Securing India's Pharmacy of the World: Cybersecurity for Pharma Manufacturers

Why Indian Pharma Is in the Crosshairs

India supplies roughly 20% of global generic medicines, making its pharmaceutical manufacturers high-value targets for ransomware and IP theft.

The OT Security Gap

Most Indian pharma plants run a mix of modern ERP systems on current Windows servers alongside legacy SCADA, DCS, and LIMS systems running on Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 that cannot be patched. IT-OT connectivity was never designed with security in mind.

Practical Steps for Indian Pharma CISOs

• Network microsegmentation to isolate production OT from corporate IT
• Zero-trust network access (ZTNA) for all remote access to plant systems
• Software bill of materials (SBOM) for all OT software to track vulnerabilities
• Offline backup procedures for critical production systems
• Incident response plan aligned with CERT-In 6-hour reporting requirement