ESET, a global leader in cybersecurity, brought its flagship global conference, ESET Security Days, to India for the first time, held in conjunction with strategic partner, Canon India, on 9 October 2025. With the theme “Building cybersecurity resilience in an AI-everywhere world,” the conference convenes over 150 C-suites, IT decision-makers, and security professionals from large enterprises and the public sector to examine the evolving threat landscape, with a particular focus on the rise of AI-powered cyberattacks. ESET Research recently discovered the first known AI-powered ransomware, dubbed PromptLock*.
India: A Global Hotspot for Cyber Threats
According to ESET Telemetry, the overall volume of threat detections in India decreased by 12% between January and August 2025 compared to the same period last year, suggesting that awareness and early prevention efforts are beginning to take effect. However, ransomware activity continues to evolve rapidly. Ransomware detections in India surged by 70% between the second half of 2024 and the first half of 2025. Phishing remains the most prevalent cyberthreat affecting Indian users, underscoring the ongoing need for vigilance and education around social engineering tactics.
A particularly notable global trend in early 2025 was the rise of HTML/FakeCaptcha scams, which to lure victims into downloading malicious content via fake reCAPTCHA checks to prove they are not robots.
ESET research recorded a more than 500% surge in such detections during the first half of the year. Encouragingly, targeted disruption efforts against LummaStealer — a malware-as-a-service disruption operation in which ESET played an active role — appear to have been effective. The actor behind these FakeCaptcha attacks, potentially an affiliate of LummaStealer, saw its campaigns collapse, leading to an estimated 95% drop in FakeCaptcha detections in the second half of 2025.
Hosting ESET Security Days in India underscores the country’s strategic importance, where accelerating digital transformation, a dynamic enterprise landscape, and the growing scale of cyber threats converge to make resilience both a national and corporate priority.
Parvinder Walia, President of APAC at ESET, said, “We understand the unique challenges that Indian businesses face in today’s fast-evolving cybersecurity landscape, and we are committed to helping them stay protected. At ESET Security Days, our goal was to create a forum where security leaders could exchange practical insights on building resilience in the age of AI-powered threats. What stood out at this year’s event was the urgency from enterprises to embed cybersecurity into the DNA of their operations as a core business priority.”
Speaking on this initiative, Mr. Toshiaki Nomura, President & CEO, Canon India said, “Cybersecurity has become an inseparable part of digital transformation as businesses are increasingly embracing advanced technologies for enhancing efficiency and impact. Our strategic partnership with ESET, empowers us to deliver world-class protection through our portfolio, thereby enabling organisations protect themselves against ransomware, zero-day threats, and other sophisticated cyberattacks. Initiatives like ESET Security Days reflect the spirit of collaboration among technology leaders, underscoring how partnership empowers enterprises to pursue digital transformation with confidence. By joining forces, we reaffirm our commitment to a driving secure and resilient future by placing customer confidence at the heart of every innovation.”
The event also featured demonstrations of ESET’s latest solutions, highlighting how advanced detection and response capabilities can address today’s most pressing threats. Through interactive discussions and Q&A sessions, participants explored critical issues such as supply-chain vulnerabilities, insider risks, and hybrid cloud protection — underscoring the need for integrated cybersecurity strategies that align with the realities of modern enterprises *The PromptLock malware code is a Proof of concept. This discovery means that ransomware will likely become more sophisticated, faster spreading, and harder to detect. Attacks could target not just large organizations but also individuals, small businesses, and even critical infrastructure.
