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Introduction

All citizens are using tech to their advantage, and so we see a lot of upskilling among the population leading to innovation in India. As we go deeper into cyberspace, we must maintain our cyber security efficiently and effectively. When bad actors use technology to their advantage, we often see data loss or financial loss of the victim, In this blog, we will shine light upon two new forms of cyber attacks, causing havoc upon the innocent. The “Daam” Malware and a new malicious app are the two new issues.

Daam Botnet

Since 2021, the DAAM Android botnet has been used to acquire unauthorised access to targeted devices. Cybercriminals use it to carry out different destructive actions. Using the DAAM Android botnet’s APK binding service, threat actors can combine malicious code with a legitimate application. Keylogging, ransomware, VOIP call records, runtime code execution, browser history collecting, incoming call recording, PII data theft, phishing URL opening, photo capture, clipboard data theft, WiFi and data status switching, and browser history gathering are just a few of the functions offered by the DAAM Android botnet. The DAAM botnet tracks user activity using the Accessibility Service and stores keystrokes it has recorded together with the name of the programme package in a database. It also contains a ransomware module that encrypts and decrypts data on the infected device using the AES method.

Additionally, the botnet uses the Accessibility service to monitor the VOIP call-making features of social media apps like WhatsApp, Skype, Telegram, and others. When a user engages with these elements, the virus begins audio recording.

The Malware

CERT-IN, the central nodal institution that reacts to computer security-related issues, claims that Daam connects with various Android APK files to access a phone. The files on the phone are encrypted using the AES encryption technique, and it is distributed through third-party websites.

It is claimed that the malware can damage call recordings and contacts, gain access to the camera, change passwords, take screenshots, steal SMS, download/upload files, and perform a variety of other things.

Safeguards and Guidelines by Cert-In

Cert-In has released the guideline for combating malware. These were issued in the public interest. The recommendations by Cert-In are as follows-

Only download from official app stores to limit the risk of potentially harmful apps.

Before downloading an app, always read the details and user reviews; likewise, always give permissions that are related to the program’s purpose.

Install Android updates solely from Android device vendors as they become available.

Avoid visiting untrustworthy websites or clicking on untrustworthy

Install and keep anti-virus and anti-spyware software up to date.

Be cautious if you see mobile numbers that appear to be something other than genuine/regular mobile numbers.

Conduct sufficient investigation Before clicking on a link supplied in a communication.

Only click on URLs that clearly display the website domain; avoid abbreviated URLs, particularly those employing bit.ly and tinyurl.

Use secure browsing technologies and filtering tools in antivirus, firewall, and filtering services.

Before providing sensitive information, look for authentic encryption certificates by looking for the green lock in your browser’s URL information, look for authentic encryption certificates by looking for the green lock in your browser’s URL bar.

Any ‘strange’ activity in a user’s bank account must be reported immediately to the appropriate bank.

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New Malicious App

From the remote parts of Jharkhand, a new form of malicious application has been circulated among people on the pretext of a bank account closure. The bad actors have always used messaging platforms like Whatsapp and Telegram to circulate malicious links among unaware and uneducated people to dupe them of their hard-earned money.

They send an ordinary-looking message on Whatsapp or Telegram where they mention that the user has a bank account at ICICI bank and, due to irregularity with the credentials, their account is being deactivated. Further, they ask users to update their PAN card to reactivate their account by uploading the PAN card on an application. This app, in turn, is a malicious app that downloads all the user’s personal credentials and shares them with the bad actors via text message, allowing them to bypass banks’ two-factor authentication and drain the money from their accounts. The Jharkhand Police Cyber Cells have registered numerous FIRs pertaining to this type of cybercrime and are conducting full-scale investigations to apprehend the criminals.

Conclusion

Malware and phishing attacks have gained momentum in the previous years and have become a major contributor to the tally of cybercrimes in the country. DaaM malware is one of the examples brought into light due to the timely action by Cert-In, but still, a lot of such malware are deployed by bad actors, and we as netizens need to use our best practices to keep such criminals at bay. Phishing crimes are often substantiated by exploiting vulnerabilities and social engineering. Thus working towards a rise in awareness is the need of the hour to safeguard the population by and large.

Introduction

The advent of frontier AI has significantly widened the range of actors who can launch cyberattacks, extending beyond state actors with immense capabilities or organized professional cybercriminal rings. In its most critical advisory, CIAD-2026-0020, titled "Defending against frontier AI-driven cyber risks," which was released on April 26, 2026, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) officially stated that AI can now carry out autonomous cyber activities of unprecedented scale and speed. The advisory highlights that these frontier AI models can perform automated reconnaissance, phishing, malware creation, vulnerability identification, and social engineering with minimal human involvement, thus "lowering the barrier to orchestrating complex cyber attacks." The risks that such AI models pose are not restricted to state actors and corporate entities anymore and also extend to MSMEs, public organizations, and individuals.

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India’s Escalating Cybercrisis

The Indian digital economy has been developing at a very fast pace, but the same cannot be said about its cybersecurity. Having a base of over 850 million internet users and a digital payment sector that records a massive 22,495 crore in monthly transaction volumes, coupled with the fastest-growing cloud sector in the world, India continues to remain a lucrative prey for cybercriminals. There were over 265 million attempts reported in the last year, 2025, alone, where close to 46% of all incidents detected were in enterprises with fewer than 1,000 employees, a very grave reality for MSMEs. MHA confirmed there were 28.15 lakh reported cybercrime complaints in 2025 as compared to 2024, with a jump of 24%. In this worsening environment the advisory is a breakthrough in Indian cyber governance. Where previously advisories covered only conventional threats like phishing and malware, the new warning names frontier agentic AI systems as autonomous multipliers of threats, capable of conducting operations at scale and speed with significantly reduced human oversight.

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What is “Frontier AI” and why does it matter?

CERT-In’s decision to adopt the term "Frontier AI" is deliberate and meaningful. The advisory’s scope is a new category of agentic AI, which moves well beyond traditional chatbot-style AI, having the capacity to reason, plan, perform multiple actions in a single task autonomously, and carry out complicated tasks with minimal or no human guidance. CERT-In highlights that these tools now possess the capabilities that were "previously carried out by a coordinated team of skilled cybersecurity professionals." The advisory clearly flags the risk that these advanced models have the capability to generate malicious code, conduct network scans, probe systems for vulnerabilities, and even orchestrate intricate multi-stage cyberattacks in a single session. Their capacity to analyse a vast number of source code libraries to identify vulnerabilities, even unknown zero-day ones, and then develop proof-of-concept exploits at high speed. This means that the historical lead time to turn a vulnerability discovery into an exploit tool has reduced from weeks to just hours.

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Six Core Threat Vectors identified by CERT-In

1. AI-driven Automatic Zero-Day Discovery: AI-based solutions discover zero-day vulnerabilities and automatically create exploits in minutes, reducing the time taken by defenders.
2. AI-driven Autonomous Reconnaissance: AI-driven agents scan cloud infra, APIs, and enterprise networks and outline attack vectors.
3. AI-driven phishing & deepfakes: Multilingual, highly targeted phishing emails, deepfake audio, and deepfake voice/video calls bring sophistication to social engineering.
4. Deepfake Financial Fraud: AI creates deepfake executives for high-value money transfers. For example, reports have indicated crore-level fund loss cases in India.
5. AI-powered Autonomous Attack Chains: Advanced AI models are able to automatically perform multiple malicious stages like privilege escalation, lateral movement, data exfiltration, and data extraction.
6. Cascading failures of interconnected systems: A single AI-supported security breach can have catastrophic domino effects on connected digital systems and critical infrastructures.

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Why are MSMEs a target?

CERT-In’s warning is specifically targeted toward the weakness of the Indian MSMEs. Contributing almost 30% to India's GDP and employing over 110 million individuals, most MSMEs have failed to adequately prepare themselves against contemporary cyber threats. While a large corporation would have a full-time cybersecurity team, a security operation centre, and frequent vulnerability assessments, the majority of MSMEs lack such infrastructure due to budget constraints, out-of-date software, etc. This lack of security has proved to be quite disadvantageous for smaller businesses, as India was identified as one of the top global targets for cyberattacks, where approximately 46% of the total breaches worldwide targeted organizations having fewer than 1000 employees. The advisory claims that frontier AI systems have significantly increased the threats, for the skills necessary to carry out advanced cyberattacks have dramatically decreased. Ransomware, phishing and data exfiltration can be executed by even unsophisticated attackers. The aftermath could result in critical financial, operational, and compliance impact on these MSMEs.

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The Global Context

These developments seem to validate CERT-In's warning about threats posed by frontier AI. In its 2026 State of Cybersecurity Report, ISACA listed AI-related threats as the top concern of cybersecurity professionals; 61% of those surveyed reported generative AI/large language models as the top technology trend impacting cyber risk. Worryingly, in 2026 only 7% were confident in their organizations' defenses against ransomware. Check Point Software's Cyber Security Report 2026 corroborates this; in 2025 the report stated that in a single year, the trend of combined social engineering-based campaigns with automated operational execution has risen considerably. In all phases of the lifecycle of a cyberattack reconnaissance, social engineering, and tactical decision-making AI is being applied. KPMG is warning of deepfake-enabled fraud now "spreading at a faster rate than that experienced at the beginning of the phishing era, which is currently still the leading type of attack in the world."

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CERT-In Recommendations

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For Large Organisations:

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1. The use of security monitoring, threat detection, and log analysis should be increased.
2. DDoS protection systems and multi-factor authentication (MFA) should be implemented on all internet-facing devices and assets.
3. Critical security patches should be installed within 24 hours of release.
4. Old VPN and remote-access infrastructure should be updated or replaced.
5. AI-driven cyber drills and incident response simulations should be regularly performed.

‍For MSMEs:

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1. Software and security updates should be automatically enabled on all devices and systems.
2. MFA should be enabled on organisational accounts and sensitive platforms.
3. MSMEs should utilize MSSPs for specialized support and monitoring.
4. Detailed inventories of IT assets and system logs should be kept for fast incident response.
5. Staff should be educated about identifying AI-generated phishing, deepfakes, and scams.

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For Individuals:

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• Independent communication channels should be used to verify any dubious message or money request.
• Software from unverified sources or unauthorised channels should not be downloaded.
• The use of strong and unique passwords along with MFA wherever possible should be enforced.

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From Advisory to Action

The May 2026 cybersecurity road map released by CERT-In signals a departure from identification of threats to enabling operations against frontier AI-led cyber threat landscapes. This initiative builds on their April advice and delineates a clearly articulated three-phase roadmap comprising immediate cyber readiness, AI governance controls, and deep integration of AI-driven defenses. It also provides for the establishment of a focused AI Cyber Defense Center and various multisector governance provisions. A prominent area is the increased threat of impersonation via deepfakes, and companies are encouraged to institute executive verification procedures prior to approving high-value transactions. The framework also emphasizes the establishment of an AI asset register requiring formal accounting and governance of all AI systems utilized in an enterprise. Meanwhile, CERT-In also recognizes the twin-use nature of frontier AI: for every threat, the same technology can bolster security with automated threat detection, phishing, and log analysis in real time.  However, the deployment of state-of-the-art defenses is uneven, especially with MSMEs, where there isn’t the requisite domain expertise and funding for this infrastructure. Accordingly, the road map puts the emphasis on immediate and stronger cyber hygiene, compulsory incident reporting, enhancing AI literacy, and proper implementation of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act for long-term security investment and resilience.

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Conclusion

The CERT-In advisory CIAD-2026-0020 signifies a vital acknowledgment of AI's transformational impact on the cybersecurity ecosystem. Capabilities formerly exclusive to elite state actors are being deployed by low-skilled users, leveraging state-of-the-art frontier AI tools. India’s MSMEs, enterprises, and digital citizens are experiencing a rapidly accelerating threat milieu. In this context, the CERT-In advisory and the ensuing blueprint can no longer be dismissed as ordinary government pronouncements but as critical operational imperatives. It is the country’s ability over the next few years to shore up its collective cyber resilience to the ever-increasing scale and sophistication of AI-powered attacks that will prove crucial.

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References:

1. https://www.cert-in.org.in/s2cMainServlet?pageid=PUBVLNOTES02&VLCODE=CIAD-2026-0020
2. https://www.zeebiz.com/technology/news-cert-in-flags-high-severity-ai-cyber-risks-amid-claude-mythos-concerns-394448
3. https://www.business-standard.com/technology/tech-news/cert-in-warning-ai-scams-frontier-models-mythos-gpt-5-5-what-it-means-126042800988_1.html
4. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251020612551/en/
5. https://corporate.indiamart.com/2025/07/29/staying-ahead-of-cyber-threats/
6. https://kpmg.com/kpmg-us/content/dam/kpmg/pdf/2025/deepfakes-real-threat.pdf

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Introduction

In India, the rights of children with regard to protection of their personal data are enshrined under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 which is the newly enacted digital personal data protection law of India. The DPDP Act requires that for the processing of children's personal data, verifiable consent of parents or legal guardians is a necessary requirement. If the consent of parents or legal guardians is not obtained then it constitutes a violation under the DPDP Act. Under section 2(f) of the DPDP act, a “child” means an individual who has not completed the age of eighteen years. 

Section 9 under the DPDP Act, 2023

With reference to the collection of children's data section 9 of the DPDP Act, 2023 provides that for children below 18 years of age, consent from Parents/Legal Guardians is required. The Data Fiduciary shall, before processing any personal data of a child or a person with a disability who has a lawful guardian, obtain verifiable consent from the parent or the lawful guardian. Section 9 aims to create a safer online environment for children by limiting the exploitation of their data for commercial purposes or otherwise. By virtue of this section, the parents and guardians will have more control over their children's data and privacy and they are empowered to make choices as to how they manage their children's online activities and the permissions they grant to various online services. 

Section 9 sub-section (3) specifies that a Data Fiduciary shall not undertake tracking or behavioural monitoring of children or targeted advertising directed at children. However, section 9 sub-section (5) further provides room for exemption from this prohibition by empowering the Central Government which may notify exemption to specific data fiduciaries or data processors from the behavioural tracking or target advertising prohibition under the future DPDP Rules which are yet to be announced or released. 

Impact on social media platforms

Social media companies are raising concerns about Section 9 of the DPDP Act and upcoming Rules for the DPDP Act. Section 9 prohibits behavioural tracking or targeted advertising directed at children on digital platforms. By prohibiting intermediaries from tracking a ‘child's internet activities’ and ‘targeted advertising’ - this law aims to preserve children's privacy. However, social media corporations contended that this limitation adversely affects the efficacy of safety measures intended to safeguard young users, highlighting the necessity of monitoring specific user signals, including from minors, to guarantee the efficacy of safety measures designed for them.

Social media companies assert that tracking teenagers' behaviour is essential for safeguarding them from predators and harmful interactions. They believe that a complete ban on behavioural tracking is counterproductive to the government's objectives of protecting children. The scope to grant exemption leaves the door open for further advocacy on this issue. Hence it necessitates coordination with the concerned ministry and relevant stakeholders to find a balanced approach that maintains both privacy and safety for young users.

Furthermore, the impact on social media platforms also extends to the user experience and the operational costs required to implement the functioning of the changes created by regulations. This also involves significant changes to their algorithms and data-handling processes. Implementing robust age verification systems to identify young users and protect their data will also be a technically challenging step for the various scales of platforms. Ensuring that children’s data is not used for targeted advertising or behavioural monitoring also requires sophisticated data management systems. The blanket ban on targeted advertising and behavioural tracking may also affect the personalisation of content for young users, which may reduce their engagement with the platform.

For globally operating platforms, aligning their practices with the DPDP Act in India while also complying with data protection laws in other countries (such as GDPR in Europe or COPPA in the US) can be complex and resource-intensive. Platforms might choose to implement uniform global policies for simplicity, which could impact their operations in regions not governed by similar laws. On the same page, competitive dynamics such as market shifts where smaller or niche platforms that cater specifically to children and comply with these regulations may gain a competitive edge. There may be a drive towards developing new, compliant ways of monetizing user interactions that do not rely on behavioural tracking.

CyberPeace Policy Recommendations

A balanced strategy should be taken into account which gives weightage to the contentions of social media companies as well as to the protection of children's personal information. Instead of a blanket ban, platforms can be obliged to follow and encourage openness in advertising practices, ensuring that children are not exposed to any misleading or manipulative marketing techniques. Self-regulation techniques can be implemented to support ethical behaviour, responsibility, and the safety of young users’ online personal information through the platform’s practices. Additionally, verifiable consent should be examined and put forward in a manner which is practical and the platforms have a say in designing the said verification. Ultimately, this should be dealt with in a manner that behavioural tracking and targeted advertising are not affecting the children's well-being, safety and data protection in any way. 

Final Words

Under section 9 of the DPDP Act, the prohibition of behavioural tracking and targeted advertising in case of processing children's personal data - will compel social media platforms to overhaul their data collection and advertising practices, ensuring compliance with stricter privacy regulations. The legislative intent behind this provision is to enhance and strengthen the protection of children's digital personal data security and privacy. As children are particularly vulnerable to digital threats due to their still-evolving maturity and cognitive capacities, the protection of their privacy stands as a priority. The innocence of children is a major cause for concern when it comes to digital access because children simply do not possess the discernment and caution required to be able to navigate the Internet safely. Furthermore, a balanced approach needs to be adopted which maintains both ‘privacy’ and ‘safety’ for young users.

References

• https://www.meity.gov.in/writereaddata/files/Digital%20Personal%20Data%20Protection%20Act%202023.pdf 
• https://www.firstpost.com/tech/as-govt-of-india-starts-preparing-rules-for-dpdp-act-social-media-platforms-worried-13789134.html#google_vignette
• https://www.business-standard.com/industry/news/social-media-platforms-worry-new-data-law-could-affect-child-safety-ads-124070400673_1.html

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