India’s rapid digital scaling across governance, finance and critical infrastructure has expanded its attack surface faster than its security maturity, said Lt. Gen. Rajesh Pant, chairman of the Cybersecurity Association of India and former National Cybersecurity Coordinator. AI-driven capabilities, high-value targeting of digital public infrastructure and cloud misconfigurations have created a challenging threat environment that calls for structural reform.
Meeting these threats means moving beyond traditional cyber hygiene toward national resilience, he said. That requires replacing the outdated 2013 policy framework and breaking down governance silos across sectors and states. Organizations should also use public-private partnerships to protect critical infrastructure against state-backed attacks.
“Policy will always lag behind technology,” Pant said. “The gap has to be reduced through a continuous dialogue… By the time you create a regulation and it’ll take time, so you focus on resilience. You have a dialogue, you come out with solutions, you come out with tools.”
In this video interview with CISONow, Pant also discussed:
- Navigating the AI-versus-AI dynamic and the rise of autonomous, agentic cyber threats
- Overcoming structural fragmentation and state-level governance gaps in India’s cyber defense
- Building a sustainable talent pipeline and fostering domestic, sovereign security solutions
Pant served as India’s National Cybersecurity Coordinator in the Prime Minister’s Office from 2019 to 2023, where he led major initiatives including the National Security Directive on Telecom. A decorated veteran of the Indian Army Corps of Signals, he holds a Ph.D. in Information Security and is chairman of the Cybersecurity Association of India.
