AI and the New Global Divide: What a Recent UN Report Warns Us About

Introduction

Your iPhone isn’t just a device: it’s a central hub for almost everything in your life. From personal photos and videos to sensitive data, it holds it all. You rely on it for essential services, from personal to official communications, sharing of information, banking and financial transactions, and more. With so much critical information stored on your device, protecting it from cyber threats becomes essential. This is where the iOS Lockdown Mode feature comes in as a digital bouncer to keep cyber crooks at bay.

Apple introduced the ‘lockdown’ mode in 2022. It is a new optional security feature and is available on iPhones, iPads, and Mac devices. It works as an extreme and optional protection mechanism for a certain segment of users who might be at a higher risk of being targeted by serious cyber threats and intrusions into their digital security.  So people like journalists, activists, government officials, celebrities, cyber security professionals, law enforcement professionals, and lawyers etc are some of the intended beneficiaries of the feature. Sometimes the data on their devices can be highly confidential and it can cause a lot of disruption if leaked or compromised by cyber threats. Given how prevalent cyber attacks are in this day and age, the need for such a feature cannot be overstated. This feature aims at providing an additional firewall by limiting certain functions of the device and hence reducing the chances of the user being targeted in any digital attack. 

How to Enable Lockdown Mode in Your iPhone

On your iPhone running on iOS 16 Developer Beta 3, you just need to go to Settings - Privacy and Security - Lockdown Mode. Tap on Turn on Lockdown Mode, and read all the information regarding the features that will be unavailable on your device if you go forward, and if you’re satisfied with the same all you have to do is scroll down and tap on Turn on Lockdown Mode. Your iPhone will get restarted with Lockdown Mode enabled. 

Easy steps to enable lockdown mode are as follows:

1. Open the Settings app.
2. Tap Privacy & Security.
3. Scroll down, tap Lockdown Mode, then tap Turn On Lockdown Mode.

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How Lockdown Mode Protects You

Lockdown Mode is a security feature that prevents certain apps and features from functioning properly when enabled. For example, your device will not automatically connect to Wi-Fi networks without security and will disconnect from a non-secure network when Lockdown Mode is activated. Many other features may be affected because the system will prioritise security standards above the typical operational functions. Since lockdown mode restricts certain features and activities, one can exclude a particular app or website in Safari from being impacted and limited by restrictions. Only exclude trusted apps or websites if necessary.

References:

1. https://support.apple.com/en-in/105120#:~:text=Tap%20Privacy%20%26%20Security.,then%20enter%20your%20device%20passcode
2. https://www.business-standard.com/technology/tech-news/apple-lockdown-mode-what-is-it-and-how-it-prevents-spyware-attacks-124041200667_1.html

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Introduction:

Welcome to the second edition of our blog on Digital forensics series. In our previous blog we discussed what digital forensics is,  the process followed by the tools, and the subsequent challenges faced in the field. Further, we looked at how the future of Digital Forensics will hold in the current scenario.  Today, we will explore differences between 3 particular similar sounding terms that vary significantly in functionality when implemented: Copying, Cloning and Imaging.

In Digital Forensics, the preservation and analysis of electronic evidence are important for investigations and legal proceedings. Replication of the data and devices is one of the fundamental tasks in this domain, without compromising the integrity of the original evidence. 

Three primary techniques -- copying, cloning, and imaging -- are used for this purpose. Each technique has its own strengths and is applied according to the needs of the investigation.

In this blog, we will examine the differences between copying, cloning and imaging. We will talk about the importance of each technique, their applications and why imaging  is considered the best for forensic investigations.

Copying

Copying means duplicating data or files from one location to another. When one does copying, it implies that one is using standard copy commands. However, when dealing with evidence, it might be hard to use copy only. It is because the standard copy can alter the metadata and change the hidden or deleted data .

 The characteristics of copying include: 

• Speed: copying is simpler and faster,compared to cloning or imaging.
•  Risk: The risk involved in copying is that the metadata might be altered and all the data might be captured.

Cloning

It is the process where the transfer of the entire contents of a hard drive or a storage device is done  on another storage device. This process is known as cloning . This way, the cloning process captures both the active data and the unallocated space and hidden partitions, thus containing the whole structure of the original device. Cloning is generally used at the sector level of the device. Clones can be used as the working copy of a device .

Characteristics of cloning: 

•  bit-for-bit replication: cloning keeps the exact content and the whole structure of the original device. 
• Use cases: cloning is used when it is needed to keep the original device intact for further examination or a legal affair. 
•  Time consuming: Cloning is usually longer in comparison to simple copying since it involves the whole detailed replication. Though it depends on various factors like the size of the storage device, the speed of the devices involved, and the method of cloning.

Imaging:

It is the process of creating a forensic image of a storage device. A forensic image is a replica copy of every bit of data that was on the source device, this including the allocated, unallocated, and the available slack space .

 The image is then used for analysis and investigation, and the original evidence is left untouched. Images can’t be used as the working copies of a device.  Unlike cloning, which produces working copies, forensic images are typically used for analysis and investigation purposes and are not intended for regular use as working copies.

Characteristics of Imaging:

•  Integrity: Imaging ensures the integrity and authenticity of the evidence produced
•  Flexibility: Forensic image replicas can be mounted as a virtual drive to create image-specific mode for analysis of data without affecting the original evidence . 
• Metadata: Imaging captures metadata associated with the data, thus promoting forensic analysis.

Key Differences

• Purpose: Copying is for everyday use but not good for forensic investigations requiring data integrity. Cloning and imaging are made for forensic preservation.
• Depth of Replication: Cloning and imaging captures the entire storage device including hidden, unallocated, and deleted data  whereas copying may miss crucial forensic data.
• Data Integrity: Imaging and cloning keep the integrity of the original evidence thus making them suitable for legal and forensic use. Which is a critical aspect of forensic investigations.
• Forensic Soundness: Imaging is considered the best in digital forensics due to its comprehensive and non-invasive nature.
• Cloning is generally from one hard disk to another, where as imaging creates a compressed file that contains a snapshot of the entire hard drive or a specific partitions

Conclusion

Therefore, copying, cloning, and imaging all deal with duplication of data or storage devices with significant variations, especially in digital forensic. However, for forensic investigations, imaging is the most selected approach due to the correct preservation of the evidence state for any analysis or legal use . Therefore, it is essential for forensic investigators to understand these rigorous differences to avail of real and uncontaminated digital evidence for their investigation and legal argument.

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CERT-In, India's national cybersecurity agency, operates under mounting pressure. Cyberattacks in the country have doubled from 1.4 million in FY2022 to 2.9 million in FY2026, even as the window between a vulnerability's discovery and its exploitation continues to narrow.  Rather than wait for access to the most advanced AI security tools, some of which face export restrictions, the agency has spent recent months building its own solution. 

CERT-In has developed a new sandbox platform built with open-source AI, designed to identify cybersecurity gaps in public-sector systems. The sandbox functions as an isolated testing environment, allowing teams to safely evaluate software and applications without exposing the broader system to risk.  Officials have framed this as a foundation rather than a substitute. MeitY Secretary S Krishnan described the platform as a step toward building a secure environment for eventual access to international AI models — suggesting the current approach is understood as an interim measure, not a permanent alternative to global tools. 

This effort sits within a broader policy push: encouraging domestic AI development and tightening oversight of AI use in finance and online content. Taken together, these moves suggest a deliberate strategy of capacity-building through incremental, self-reliant steps, rather than a story about capability gaps or resource shortfalls.

A Crisis Measured in Millions

It helps to look at why this matters so much right now. A joint study by the Data Security Council of India and BCG found that recorded cyberattacks in the country roughly doubled in four years, from about 1.4 million in FY22 to 2.9 million in FY26. What's more worrying is how little time defenders now have to react to the average time it takes attackers to exploit a newly found vulnerability dropped from 745 days in FY22 to just 44 days in FY26, largely because attackers are using AI themselves to scout targets and build exploits faster. Banking, financial services, healthcare, telecom and government portals bear the brunt of this, with ransomware-as-a-service groups and state-linked actors increasingly slipping in through vendor portals and supply-chain weak points. 

Turning Existing AI Into a Working Defence

CERT-In's Sandbox in Action

Instead of treating the lack of any one frontier model as a dealbreaker, CERT-In simply built its own closed trial platform  officials have taken to calling it a "war room"  where open-source and other AI models are set loose on software code to find vulnerabilities and shape secure workflows for India's top public sector companies, including in financial services. At a press conference, Meity secretary S. Krishnan pointed out that these substitute models already match roughly 60 to 70 per cent of the performance of the most advanced security-focused systems out there globally. That's a fairly substantial chunk of the capability, and it's coming from tools India can actually access today. The testing has stretched to core digital infrastructure like Aadhaar and government login systems, while some of the country's biggest tech firms are already using currently available AI models to patch widely used enterprise software, banking platforms included. The logic is simple enough: build the muscle now with whatever's on hand, so the enterprise environment is already in better shape by the time more capable tools eventually arrive. 

Investing in Sovereign Capability

Arguably the more important move here is a longer-term one , India's bet on building its own frontier-grade security AI. The Centre has reportedly asked domestic AI developers Sarvam AI and BharatGen to build advanced cybersecurity capabilities of their own, hosted on the government's isolated computer infrastructure and eventually put to work protecting critical infrastructure. There's no public timeline yet for when these indigenous models will be ready, but the intent behind the move isn't hard to read: cut India's reliance on any single foreign provider for defending the systems that underpin banking, identity and public administration, while keeping sensitive testing and deployment on Indian soil. Officials have also signalled a preference for on-premises deployment of high-capability AI tools where the stakes are highest, rather than leaning entirely on overseas cloud infrastructure. It's a choice that points toward building lasting, self-reliant capacity rather than making a one-off purchase. 

A Tightening Regulatory Net

RBI's Model Risk Guardrails

None of this is happening in a vacuum. On 24 June 2026, the Reserve Bank of India released draft guidance on model risk management that, for the first time, brings AI and machine learning systems used by banks, NBFCs and other regulated entities under a single, board-level governance framework. The draft asks institutions to keep a full inventory of every model they use, rank each one by risk, and build in human override and "kill-switch" mechanisms so a malfunctioning AI system can be shut down immediately. It also makes one thing very clear: banks can't shrug off accountability just because the technology came from a vendor. 

MeitY's Deepfake and Synthetic-Content Rules

Around the same time, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology notified amendments to the IT Rules that formally define "synthetically generated information," require deepfakes and AI-altered media to carry clear, persistent labels and embedded provenance metadata, and cut the takedown window for unlawful synthetic content down to just three hours. Taken together, the RBI and MeitY rules form the regulatory backbone that CERT-In's technical sandbox is meant to plug into giving India a more coordinated response to both the defensive and the deceptive sides of AI.

One Chain of Command

Officials have gone out of their way to stress that all these moving parts aren't creating confusion in India's cybersecurity reporting structure. CERT-In director general Sanjay Bahl has said the National Security Council Secretariat remains the overarching body, with CERT-In as the top cyber reporting and investigations organisation across sectors, and that sectoral regulators like the RBI and SEBI still report into this one structure rather than running their own parallel systems.

Conclusion

Look at CERT-In's sandbox, the push for sovereign AI, and the tightening regulatory net together, and a clearer picture forms. This isn't really a story about a piece of technology India doesn't have. It's a story about capability being built, deliberately and in the open. The country is using the AI tools available right now to close real security gaps, backing homegrown alternatives for the long haul, and pairing both with governance rules that keep banks, platforms and public infrastructure honest. If there's a lesson in all this, it's that real resilience against a fast-moving cyberthreat landscape rarely arrives all at once. It gets built the way most lasting capability does  piece by piece, mostly at home, without waiting for any single outside breakthrough to show up first.

References

1. https://inc42.com/buzz/centre-asks-sarvam-ai-bharatgen-to-develop-mythos-like-cyber-ai-models/
2. https://inc42.com/buzz/centre-asks-sarvam-ai-bharatgen-to-develop-mythos-like-cyber-ai-models/
3. https://www.newkerala.com/news/a/govt-prioritises-access-anthropics-mythos-ai-model-strengthen-475.htm
4. https://blog.qualys.com/product-tech/2026/06/24/cert-in-ai-vulnerability-blueprint-machine-speed-risk-operations
5. https://www.business-standard.com/technology/tech-news/mythos-threat-govt-tech-firms-test-their-softwares-for-vulnerabilities-126052700386_1.html
6. https://inc42.com/buzz/centre-asks-sarvam-ai-bharatgen-to-develop-mythos-like-cyber-ai-models/
7. https://www.finextra.com/blogposting/32142/rbis-model-risk-management-guidance-2026--summary
8.  https://www.medianama.com/2026/06/223-rbi-ai-guidelines-2026-banks-kill-switch/
9. https://www.freshfields.com/en/our-thinking/blogs/technology-quotient/india-targets-deepfakes-and-ai-generated-content-key-changes-under-meitys-2026-102mjwn

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