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Introduction

Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology released draft plans for advancing indigenous research and development in cyber forensics, quantum computing technologies, mobile security, cryptography, and Internet of Things (IoT) security. These roadmaps, crafted by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, outline strategic approaches to address various challenges over different timeframes leading up to 2047, marking the centenary of Indian independence. These roadmaps provide valuable insights into the nation's commitment to achieving technical autonomy and bolstering resilience in critical areas of cybersecurity and emerging technologies.

Cybersecurity Roadmap

The cybersecurity strategy serves as a lighthouse for strengthening India's digital defenses. With an eye on the immediate future, the plan seeks to create "Social Media Analytics" by 2026, reflecting the rising relevance of extracting insights from the immense ocean of social media data. Furthermore, the emphasis on "Dark Web Forensics" by 2030 demonstrates an understanding of the shifting danger scenario. Ongoing attempts to detect child abuse and human trafficking reflect a dedication to using technology to address social concerns. The timescale beyond 2047 underscores the lasting nature of these difficulties and the necessity for ongoing innovation. Furthermore, the roadmap highlights plans for GPS and car forensics by 2027 and 2029, respectively, demonstrating a comprehensive approach to cybersecurity that spans numerous technologies.

India's quantum computing strategy outlines considerable research and development plans till 2034. Quantum computing represents the boundary of processing power, and India intends to make major progress in this area. The extended time scale reflects the inherent complexity and limitations of applying quantum physics to practical applications.

The Mobile Security Roadmap prioritises "enterprise-grade" security measures to protect critical business and government data. Furthermore, the plan emphasises the importance of an "indigenous system for secure [operating systems] and mobile device hardware," allowing India to lessen its reliance on foreign technology in the mobile ecosystem.

Cryptography Roadmap

Cryptography is the foundation of secure digital communication, and India's strategy for this sector outlines specific and time-bound objectives. The focus on 'asymmetric cryptography' and safeguarding IoT devices by 2028-33 is consistent with worldwide initiatives to improve digital security. The emphasis on "quantum-resistant cryptography," which indicates a forward-thinking approach to encryption technologies that may endure the arrival of quantum computing, which poses a possible danger to current cryptographic systems, is particularly noteworthy.

Challenges and opportunities

While these roadmaps set a visionary route for India's technologically advanced future, such ambitious undertakings bring both problems and possibilities. The intricacy of quantum computing, as well as the ever-changing nature of cyber threats, needs ongoing adaptation and engagement with the international academic community. Furthermore, establishing self-sufficiency in vital technologies necessitates significant research, development, and talent acquisition investments.

Collaboration and Global Perspectives

In an interconnected society, the success of these roadmaps is dependent on collaboration with the global community. The sharing of information, best practices, and joint research efforts can help India advance and strengthen its capacities in these transformational technologies. Building strong international collaborations would not only boost India's position but also help to progress science and technology throughout the world.

Conclusion

India's proposed roadmaps for cybersecurity, quantum computing, mobile security, encryption, and IoT security offer a strategic and forward-thinking outlook on the country's technological future. These roadmaps, which continue well beyond 2047, the centennial of Indian independence, demonstrate India's commitment to long-term resilience and innovation in the face of growing digital problems. The effective implementation of these roadmaps would safeguard India's digital environment and position the country as a worldwide leader in cutting-edge technology, helping to improve society and expand human understanding.

Reference: 

• https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/it-ministry-issues-draft-roadmaps-on-critical-technology-sectors/article67759369.ece 

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I. The Principles Laid Down

In addition to commemorating twenty years of an unexpected alliance, the leaders of eleven countries gathered in Bharat Mandapam this September for the 18th BRICS Summit in an effort to codify a worldview. The 140-point New Delhi Declaration, which was unanimously adopted on September 12, 2026, with the theme "Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability," is based on a few enduring principles: respect for one another, sovereign equality, solidarity, democracy, openness, inclusivity, cooperation, and consensus.

Although these terms are not new to the BRICS lexicon, their emphasis this year felt very deliberate. Through the BRICS Leaders' Statement on the Global Governance of Artificial Intelligence, the Declaration formally incorporated artificial intelligence into its agenda, pushed for fair geographic representation in the UN Secretariat and other multilateral organisations, and demanded a realignment of shareholding at international financial institutions to address the historical under-representation of the Global South. It called for compatible international standards on supply-chain security and addressed ICT security, cybercrime, data protection, and the growing threat of deepfakes and disinformation. Leaders highlighted the condemnation of terrorism, particularly the Pahalgam incident, as a collective zero-tolerance position. Taken together, these are not merely diplomatic courtesies,  they are the scaffolding of an alternative vision for how a multipolar world might govern itself.

II. The Conversation That Followed

No declaration of this scale escapes scrutiny, and the days following the summit produced a spirited, occasionally sceptical, conversation among policy circles, economists and diplomats. Commentators were quick to note what the Declaration deliberately avoided: it named no country on the more combustible geopolitical fault lines, choosing studied ambiguity over confrontation, even as it acknowledged simmering tensions in West Asia. This restraint was itself read as a signal, that a bloc as internally diverse as Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the UAE can only move forward on the strength of what unites it, not what divides it.

Analysts also debated the substance behind the rhetoric of de-dollarisation and financial reform, questioning whether a bloc still negotiating its own internal consensus on trade and currency mechanisms could realistically reshape institutions built over eight decades. Others, more sympathetic to the Global South's grievances, argued that the very act of convening over four hundred meetings across thirty Indian cities,  bringing together ministers, parliamentarians, technocrats, businesses and citizens,  was itself a form of institution-building, patient and unglamorous, but far more durable than a single communiqué. The debate, in essence, was not about whether BRICS had said the right things, but whether saying them, repeatedly and jointly, could eventually translate into structural change.

III. India's Outlook

For India, the Summit was less an isolated diplomatic event than the culmination of a year-long chairship built around a deliberate proposition: that representation without capacity is hollow, and that political voice must be matched by economic and institutional readiness. This is the thread that ran through India's engagement, from its insistence on resilient and diversified supply chains, to its championing of the Global South's right to a genuine seat at the table, not merely a symbolic one.

India used the platform to advance an agenda that was pragmatic rather than purely aspirational,  referencing its own hosting of the AI Impact Summit earlier in the year, pushing for common standards on cybersecurity and data governance, and positioning itself as a credible bridge between the ambitions of emerging economies and the operational discipline needed to realise them. The message India sent, deliberately or otherwise, was one of quiet confidence: that a nation navigating its own extraordinary digital transformation,  from public digital infrastructure to an expanding AI ecosystem  has both the standing and the responsibility to help shape the norms that will govern technology, trade and trust for the rest of the developing world.

IV. The Message and the Road Ahead

The abiding message of the New Delhi Declaration, stripped of its diplomatic phrasing, is this: the architecture of global governance was built for a world that no longer exists, and the countries most affected by that mismatch intend to keep saying so, together, and increasingly, on their own terms. Whether that translates into reformed institutions or remains an evolving conversation will depend on follow-through, not further declarations.

Speaking to the significance of this moment, Major Vineet Kumar, Founder and Global President of CyberPeace, observed that "India today sits at the forefront of a generational shift, not just in economic growth, but in shaping the digital trust and cyber-resilience frameworks that the rest of the Global South will look to for years to come." It is a fitting note to close on, because the road ahead for BRICS, and for India within it, will likely be won or lost not in the language of declarations, but in the quieter work of building institutions, standards and trust that outlast any single summit.

If the last two decades of BRICS were about proving that such a coalition could exist at all, the next chapter, anchored, for now, by India's own trajectory,  will be about proving that it can build something durable: resilient supply chains, credible AI governance, safer digital ecosystems, and institutions genuinely reflective of a multipolar world. The principles have been laid down. What follows will define whether they were a moment, or a movement.


References

- Prime Minister of India, Government of India. BRICS New Delhi Declaration: Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability (September 12, 2026). pmindia.gov.in
- Forbes India. BRICS Summit 2026: 11 Key Takeaways From the New Delhi Declaration. forbesindia.com
- The Statesman. BRICS Summit 2026: Here is what the New Delhi Declaration says. thestatesman.com
- Tribune India. India to host BRICS Summit in 2026; forum collectively condemns Pahalgam terror attack, calls for zero tolerance: Om Birla.tribuneindia.com
- ummid.com News Network. BRICS Declaration 2026: Full Text.* ummid.com
- PIB India (Press Information Bureau, via Substack). BRICS 2026: From Representation to Partnership. pibindia.substack.com
- BRICS Expert Council (Russia). Kumar, Vineet. CyberPeace, BRICS, and a New Framework for Digital Trust. bricscouncil.ru

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Introduction

Devices and interconnectivity are the pipelines which drive the data into cyberspace, and in turn, the users consume this data to perform different tasks in the digital age. The security of devices and networks is essential as they are the first defenders of cyberspace. Bad actors often target systems and networks with malware and ransomware, these attacks are differently motivated, but all wreak havoc upon the system and can impact individuals and organisations alike. Mobile users worldwide prefer iOS or Android, but both operating systems are vulnerable to cyberattacks these days. Some of these attacks go undetected for a long time.

Op Triangulation

As reported by Kaspersky, While monitoring the network traffic of their own corporate Wi-Fi network dedicated to mobile devices using the Kaspersky Unified Monitoring and Analysis Platform (KUMA), Kaspersky noticed suspicious activity that originated from several iOS-based phones. Since it is impossible to inspect modern iOS devices from the inside, they created offline backups of the devices in question, inspected them using the Mobile Verification Toolkit’s mvt-ios and discovered traces of compromise. This is known as Operation Triangulation and has been in action since 2019 and got detected in 2023.

The Malware

A portion of the filesystem, including some of the user data and service databases, is included in mobile device backups. The files, directories, and database entries’ timestamps make it possible to reconstruct the events that happened to the device roughly. The “timeline.csv” file created by the mvt-ios software contains a sorted timeline of events that is comparable to the super-timeline utilised by traditional digital forensic tools. Pinpointing particular artefacts that show the compromise using this timeframe. This made it possible to advance the research and reassemble the broad infection sequence:

Through the iMessage service, a message with an attachment containing an exploit is delivered to the target iOS device.

The message initiates a vulnerability that results in code execution without any user input.

The exploit’s code downloads multiple additional stages, including additional exploits for privilege escalation, from the C&C server.

After successful exploitation, a fully functional APT platform is downloaded as the final payload from the C&C server.

The first message and the attachment’s exploit are removed

The lack of persistence support in the harmful toolset is most likely a result of OS restrictions. Multiple devices’ timeframes suggest that after rebooting, they might get infected again. The earliest signs of infection that we found date to 2019. The most recent version of the devices that have been successfully attacked as of the time of writing in June 2023 is iOS 15.7.

The final payload analysis is still ongoing. The programme executes with root rights, implements a set of commands for gathering user and system data, and can run any code downloaded as plugin modules from the C&C server.

Malicious Domains

Using the forensic artefacts, it was possible to identify the domain name set used by the exploits and further malicious stages. They can be used to check the DNS logs for historical information and to identify the devices currently running the malware:

addatamarket[.]net

backuprabbit[.]com

businessvideonews[.]com

cloudsponcer[.]com

datamarketplace[.]net

mobilegamerstats[.]com

snoweeanalytics[.]com

tagclick-cdn[.]com

topographyupdates[.]com

unlimitedteacup[.]com

virtuallaughing[.]com

web-trackers[.]com

growthtransport[.]com

anstv[.]netAns7tv[.]net

Safeguards for iOS users

Despite its world-class safety and privacy architecture, iOS is vulnerable to a few attacks; the following steps can be undertaken to safeguard iOS users –

Keeping Device updated

Security patches

Disabling iMessage would prevent Zero clicks exploits or the Triangulation attacks

Paying zero attention to unwanted, unsolicited messages

The user should make sure that any application they are downloading or installing; it should be from a trusted source ( This Zero click attack does not occur by any other means, It exploits / it targets software vulnerabilities in operating systems networks and applications)

Being cautious with the messaging app and emails

Implement device restrictions (management features like parental control and restrictions over using necessary applications)

Conclusion

Operation Triangulation is one of the recent operations combating cyber attacks, but such operations are launched nearly daily. This is also due to a rapid rise in internet and technology penetration across the world. Cyberattacks have taken a new face as they have evolved with the new and emerging technology. The influence of the Darknet has allowed many hackers to remain on the black hat side due to easy accessibility to illegal tools and material over the dark net, which facilitates such crimes.