The intersection of cybersecurity and AI has two aspects: Leveraging AI-based solutions for enhanced cybersecurity, and enhancing the security of solutions based on AI. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are being heavily deployed for boosting the security of data and networks as these emerging technologies can help with identifying new areas of vulnerabilities, develop methods to adapt and react to attacks, glean insights from cyberattacks and adapt them for use across other systems and networks. But the nascent nature of AI technology can also lead to security risks, because of algorithmic inexplicability and heavy dependence on data. Therefore, further R&D into AI-based technologies and products is a major focus area for Indian scientists and researchers.  

Here are ten prominent initiatives by top Indian universities that are converging their research efforts in cyber security and Artificial Intelligence.

• Indian Institute of Technology Madras: The Secure Critical Systems Laboratory (SCSL) is an initiative to carry out information security research at IIT-M. A major research area for the lab is 'Learning Algorithms and Security' wherein they plan to use AI/ML to discover vulnerabilities in software as early as the design phase itself. Another aspect of focus is on the security of ML and AI algorithms.
• Indian Institute of Science: The Security Research Group at IISc Bangalore comprises faculty, students and staff who share interests in various aspects of computer security, privacy and cryptography. The diversity of the group's interests is reflected in the range of research areas being investigated through a number of labs, such as the 'Cryptography and Information Security' lab and the 'Distributed Research on Emerging Applications and Machines' lab. IISc also serves as the anchor institution of the Karnataka State Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Cyber Security.
• Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi: Cybersecurity Education and Research Centre (CERC) at IIIT-D aims to build capacity and increase awareness of cybersecurity issues. A prominent research area is to build scalable systems to detect and defend security and privacy issues on online social media. Their work derives techniques from Data Mining, Text Mining, Statistics, Network Science, Information Retrieval, Machine Learning and Complex networks.
• Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur: The National Interdisciplinary Centre for Cyber Security and Cyber Defence of Critical Infrastructures, also known as the C3i Centre, aims at developing and deploying technological safeguards to protect critical infrastructures. Established in 2017, the mission of C3i Centre is research, education, and training in the field of critical infrastructure protection and vulnerability studies. A major objective is the design and development of ML algorithms for detecting on-going cyber attacks and advanced persistent threats on power systems.
• Indian Institute of Technology Bombay: The Information Security Research & Development Centre (ISRDC) at IIT-B is one of the four information security research centres spread across India. It has a strong research team that does R&D in a wide range of topics in information security and privacy. The expertise developed through research at the centre are disseminated through consultancy and joint projects.
• Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati: IIT-G is one of the four R&D centres under the Information Security Education and Awareness (ISEA) project of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). A team of researchers from IIT-G, in collaboration with scientists from the University of Pardubice, Czech Republic, has recently achieved breakthroughs in developing indigenous algorithms to protect digital data from cyber attacks. The research work has received third prize in the Best Student Paper Category by IEEE Czechoslovakia Section.
• Indian Institute of Technology Delhi: The Centre of Excellence in Cyber Systems and Information Assurance (CSIA) at IIT-D conducts basic and applied research in the area of Cyber Systems and Information Assurance. Additionally, CSIA’s focus is on raising awareness and providing training on these topics. They also train professionals in India through degree, non-degree and public education programs.
• Punjab Engineering College: The Cyber Security Research Centre (CSRC) at PEC Chandigarh has been established in collaboration with NASSCOM. The focus is to conduct applied Research & Development on cyber threats and countermeasures, secure multi-level information sharing, resilient command and control network architectures, social media and data analytics.
• Defence Institute of Advanced Technology: DIAT has been etablished by the Ministry of Defence to carry out education, training and research in advanced technologies with a view to strengthen national security. The Computer Science and Engineering department carries out research on cyber security through advanced technologies such as cryptography and digital forensic techniques.
• Vellore Institute of Technology Bhopal: The Cyber Security & Digital Forensics Division at VIT Bhopal houses an active teams of learners and experts that engage in research on topics such as cyber crime, data privacy, Machine Learning forensics, IoT security etc., apart from offering degree programs for producing cyber security professionals.

Also Read | The relevance of AI in cyber security

Image from Ecole polytechnique, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons