Sanjay Agrawal, CTO and Head of Pre-sales, India and SAARC, Hitachi Vantara, highlighting the cybersecurity resilience to take care of.
Financial institutions in India are navigating through an unprecedented challenge, one that is unrelated to market volatility, credit risk, or liquidity crises. The battlefield has shifted, and the greatest challenge facing India’s financial system today is digital security. Cyberattacks no longer merely breach security perimeters; they strike at the core of banking itself—the foundation of trust on which the entire system relies.
India is set to become the world’s third-largest economy by 2028, reflecting its rapid financial expansion. Yet, as the sector flourishes, so do the threats against it. The vast troves of data, assets, and transactions concentrated in digital finance make India’s banking and fintech landscape a prime target for cybercriminals. Recently, in India high-value cyber fraud cases jumped more than fourfold in FY2024, leading to losses of nearly $20 million. This is not just a statistic; it is a warning. Despite increased cybersecurity investments, breaches continue to rise, exposing critical gaps in resilience.
Reimagining Cybersecurity Strategies for Modern Risks
Staying secure in a world of constantly evolving cyber threats means thinking beyond traditional defences. While firewalls and endpoint detection provide a layer of defence, they aren’t enough on their own. Attackers today rely on agility, intelligence, and patience to breach even well-guarded systems. Recognizing these evolving tactics is the first step toward building a stronger, more adaptive security posture.
In the financial sector, detecting a cyberattack takes an average of 277 days, considerably a long window in the digital age. By the time an intrusion is identified, data has already been stolen. A single breach can drive customers away, erode investor confidence and invite regulatory penalties. In addition, repeated failures can push customers back toward cash transactions, slowing India’s digital economy and reversing years of financial inclusion progress.
Recognizing the urgency, financial regulators have mandated real-time incident monitoring, dedicated Security Operations Centers (SOCs), and stricter authentication and encryption standards. Guidelines around digital lending, data governance and third-party risk management have also been introduced to address growing vulnerabilities.
From Perimeter Defence to Institutional Resilience
Incremental safeguards may offer short-term protection, but lasting resilience demands something deeper: a structural shift in how financial systems are secured. We can no longer operate on the assumption that threats can be kept out. Breaches will happen. The question is how well we’re positioned to contain them and keep moving.
This is where the Zero Trust model becomes essential. It flips the traditional approach, removing default trust from every user, device, and process, and replacing it with continuous verification. It’s not just about stronger authentication. It’s about designing access around real-time context, who is requesting it, from where, and why. Risk-based, adaptive authentication is the only way to keep up with today’s dynamic threat landscape.
Ransomware protection is one of the clearest and most urgent use cases for this model. These attacks have evolved; they no longer just encrypt data. They target backups, disrupt operations, and exploit recovery systems themselves. That’s why institutions are shifting from reactive detection to proactive continuity: building environments where even if ransomware breaks through, the business doesn’t stop. This means implementing systems that are resilient by design. Immutable storage that can’t be altered. Real-time telemetry that flags threats before they spread. Recovery frameworks that allow operations to bounce back quickly—without loss, without chaos. These aren’t extras or enhancements. For institutions handling high-value transactions at scale, they are the new foundation.
Institutions handling high-value transactions at scale, recovery frameworks that allow operations to bounce back quickly without loss, without chaos are the new foundation. ~ Sanjay Agrawal
What Ransomware-Ready Systems Really Look Like
Ransomware resilience isn’t about restoring operations after damage; it’s about making sure that damage doesn’t cascade. Leading institutions are now deploying dual-write environments where critical transactions are simultaneously processed in isolated streams. If tampering is detected in one, the system switches to the verified path, ensuring continuity without compromise.
Another emerging tactic is latency-based threat detection. Instead of flagging obvious anomalies, this method detects hesitation, micro-delays caused by unauthorized access attempts. It’s a subtle signal, but in high-frequency systems like payments, it’s enough to catch ransomware before it activates.
Time-bound encryption zones are also gaining traction, designs where sensitive data is only accessible within narrow, pre-defined windows tied to context like geography or session activity. If ransomware strikes outside that window, the data remains unreadable. Forward-looking institutions are using blast radius simulations, mapping how ransomware could propagate across systems, users, and vendors. It’s changing how budgets are allocated, and how recovery is planned.
An emerging expectation in the industry is for storage solutions to offer built-in guarantees against ransomware. CIOs are increasingly looking for assurance that, even in the event of an attack, critical data and operations will remain intact. This reflects a broader shift. Resilience is no longer measured solely by detection and recovery capabilities, but also by the confidence that systems are designed to withstand attacks proactively.
To meet these expectations, leading institutions are exploring architectures that combine immutable storage, isolated transaction streams, and continuous monitoring. The focus is on embedding protection into the system itself, rather than treating it as an add-on, signalling a new benchmark for ransomware resilience across the financial sector.
The New Standard in Financial Cyber Resilience
We need to stop treating ransomware as an edge-case scenario. It has become the defining reliability challenge of digital finance. This moment calls for more than technical upgrades. It requires a shift in mindset. Ransomware protection must be designed into core systems from the start and security should no longer be treated as an isolated function.
Financial institutions that approach resilience as an engineering priority, not a compliance checkbox, will lead the next phase of digital banking. This isn’t just about stopping threats. It’s about designing for inevitability and building systems that are ready for it!