Microsoft AI and cybersecurity director Nicholas Butts unveiled on Friday that India sits at the top of a global list of high‑risk targets, ranking seventh worldwide and third in Asia.
Butts highlighted a surge in AI‑enhanced threats, citing the Storm 3168 operation—also known as Jadepuffer—which harnesses artificial intelligence to deploy ransomware across the globe.
He pointed to state‑sponsored groups such as Storm 0940, a Russian and Chinese coalition that uses AI agents for espionage, and EvilTokens, a small‑scale operation built with open‑source AI coding tools that has already infiltrated more than 10,000 organisations in 120 countries.
Microsoft’s assessment draws on the company’s daily screening of roughly five billion emails, a data set that reveals the breadth of the attack surface faced by Indian firms.
The warning has spurred a wave of industry‑led calls for stronger cybersecurity protocols and has prompted the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to review its protective frameworks.