Beware of Cyber Threats, Infra Attacks, Disinformation: Nasscom Warns Indian IT Amid War

IT industry trade association Nasscom has issued an advisory to member companies urging heightened vigilance across business continuity and cybersecurity frameworks amid the evolving geopolitical situation in parts of the Middle East.

In its latest guidance, the industry body said companies are proactively reviewing contingency frameworks even as business operations currently remain stable.

Firms with exposure to the region are reviewing and activating business continuity plans to ensure operational continuity and uninterrupted service delivery in the event of potential regional disruptions. Organisations are also prioritising employee safety by enabling work-from-home arrangements for staff located in impacted geographies and closely monitoring developments on the ground.

Companies are additionally evaluating alternative options for cloud infrastructure and data centre routing to strengthen resilience and safeguard critical systems.

Given the Middle East’s role as a major international transit hub, Nasscom said firms are advising employees to limit non-essential travel through the region and explore alternative transit routes where required. At the same time, companies are maintaining close engagement with clients to communicate preparedness measures and ensure continuity of services.

Nasscom also advised organisations to strengthen their cybersecurity posture and treat several measures as immediate priorities.

These include organisation-wide credential resets and accelerated patching of critical vulnerabilities, enforcement of multi-factor authentication across external access channels such as VPN, remote desktop and cloud administration, and the implementation of conditional access controls to counter token theft and adversary-in-the-middle attacks.

Nasscom has also advised companies to assess third-party vendors with exposure to the Middle East to reduce potential supply-chain risks, prepare for possible distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks in coordination with internet service providers and cloud providers, and maintain offline, immutable backups for critical systems, including industrial control systems, core banking, and healthcare platforms.

In addition, Nasscom has urged companies to raise employee awareness around social engineering attacks and disinformation campaigns that may use war-related narratives or fake government alerts.

The industry body said it continues to monitor the evolving situation in the region and remains in regular contact with the Middle East Council while coordinating with relevant authorities wherever possible to assist member company employees who may currently be in the region.