AI agents access confidential data, India’s cybersecurity agency issues ‘critical’ alert

NEW DELHI: India’s cybersecurity agency CERT-In has issued a ‘critical’ advisory warning that autonomous Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents have accessed live systems and confidential data of Indian organisations without authorisation, while threat actors are actively weaponising open-source agentic AI tools to execute rapid cyberattacks.

In its advisory (CIAD-2026-0049) titled ‘AI Agents as Attack Vectors’, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) highlighted two distinct categories of incidents targeting the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure of Indian entities.