‘Almost 0.7% of our GDP has been lost due to cyber attacks,’ warns India's former cybersecurity chief

India is already facing cyberattacks, with heavy economic losses, warned Lieutenant General Rajesh Pant (Retd.), former National Cyber Security Coordinator and Chairman of the Cyber Security Association of India, in an exclusive interview with WION's Defence Pulse.

Modi warns of a new battlefield

The warning follows Prime Minister Modi's remarks while inaugurating the Reserve Bank of India's new Data Centre and Cybersecurity Training Institute in Bhubaneswar. “When India has become economically strong, we also need to protect our banking system,” Modi said, as quoted during the interview.

The Prime Minister warned that modern warfare extends beyond conventional weapons, with cybercriminals and cyberterrorists posing serious threats to financial infrastructure.

Cyberattacks costing India 0.7% of GDP

General Pant described PM Modi's remarks as a warning to both India's cybersecurity defenders and potential adversaries. “Almost 0.7% of our GDP has been lost due to cyber attacks,” he said, citing an estimate that has not been independently verified.

Pant warned that such losses could undermine India's ambition of becoming a developed nation by 2047.

India's economy already under attack

When I asked whether India's economy faced an impending cyberattack or was already under attack, Pant replied unequivocally. “Yes, the attacks are going on as we speak.” He cited approximately 2.944 million reported cyber incidents last year, warning that artificial intelligence was increasing the speed, scale and sophistication of attacks.

State-backed cyberterrorists

Gen. Pant warned that cyberterrorists were no longer limited to individual hackers or criminal networks. “They are now state-backed actors,” he said.

He explained that sophisticated attackers conceal their identities through multiple international networks, complicating attribution. State-backed groups, he warned, possess considerable resources to target financial systems and other critical infrastructure.

India's cyber defences

Gen. Pant highlighted India's multi-layered cybersecurity architecture, designed to protect critical infrastructure at national, sectoral and state levels. At the national level, the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) safeguards seven critical sectors, including banking, telecommunications, power, transportation, healthcare and government infrastructure. India also has CERT-In, the national agency for responding to cybersecurity incidents, and the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), which coordinates efforts against cybercrime.

He explained that specialised sectoral response teams, including Fin-CERT for financial services, PowerCERT for electricity infrastructure and telecom-sector response mechanisms, provide additional protection tailored to each industry's vulnerabilities.

As India expands its digital financial infrastructure, cybersecurity has become central to the country's economic and national security.