The National Cyber Emergency Response Team (NCERT) has issued an advisory warning that the use of artificial intelligence (AI), automated bots, botnets, and agentic tools is increasing in coordinated cyberattacks. The team stated that these capabilities may help threat actors and sophisticated cyber criminal groups to broaden the scale, speed and sophistication of their operations.
In an advisory dated Nov 5, NCERT identified financial services and operational technology (OT) and critical infrastructure as two sectors requiring particular attention.
For financial institutions, the team warned of potential attacks targeting core banking systems, digital banking platforms, payment systems and customer-facing applications. Potential threats include the disruption of online services, automated credential attacks and manipulation of displayed account balances.
Critical infrastructure faces risks through vulnerabilities in third-party service providers, connected internet of things (IoT) devices, industrial control systems and insecure remote access. According to the advisory, these weaknesses could expose oil and gas facilities, water utilities, power generation and distribution networks, manufacturing plants and transport systems. NCERT warned that a compromise could disrupt physical processes and critical services.
To illustrate the physical and commercial consequences of attacks on connected operational systems, the team cited recent cyberattacks in Europe targeting supermarket refrigerators and freezers. However, NCERT noted that the involvement of AI in those incidents had not been confirmed.
The advisory listed several indicators of potential attacks on financial institutions, including frequent automated login attempts, repeated authentication failures and unusual application programming interface (API) requests. Other warning signs include abnormal transaction patterns, discrepancies between core banking records and displayed account balances, and unauthorised access to payment systems.
