AI-driven cyber attacks surge in India and APAC region
Cyber attacks in the Asia-Pacific region increased 29 percent year-over-year in 2024 and 134 percent since 2020, with AI-driven deepfakes fueling social engineering and fraud attacks. In India, threat actors are exploiting AI adoption to insert malicious code, steal credentials, and conduct ransom attacks, with some cyber incidents causing average shareholder value declines of 27 percent.
What happened
Cyber incident frequency in Asia-Pacific rose 29 percent year-over-year in 2024 and has surged 134 percent over the last four years (2020–2024). There was also a 22 percent increase in cyber insurance claims notifications in 2024.
In India, threat actors are introducing malicious files into enterprise systems, establishing connections to malicious IP addresses, and facilitating unauthorised remote access and control. Attackers are leveraging stolen data to demand ransom and threaten to leak sensitive information on the dark web. Access keys stored on corporate-issued devices are being exploited to breach virtual servers in cloud environments.
Reported impact
AI-driven deepfake attacks resulted in a 53 percent increase in social engineering incidents. Claims involving social engineering and fraud soared by 233 percent in 2024.
Of the 1,414 global cyber events analysed, 56 developed into reputation risk events that attracted significant public attention. Companies impacted by such events experienced an average shareholder value decline of 27 percent.
Index analysis
Global and regional geostrategic tensions remain a key driver of cyber risk for companies in APAC, with nation-state-backed threat actors continuing to employ cyber campaigns to facilitate conflicts or instigate grey-zone operations.
India is adopting AI at a rapid pace, which brings new risks. Data poisoning attacks can compromise the integrity of critical AI systems and deepfake technology is now being used to craft convincing malicious content, making social engineering attacks more sophisticated.
Classification
Sources and evidence
Sources not yet published
This record was researched and written by the Index from original reporting. Its sources are still being verified by an editor, and they are listed here once that check is complete. Until then the record carries no reviewer.