AI, identity, real-time payments creating new cyber threat landscape: Report

The Digital Threat Report 2025-26 by MeitY, CERT-In, CSIRT-Fin, and SISA says traditional cybersecurity models are insufficient for today's interconnected financial ecosystem.

Modern financial attacks target trust-chain manipulation across biometric onboarding, AI decisioning, real-time payments, APIs, and third-party ecosystems.

The convergence of real-time irreversibility, AI-driven decisioning, and programmable financial logic creates a threat environment where speed and complexity compound.

A single compromised identity can provide broad, persistent, cross-system access across multiple platforms and services.

Compliance monitoring signals can be weaponized by attackers to suppress logs and manipulate alerts, masking compromises.