By Vineet Kumar
In the contemporary world system, cyberspace has become both an arena of strategic contestation and an enabler of unprecedented economic integration. Once seen as a neutral infrastructure for innovation and exchange, the architecture of the digital world is now inextricably linked to issues of power, sovereignty and systemic danger. Cybersecurity has thus moved beyond its technological origins to become a key element of global governance and statecraft. The question of how BRICS should approach digital cooperation is particularly relevant with India holding the BRICS chair. India’s BRICS program centers on resilience, innovation, collaboration and sustainability. This makes the group capable of having a more useful conversation on cybersecurity, digital trust and social resilience.
This period is also supported by developments in India’s own digital policy calendar. The IndiaAI Mission represents a coordinated effort to develop scalable, inclusive and internationally competitive AI capabilities across compute infrastructure, datasets, research and innovation ecosystems. India also hosted the India AI Impact Summit 2026, a premier international conference under the IndiaAI Mission with an emphasis on secure, reliable and inclusive AI futures. Taken as a whole, these events demonstrated a significant shift: India’s digital policy is increasingly being articulated through infrastructure and innovation, while at the same time placing greater emphasis on security, resilience and international cooperation. In addition, the Global CyberPeace Summit 2.0 was held in New Delhi in February 2026, billed as a significant multistakeholder meeting on cyber diplomacy, trust, safety, digital resilience and responsible digital governance for all.
The rapid digitization is particularly relevant for emerging economies where the rapid pace of digital use has outpaced the development of security standards. Supply chain vulnerabilities, ransomware attacks on critical infrastructure, state-linked hacks and the weaponization of information ecosystems are all part of the contemporary threat landscape. It is no longer a question of isolated cases of cybercrime. The costs of cyber vulnerability for countries grappling with rapid digitization are not just financial but also developmental, undermining institutional trust and slowing the pace of digital growth.
In light of this, cybersecurity needs to take center stage in the BRICS group’s strategic agenda. The scope and complexity of current cyber concerns necessitate a more comprehensive and forward-looking approach, even if BRICS has already made some progress through collaborative frameworks on ICT security, policy discussions, and capacity building initiatives. Cyber resilience needs to go from being a side issue to a central tenet of group efforts, integrated with development and economic cooperation.
As member countries pursue their respective AI goals, there is an opportunity to coordinate efforts around safe and reliable innovation, incorporating cybersecurity principles into frameworks for AI collaboration. Besides addressing common vulnerabilities, this approach would enable BRICS to shape new international norms in a manner that considers developing economies’ concerns. In this respect, BRICS becomes more relevant as a useful platform for developing new digital trust frameworks. The problem is no longer only about how states control platforms or secure infrastructure. It also focuses on how they secure individuals, promote online literacy, enhance resistance to cybercrime and misinformation, and encourage an environment where digital change is socially acceptable. Civil society can be useful to BRICS by encouraging cooperation, communication, and input across specialist communities, governments, corporations, and technology developers.
Discussions on the digital future of BRICS and Global South countries tend to focus on infrastructure, sovereignty, artificial intelligence, platforms, data centers, connectivity and digital government. All of these are important topics. But as digital systems become more embedded in daily life, it is becoming evident that sustainable digital development needs more than just strong networks, well-developed regulations and the capacity of the state to respond. It also depends on user confidence, citizen safety, institutional support for victims of cybercrime, technological literacy and the general sense of security people have in online spaces. Hence, BRICS needs a more holistic paradigm when addressing the cyber domain that connects security, trust and societal resilience. This is the area the CyberPeace Index aims to address.
The language of threats and responses alone is insufficient to comprehend cyberspace. States should protect key government platforms, financial institutions, supply chains and infrastructure. But if the digital environment remains hazardous for ordinary users, if it continues to reproduce a sense of fraud, abuse, vulnerability and powerlessness, then any formal notion of security is still missing. It is important to note the special significance of this transition for the BRICS countries. The group is already one of the largest areas of digital transformation in the modern world. Large markets, developing digital ecosystems, public platforms, ambitious AI initiatives, financial industries, telecom infrastructure and digital public services are all present. Increased cybercrime, unequal digital literacy, user susceptibility, a lack of skilled workers, and institutional gaps between the rate of digitalization and the creation of safeguards are all contributing factors to the expanding shared dangers. These are major issues for sustainable digital development in many Global South nations.
In the area of cyberspace, BRICS already has an institutional base. Discussions started by the BRICS National Security Advisors in 2013 are where the BRICS Working Group on Security in the Use of ICTs got its start. The Roadmap for Practical Cooperation on Ensuring ICT Security serves as a roadmap for its operations. Policy exchanges, CERT collaboration, law enforcement collaboration, research and development, and think tank or academic exchanges are highlighted in that roadmap.
In actuality, BRICS has created multiple levels of involvement in cyberspace. The political and diplomatic level is the first. In the Rio de Janeiro Declaration in 2025, BRICS leaders reiterated their commitment to an open, safe, stable, accessible, peaceful and interoperable ICT environment. As the only worldwide and inclusive mechanism on this issue, they emphasized the UN’s leadership role and applauded the ongoing efforts of the UN Open-Ended Working Group on the security and use of ICTs.
The second is the practical, agency-to-agency level. BRICS documents show that cooperation at the level of Computer Emergency Response Teams, law enforcement, cooperative research and development, and agreements of understanding are being negotiated in these areas. This means that BRICS is striving for greater operational coordination and stepping beyond declarative rhetoric. Third, a more comprehensive digital and expert track. The 11th BRICS Communications Ministers Meeting in 2025 touched upon open-source participation, digital public goods and infrastructure, universal and meaningful connectivity and capacity-building on digital transformation. While this wider policy area is distinct from cybersecurity in the narrow sense, it is exactly where resilience, safety, trust and inclusiveness come into the larger discussion on digital development.
Because the BRICS nations have quite varied digital models, this is especially important. They vary in terms of platform development models, social contexts, state-market relations, market size, and regulatory frameworks. A single rigid model is not feasible nor desirable in such circumstances. Instead, a similar discourse language is required. In this regard, the CyberPeace Index can be helpful as a methodology for discussing whether people are truly safe in the digital environment, whether support systems are adequately developed, whether society is ready for digital risks, and whether state, corporate, and social institutions can collaborate. For the Global South, this is one reason such a paradigm might be especially pertinent.
I would emphasize one more thing. Academic and expert interaction is already acknowledged by BRICS as a component of ICT security cooperation. This indicates that the expert track is recognized as a component of the larger cooperative architecture. Thus, current collaboration with Russian colleagues in the expert track can be viewed as a logical progression of the reasoning already present in BRICS. Methodologies, indicators, educational models, approaches to digital literacy, support for cybercrime victims, new hazards associated with AI, and the social ramifications of online insecurity are all simpler to debate at the expert level. Expert networks supply continuity, substance, and useful content, while states supply the political framework.
The institutional and political frameworks required for this conversation are already there in BRICS. Filling them with material that is more sensitive to the demands of the general public and the day-to-day reality of digital life is the current challenge.
Vineet Kumar is Founder and President of CyberPeace Foundation.
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