AI A Big Threat, Could Bypass Biometric Security In 2025: Data Security Council Of India

We may think that biometric authentication protects us from threat actors, malware attacks and other cybersecurity threats, but in 2025, attackers will be able to bypass users' biometric security using AI to exploit their data, according to the Data Security Council of India (DSCI), set up by Nasscom.

"AI A Serious Threat To Biometric Security"

"There are a lot of institutions that use biometrics, and it is also used by many different applications for authentication. There's a lot of advancement in artificial intelligence (AI). Therefore, we think it may be capable of posing serious threats or challenges to biometric security in 2025," Vinayak Godse, CEO, Data Security Council of India, told Acko Byte on the sidelines of releasing the India Cyber Threat Report 2025.

"There are a lot of threats we predict in the coming year. Especially for apps if they are voice-based or video-based. A lot of threat actors will be active there," Godse added.

For context, biometric authentication makes use of individuals' unique biological traits such as retinas, fingerprints, voices, and facial features to verify their identity.

Consumer And Enterprise Android Smartphones At Risk

Asked if DSCI's prediction for 2025 for mobile and device threats is for all types of Android handheld devices, Sanjay Katkar, joint MD of QuickHeal, the country's biggest consumer antivirus firm, told Acko Byte: "Advanced mobile malware would be able to affect both enterprise-grade Android devices as well as regular Android smartphones."

Malware Detected Most In India Is Trojans

The India Cyber Threat Report 2025, unveiled by DSCI and Seqrite, Quick Heal’s enterprise security brand, explains the malware sub-categories circulating in India, with Trojans leading at 43.38 per cent of detections, followed by Infectors at 34.23 per cent. 

According to the premier industry body on data protection, Android-based security data reveals a concerning distribution of threats, wherein malware accounted for 42 per cent of all detections, followed by Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUPs) as the second most common threat at 32 per cent. 

Adware, on the other hand, comprised 26 per cent of detections in Android devices. 

This comes at a time when smartphone manufacturers put in a lot of effort to secure their hardware and operating systems (OS) and apps. 

"But they do implement biometric verification, which sophisticated threat actors may be able to bypass in the future," Godse noted.

The India Cyber Threat Report 2025, unveiled at the at the 19th edition of DSCI’s Annual Information Security Summit (AISS) 2024 also contains in-depth analysis of the current cybersecurity landscape in India. 

Pointing at alarming statistics and trends, the report notes that a there were 369 million malware detections across an installation base of 8.44 million in India.

Notably, 85.44 per cent of malware detections relied on signature-based methods, while 14.56 per cent came through behaviour-based detection, highlighting the need for embracing comprehensive security measures.