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The National Cyber Emergency Response Team (nCERT) has issued another critical cybersecurity advisory urging heightened vigilance across all sectors amid escalating geopolitical tensions. The advisory outlines immediate actions required to defend against sophisticated cyber threats targeting national infrastructure.
Titled “Cyber Vigilance Required in the Wake of Rising Geopolitical/Regional Unrest,” the NCERT cybersecurity advisory warns that sensitive sectors including government agencies, defense, finance, media, and critical services are now prime targets for cyberattacks. Threat actors, ranging from state-sponsored groups to cybercriminals and hacktivists, are expected to exploit the current regional instability.
The NCERT advisory highlights a variety of evolving tactics such as spear-phishing, ransomware attacks, advanced malware deployment, deepfakes, and supply chain compromises. Attackers may also attempt Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks to disrupt public services and spread disinformation through fake news and synthetic media.
NCERT Recommends Urgent Action
To mitigate these risks, the NCERT cybersecurity advisory recommends urgent actions including the enforcement of multi-factor authentication, disabling SMS-only authentication, patching critical systems, securing endpoints, and employing encrypted communications. Organizations are also advised to enhance monitoring through deep packet inspection (DPI) and SIEM solutions to detect anomalies in real time.
The advisory further emphasizes updating incident response plans, maintaining offline backups, and conducting regular tabletop exercises simulating cyberattack scenarios. Comprehensive cybersecurity awareness campaigns are also recommended to help staff recognize phishing, fake news, and disinformation attacks.
This is the second such cybersecurity advisory issued by NCERT within a span of days. The previous advisory specifically highlighted cyber threats linked to India, warning that hostile digital campaigns could target Pakistan’s critical infrastructure and key economic sectors amid rising regional tensions.
In a related development, Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif warned that credible intelligence reports indicate an imminent military threat from India. Asif emphasized that while Pakistan prefers peace, it is fully prepared to respond decisively to any act of aggression, whether through conventional or digital means.
Analysts now fear that the ongoing Pakistan-India conflict has already escalated beyond physical borders and is increasingly being fought in the digital realm, posing serious challenges for regional stability.
