‘Periods of geopolitical uncertainty often see a rise in coordinated cyber threats, disinformation campaigns, and infrastructure targeting.’
Kindly note that this illustration generated using ChatGPT has only been posted for representational purposes.
Information Technology industry body Nasscom has asked its member companies to be cautious about rising cybersecurity threats amid the conflict in West Asia because of the ongoing war and beef up their preparedness and defence frameworks as the war enters its second week.
Nasscom Issues Cybersecurity Advisory
Some of those steps include credential reset and accelerated patching, zero trust and multi factor authentication enforcement, supply chain audit, DDoS surge readiness, offline backups and awareness around disinformation.
Key Points
- Nasscom advised IT firms to strengthen cybersecurity amid rising threats linked to the ongoing West Asia conflict.
- Recommended measures include credential resets, accelerated patching, zero trust implementation, and multi-factor authentication across critical systems.
- Supply chain vulnerabilities highlighted, warning that a single compromised vendor could trigger widespread disruption across industries.
- Disinformation campaigns during war-like situations pose risks by tricking users into clicking malicious links enabling system breaches.
- Experts say geopolitical tensions increase cyberattacks, with modern warfare increasingly targeting critical infrastructure without direct military engagement.
Zero Trust and MFA Enforcement
‘Periods of geopolitical uncertainty often see a rise in coordinated cyber threats, disinformation campaigns, and infrastructure targeting. Organisations are therefore advised to strengthen their cybersecurity posture,’ Nasscom said in a statement.
For credential reset and accelerated patching, it advised rotation of credentials organisation-wide and apply patches for critical CVEs, for zero trust security, companies should enforce multi-factor authentication on all external access paths such as VPN, cloud admin and implement conditional access controls to counter token-theft and adversary-in-the-middle attacks.
Supply Chain Risks Under Spotlight
Similarly, a thorough audit of the supply chain is critical because one compromised vendor can cascade into sector-wide disruption.
Disinformation spreading was also sounded out around war like situation or government alerts, which often force people to click on a link and allow hackers to get into the system
Disinformation Threats Increase During War
Dipesh Kaura, country director- India & SAARC, at cybersecurity firm Securonix said the advosry urges organizations to shift from passive monitoring to a proactive cyber-defense posture.
“Cybersecurity platforms can play a key role by enabling advanced threat detection, behavioral analytics, and automated threat hunting, helping SOC teams quickly identify anomalies, detect lateral movement, and respond faster to emerging threats while safeguarding data integrity and service continuity,” he added.
Cybersecurity firm Sophos warned of an elevated risk environment in the geography as its threat intelligence team said periods of geopolitical tension often coincide with increased activity by state-aligned groups.
Modern Warfare Driven by Cyber Attacks
Amit Chaudhry, CEO of cybersecurity firm Zscaler, said last month that modern warfare would perhaps be won or lost without firing a single shot because if a country is able to paralyse critical infrastructures of another, it will inevitably create chaos.
Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff
