In the darkened offices of a tech start-up, a handful of computer engineers sifts through a mountain of intelligence data that would normally be the work of a small army of Indian security agents.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWe use artificial intelligence (AI) to look for patterns in the past to predict future behaviour,\u201d says Tarun Wig as he explains why he hopes his company Innefu can do more business with India\u2019s government.<\/p>\n
\u201cCyber warfare isn\u2019t a movie, it\u2019s happening right now…. We lost out on the industrial revolution, we lost out on the defence revolution \u2014 let\u2019s not lose out in the cyber revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n
While other countries have long relied on AI to gather intelligence, India \u2014 sometimes seemingly addicted to paperwork \u2014 has continued to use agents to eyeball reams of data gathered over the years.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a process that sucks up time and can often miss crucial information.<\/p>\n
India has been in three wars with its neighbours since independence and the target of numerous cross-border attacks, including in 2008 when Pakistan-based extremists killed more than 160 people in Mumbai.<\/p>\n
Now the threat from cyber attacks is growing and its vulnerability has been exposed.<\/p>\n
Some 22,000 pages of data related to submarines that a French government-owned company was building for the Indian navy were leaked to the media last year.<\/p>\n
Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi\u2019s Twitter account was hacked in November while the elite National Security Guard\u2019s website was reportedly defaced with profanity-laden messages for Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur idea starting out was that if the next war is fought on cyber, we need our own weapons,\u201d said Wig as he talks through software developed for India\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n
Innefu got a foot in the lucrative business of government contracts after resolving a thorny test case for a law enforcement agency that wanted to determine the background to an incident along one of India\u2019s borders.<\/p>\n
The agency handed over two CDs with about 1,500 intelligence documents, including social media snippets, such as posts on planned protests.<\/p>\n
Innefu had to train the machine to read the agency\u2019s language, including abbreviations, and then began extracting information on what happened, who were the main players and how they interacted with each other.<\/p>\n
Its newest offering Prophecy is modelled on products made by Palantir Technologies, a private security firm whose founders include Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel and whose clientele includes the CIA and the FBI.<\/p>\n
\u201cProphecy is like an octopus with multiple tentacles that pulls data from multiple places,\u201d said Wig\u2019s co-founder Abhishek Sharma.<\/p>\n
While the use of AI is commonplace elsewhere in Asia, it is still in its infancy in India.<\/p>\n
About 75 percent of respondents to a recent survey by consulting firm EY India said cybersecurity deployed in their organisations does not meet their needs, pointing to big opportunities for companies such as Innefu.<\/p>\n
Although Innefu is the only Indian company known to specialise in national security, other Indian companies such as Arya.ai and Haptik are also tapping what should be a lucrative market.<\/p>\n
Banks have started to use AI to target products to customers and doctors are using it in a couple of experiments to map a patient\u2019s medical history in order to devise new lines of treatment.<\/p>\n
Work is also underway to create a system that can act as a backbone for all electronic warfare programmes for the Indian army.<\/p>\n
But most of this is still at the laboratory stage, experts say.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s expensive and our society is not used to automated decision-making,\u201d Jiten Jain, chief of Indian Infosec Consortium, an industry body, told AFP. \u201cWe\u2019re still used to manual and human decision-making.\u201d<\/p>\n
Subimal Bhattacharjee, a cyber security expert, said India had been caught off guard by the need to upscale its use of AI.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are definitely laggards in comparison to China and South Korea and the US,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Innefu operates from the eighth floor of a nondescript Delhi commercial complex that houses chartered accountants and eateries. Its windows are darkened with thick black paper, while clusters of wires sprout from walls adorned with photos of goddess Lakshmi, the purveyor of wealth.<\/p>\n
But despite its humble surroundings, it is confident an ongoing trial of Prophecy will lead to more business with India\u2019s security services \u2014 whom Wig expects to be naturally inclined to go local.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t really trust such sensitive data with foreign companies,\u201d said Wig.\u2014AFP<\/p>\n
Image:\u00a0innefu.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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