India leads many nations in tackling cyber threats, says top Google executive

Time of India

18-06-2025

Google Security's Heather Adkins highlights India's proactive approach to cybersecurity, surpassing many nations in building cyber resilience through government partnership and a skilled workforce. Google Security is establishing an engineering center in India to leverage local talent and enhance cyber safety measures.
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India is emerging as a global front-runner in cybersecurity, outpacing many countries in its proactive efforts to address digital threats, according to Heather Adkins, global VP of engineering for Google Security.Speaking on the sidelines of the Safer with Google India Summit, Adkins stressed that India's government has taken a lead in building cyber resilience . 'They've done a very good job in getting involved quickly and partnering with companies. The workforce here and education levels in India are pretty high. There are parts of the world I go where they're just now starting to think about cyber security and they're much further behind India,' she said.Adkins, who has spent over 20 years at Google, pointed to India's readiness to tackle evolving cyber threats even as geopolitical tensions risk escalating state-sponsored attacks globally. 'It's a hot topic,' she said, referring to the Indian government's engagement on cyber safety To strengthen its role in this ecosystem, Google Security is setting up an engineering centre in India, leveraging the country's skilled talent pool to enhance cyber safety measures.Adkins underlined the dual nature of generative AI (Gen AI) in cybersecurity. While it enables cybercriminals to increase the speed and complexity of attacks, it also arms defenders with tools to outpace adversaries.'There's no doubt that we're seeing an increase in tempo and sophistication of attacks... But I also feel that today, more than ever before, enterprises have better tools,' she said. 'If I think about starting a company 23 years ago, cybersecurity looked primitive then. Today, most of the solutions you're going to buy have security built into them. So, you're in a much better place than you were, say, 20–30 years ago.'She added that Gen AI will give cybersecurity teams an edge. 'We will be able to leverage Gen AI to protect infrastructure in new ways that we've never thought of before and also at a speed that we've never been able to achieve before.'Adkins also flagged the growing threat of state-backed cyber operations. 'It's a question of who has more time. And, if you think about a well-funded nation state, maybe they'll create a project, put 100 people on it, and they just work on that project throughout the day… So, they often know more because they have more time, not because they're smarter. I would say they're more likely to be successful.'While tech companies are developing robust defences, Adkins said user awareness remains equally critical. 'Unlike the physical world where you have instincts and senses to identify something dangerous, the online world does not have a parallel. We have to build that,' she said, emphasising the need to educate users in identifying malicious and fraudulent content.