Key Points
- Cybersecurity must shift from reactive response to predictive, AI-driven risk anticipation and resilience
- AI can strengthen government security by detecting anomalies, prioritising threats and accelerating incident response
- Digital resilience should ensure uninterrupted, secure and trusted citizen services despite evolving cyber threats
Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh should move beyond responding to cyber incidents and instead adopt an AI-driven cybersecurity strategy focused on prediction, early threat detection and operational resilience as the state rapidly expands digital public services, according to a senior executive at TrendAI.
Speaking during the Cyber Sashakt Uttar Pradesh conclave in Lucknow, Pavitra Kaushik, Head, State Government, TrendAI, said the state’s cybersecurity priorities over the next two years should centre on improving visibility across government networks and strengthening preparedness before cyber incidents occur.
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“Government organisations can no longer look at cybersecurity only as a response mechanism after an incident has occurred,” Kaushik said while responding to a question on how states can transition from reactive security practices to predictive, AI-enabled cyber resilience.
His remarks come as Uttar Pradesh continues to digitise citizen services across departments including power, healthcare, transport, policing, revenue administration and other public services, increasing the scale and complexity of government digital infrastructure.
According to Kaushik, the rapid expansion of digital governance requires cybersecurity to become an integral part of service delivery rather than a back-end technology function.
“As states like Uttar Pradesh expand digital services across departments, the priority has to move towards early detection, risk anticipation and operational resilience,” he said.
Kaushik said artificial intelligence could help government agencies identify anomalous behaviour across large and distributed IT environments, enabling security teams to detect potential attacks earlier, prioritise risks and accelerate incident response.
Real value of AI in cybersecurity is not only in automation
“The real value of AI in cybersecurity is not only in automation, but in helping institutions predict patterns, reduce response time and protect critical services before disruption happens,” he said.
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He noted that AI-powered security platforms are increasingly capable of analysing vast volumes of network activity in real time, allowing government organisations to identify emerging threats that conventional monitoring systems may miss.
For a state as large as Uttar Pradesh, resilience should be measured not only by an organisation’s ability to recover from cyberattacks but also by its capacity to ensure uninterrupted delivery of essential public services, Kaushik said.
“For a state of Uttar Pradesh’s scale, resilience must mean that citizen services, public infrastructure and government platforms remain trusted, available and secure even in the face of evolving cyber threats,” he added.
Governments worldwide are increasingly exploring AI-assisted cybersecurity tools as ransomware attacks, supply chain compromises and attacks targeting critical infrastructure become more sophisticated. The focus is gradually shifting from perimeter-based security towards continuous monitoring, predictive threat intelligence and cyber resilience frameworks designed to minimise service disruption.
With digital public infrastructure becoming central to governance, Kaushik argued that states will need to combine technology investments with stronger cyber preparedness, skilled personnel and coordinated incident response to safeguard citizen-facing services.