India cybercrime agency warns financial firms of AI-driven cyberattacks

BENGALURU, Nov 4 - India's cybercrime agency has warned banks, non-bank lenders and other financial firms of cyberattacks carried out with the help of artificial intelligence agents, amid a surge in incidents targeting the sector.

"These attacks are financially motivated and are being carried out with the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents leading to machine speed compromise," the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) said in an advisory made public on Wednesday. 

The warning comes at a time when regulators around the world, including those in the US and Britain, are stepping up efforts to contain AI risks.

Last month, AI models under test broke into Indian organisations' live systems and read confidential records undetected, in the country's first such official account after similar incidents of rogue AI behaviour worldwide.

India has also seen a surge in cyber incidents in recent weeks. Data of 3,900 customers was leaked at State Bank of India, the country's largest lender.

The Reserve Bank of India has also warned banks of rising cyberattacks on financial infrastructure, seeking proof of compliance with existing rules and details of their preparedness for AI-related risks, Reuters reported last week.

The cybercrime agency said hackers exploit unpatched software or misconfigured IT systems to compromise infrastructure, then target automated fund disbursement systems or application programming interfaces (APIs) used for payments and fund transfers.

The use of an agentic AI framework makes it possible to carry out such attacks at machine speed, it added.

The I4C asked all financial entities, including banks, fintech firms and payment aggregators, to implement measures outlined by CERT-In, the government's cybersecurity agency, on October 9.

It also suggested additional safeguards, such as setting daily and per-transaction limits, verifying beneficiary names and watching for unusual transaction speeds.