In the crucible of the May?2025 India-Pakistan flare?up, sparked by the false-flag Pahalgam attack and punctuated by so-called Operation Sindoor, the thunder of guns has faded after the successful execution of Operation Bunyan-um-Marsoos. Yet, a parallel battle raged unseen in the digital realm. Hidden from the eyes of the citizens, Pakistan’s hybrid cyber campaign transformed fibre-optic veins into front lines, representing what some observers called the “first drone war” and a new era of digital conflict between nuclear-armed neighbours. This incident wasn’t a sideshow; it was a blueprint for tomorrow’s conflicts, where keystrokes can wreak more havoc than missiles.
Reportedly, almost 1.5 million intrusion attempts targeted Indian military, government, and infrastructure networks, and yet these volleys did little more than chip away at their defences. But even a temporary degradation of critical infrastructure and services being used by the Indian Armed Forces would have caused havoc and panic on an unparalleled scale.
Pakistani cyber-warriors unleashed waves of password sprays, SQL injections, and phishing lures. Despite the temporary degradation of critical infrastructure, hardened firewalls and intrusion prevention systems deflected most of the attacks. Cyber-warriors focused on exploiting NetBIOS and NTP reflection; attackers briefly blacked out BSNL portals for up to thirty minutes. These digital tsunamis, consisting of thousands of forged packets converging on a target, tested India’s elastic cloud defences for the first time in a warlike situation.
Graffiti has always shaped public perception of city walls; online, and website defacements play that role. Cyber teams plastered municipal and educational sites with triumphalist banners. While no systems collapsed, doubt began to creep in, serving as a powerful reminder that morale is crucial in times of war. This effort was coupled with over 5,000 reports spread across social media, highlighting power?grid failures to banking breakdowns, sowing confusion faster than any worm.
Pakistani cyber-warriors unleashed waves of password sprays, SQL injections, and phishing lures.
Pakistan’s cyber brigades rolled out a trio of digital weapons that underscored their strategic ingenuity. The “Dance of?Hillary” backdoor quietly infiltrated critical networks, tapping into select endpoints before slipping away to pave the way for follow?on operations. The “Calls from Military” keylogger captured valuable keystrokes and screen data in real-time, demonstrating Pakistan’s ability to eavesdrop on high?level communications. Sprawling social botnets flooded the information sphere with persuasive narratives, shaping public perception until Indian users could even catch up. Together, these tools forged a silicon fortress that showcased Pakistan’s ability to seize the cyber high ground.
Despite the onslaught’s breadth, Indian cyber defences responded reasonably. Automated intrusion detection systems, AI-powered behaviour analytics, and rehearsed incident response playbooks ensured most disruptions were temporary. Officials utilized official social channels, Twitter handles, CERT bulletins, and dedicated portals to maintain public trust amidst escalating digital threats.
Pakistan requires a unified Cyber Command that combines our military precision with civilian creativity. By bringing these teams into one mission, we can stop relying on scattered proxy groups and respond faster when threats arrive. We must invest in self-learning systems and new encryption methods that even the most powerful computers can’t break. Building strong partnerships with friends in China and Turkey will help us leapfrog technology, just as our neighbours have done with Israel and France. At the same time, we should launch a nationwide effort to train three times as many cyber specialists by 2030, offering subsidized or free courses to anyone with the drive to protect our nation’s networks by leveraging initiatives like NITSTEP (the National IT Skillsets Expansion Program) and PSDF (the Punjab Skills Development Fund).
While we shape the next generation of defenders, we should also craft a new playbook that blends digital strikes, electronic jamming, and psychological tactics into a single, seamless strategy. Formal ethical hacking, bug bounty programs, and real-time ties between governments and private experts will turn passionate hackers into our best scouts. Most importantly, our power grids, banks, and critical communication systems must operate within air-gapped walls, constantly monitored by command-center dashboards.
Cyber threats must not be overlooked. Just as we run riot drills, we need regular war games that flood our networks with fake attacks, DDOS traffic floods, fake website takeovers, waves of false news, etc., to train our teams and uncover hidden weak spots before any real enemy arrives. No single agency can stand alone. Telecom firms, banks, provincial governments, provincial IT boards and law enforcement agencies must share every threat signal in real-time so that one small breach never becomes a nationwide crisis. When signals intelligence flows freely across all sectors, we gain precious seconds to react, isolate the danger, and shut it down.
Despite all these systems and strategies, we must always remember the human element of cyberwar. If patrolling officers learn to spot suspicious individuals, every public servant must learn to spot a phishing email, and every IT expert employed in the public sector should be able to spot a strange blip in network traffic or a convincing deepfake video. Tomorrow’s battles will be fought at hypersonic speed by algorithms trading blows in microseconds, so now is the time to invest in smart defences and clear ethical rules to guide them. By hardening our networks and training our people in equal measure, Pakistan can move from playing catch?up to setting the pace, turning digital nuisance into real deterrence, and safeguarding not just our infrastructure but the trust and resolve of our citizens and making Pakistan a true Silicon Fortress.
The writer is a freelance columnist.