Cybersecurity Legal Framework: Vaishnaw

New Delhi, Feb 20 (PTI) The government is mulling creating a legal framework to address cybersecurity challenges and opportunities, Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Friday.

While unveiling the AI and Cyber Threat Research Center at India AI Summit 2026, set up by Bharti Airtel and cloud security firm Zscaler AI, the minister said all IT and telecom companies should seriously consider handling new forms of cybersecurity challenges.

"We also have to create a new legal framework for cybersecurity with all these challenges that we are facing today and the new opportunities that we have. The time has come when we, as a government and industry, need to align together to handle these threats," the minister said.

During the launch, Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said that it is a multi-stakeholder centre and part of the corporate social responsibility of Airtel and Zscaler.

"This is not a commercial venture. But Zscaler and Airtel are committed to funding this whole initiative to kick off. I'm sure more and more people will join. We have already received interest from many other enterprises in our country. It's more in the area of philanthropy or CSR that we do from Airtel's side and Zscaler from their side," he noted.


Zscaler CEO, Chairman and founder Jay Chaudhry said the centre will focus on protecting the critical infrastructure in the country.

He said that the centre has observed most of the threats emerging from Pakistan.

"So, when you think about threats that are targeted at India, it's very easy to guess where they're coming from. My number one source has been Pakistan. Especially, when Operation Sindoor happened, there were tonnes of activities that were picked up," Chaudhry said.

Some of the attacks included creating fake documents for rehearsal of blackouts during the war, he added.

"People may want to read it. As soon as you click on it, the malware comes down and infects your PC. The other activity you saw was where they would advertise specific jobs and send them to people. We saw about 1.2 million brute force attempts trying to break into passwords to get into people's accounts," Chaudhry said. PTI PRS BAL

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