faced no disruption.
In a significant operational first, a QR code-based identity verification system was deployed at counting centres, replacing conventional manual access control methods that were more susceptible to impersonation and human error. Each authorised individual, from counting agents to media personnel, was issued a unique, encrypted QR code that could be validated instantly at entry points, creating a digital audit trail of all centre access.
Given its successful debut, the Election Commission has confirmed that QR-based access control is now set to become the standard for all future elections across India. Cybersecurity experts have praised the move as a long-overdue modernisation of physical security at counting centres, noting that a unified digital access system eliminates many of the loopholes that paper-based credentials allowed.
Source: Election Commission Blocks 68 Lakh Cyber Attacks; ECINET Handles Record Traffic on Counting Day
News of the week:
India Leads Global Confidence in AI-Driven Cybersecurity Despite Rising Cyber Threats.
India has emerged as the most optimistic nation globally regarding artificial intelligence's transformative role in cybersecurity, even as the volume and sophistication of cyberattacks continue to rise at an alarming pace. Indian organisations are now facing over 2,000 cyberattacks per week, placing the country among the most targeted digital economies in the world. This paradox of high optimism amid high threat exposure reflects a uniquely Indian confidence in technology as both a problem and its own solution, driven partly by the country's deep pool of IT talent and a rapidly maturing cybersecurity industry.
The country recorded over 265 million threat detections in a single year, underscoring a dual reality that security professionals are grappling with globally: AI is simultaneously a powerful defence enabler and an accelerant for more sophisticated attacks. Threat actors are leveraging the same generative and adaptive AI tools to craft more targeted, evasive, and large-scale campaigns, including AI-generated phishing emails, automated vulnerability scanning, and deepfake-based social engineering. Indian cybersecurity leaders argue that the answer to AI-powered attacks is not less AI but smarter and more proactively deployed AI, a philosophy that appears to be shaping enterprise security strategies across sectors including banking, healthcare, and critical infrastructure.
Source: India Tops Global AI Optimism in Cybersecurity even as cyberattacks Surge
SEBI establishes Task Force and Pushes Urgent Cybersecurity Reforms Following Claude Mythos Concerns.
The SEBI issued a landmark circular on May 5, 2026, directing all regulated entities in India's securities market to immediately strengthen their cybersecurity posture. The directive covers a wide spectrum of the financial ecosystem, including stock exchanges, brokers, mutual funds, and depositories, signalling a sector-wide escalation of concern about the cybersecurity risks associated with advanced AI models. The circular is notable for its directness; rather than issuing broad guidance, SEBI specifically named Claude’s Mythos, sending an unambiguous message to market participants that regulators are actively monitoring the intersection of AI deployment and financial sector security.
In a decisive institutional response, SEBI constituted a dedicated task force named “cyber-suraksha.ai” to coordinate threat intelligence sharing and develop uniform mitigation strategies across the financial ecosystem. The task force is designed to act as a centralised nerve centre, enabling faster response times, standardised incident reporting, and more consistent cybersecurity benchmarks across all regulated market participants.
Industry observers have noted that the formation of cyber-suraksha.ai represents a significant maturation of India's financial sector cyber governance, moving from reactive, entity-level responses toward a proactive, ecosystem-wide defence posture that can keep pace with the rapidly evolving AI threat landscape.
Source: SEBI Forms Task Force, Orders Immediate Cybersecurity Overhaul Amid Claude Mythos Concerns
The Indian government pushes for sovereign hosting of Anthropic AI models amid growing cybersecurity concerns.
The Indian government is actively seeking sovereign hosting arrangements for Anthropic's AI models, with particular focus on Claude Mythos, after cybersecurity experts and national security officials flagged serious concerns about the risks of advanced AI systems operating on foreign cloud infrastructure.
The push reflects growing unease among policymakers about data sovereignty, the jurisdictional reach of foreign governments over AI-processed data, and the strategic implications of critical workloads being routed through servers outside Indian territory. Experts have pointed out that foreign-hosted AI systems could, under certain legal frameworks, be compelled to share data with overseas authorities, creating latent risks for sensitive government and financial operations.
The initiative spans multiple critical sectors, including banking, telecommunications, governance, and defense where dependence on foreign-hosted AI infrastructure is increasingly viewed as a strategic vulnerability that India can no longer afford to overlook.
Government sources indicate that discussions are already underway with leading domestic cloud providers and data centre operators to create a compliant hosting environment capable of running frontier AI models at scale. If realised, the move could set a precedent that other large economies may follow as they grapple with the geopolitical dimensions of AI infrastructure.
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