The invisible layer: Cyber resilience as the backbone of travel infrastructure
By Suraj Tiwari, Chief Information Security Officer, VFS Global
Conversations around the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act are intensifying, and rightly so. As nations modernise their data governance frameworks, the global travel ecosystem sits at the intersection of policy, technology, and personal security. Behind every seamless visa application, biometric enrollment, airline check-in, and border clearance lies a vast and highly specialised IT infrastructure, one that processes millions of sensitive interactions in real time. This digital scaffolding may be invisible to travelers, but it carries the weight of global mobility. As dependence on interconnected systems grows, cyber resilience is no longer just a technical capability, it has become the backbone that keeps international travel safe, predictable, and trusted.
The expanding threat surface of global mobility
Digital transformation has enabled extraordinary efficiencies in the travel sector. But it has also expanded the attack surface in ways that were unimaginable even a decade ago. Threat actors now target everything from airline reservation platforms to third-party supply chains, exploiting even the smallest vulnerability to disrupt high-stakes global movement. This evolution demands that organisations shift their mindset from purely preventing attacks to anticipating, absorbing, and recovering from them.
Not only protection but resilience is also now the cornerstone of secure mobility. Industry leaders, including VFS Global, have demonstrated how continuous monitoring, real-time threat intelligence, and responsible vulnerability disclosure can help organisations stay ahead of malicious actors. But such capability must become sector-wide. The travel industry cannot afford reactive postures when a single disruption can ripple across borders, economies, and humanitarian corridors.
Trust as the currency of global mobility
At the heart of travel lies trust, trust that every identity document, biometric record, itinerary detail, and personal credential submitted by millions of travellers will remain safeguarded throughout an intricate, multi-stakeholder IT environment. This trust is fragile because the underlying systems are massive, distributed, and deeply interconnected across governments, service providers, cloud infrastructures, and verification gateways. A single breach can compromise not just individuals, but confidence in the entire mobility chain.
Compliance with DPDP, ISO 27001, GDPR, and national cybersecurity mandates provides a strong baseline, but it is only the first layer. Trust is reinforced when organisations demonstrate advanced controls: multi-region data redundancies, cryptographic safeguards, independent security audits, transparent governance frameworks, and a security-first culture woven into every operational layer. Companies that operate at global scale, such as VFS Global, have shown how such mechanisms strengthen confidence among government clients, but the rising sophistication of threats means certifications must be complemented by continuous vigilance and adaptive digital resilience.
Beyond compliance: embedding resilience into the fabric of travel
The future of travel security lies in intelligence-driven, predictive cyber resilience, where systems are designed to adapt as quickly as threats evolve. This approach goes far beyond traditional compliance frameworks.
It integrates multiple layers of defence from cloud-native security operations and AI-powered anomaly detection to brand-protection engines that track impersonation attempts across the internet. Resilient organisations also map their digital supply chains end-to-end, identifying weak links before attackers can exploit them. They run continuous red–blue team simulations, automate patch cycles, and implement network micro-segmentation to ensure breaches are contained instantly rather than discovered weeks later.
Equally important is the human layer. Employees across global travel networks interact with sensitive data daily; they are not just gatekeepers but critical actors in the defence architecture. Continuous training, behavioural analytics, and realistic response drills equip them to identify social engineering attempts and escalate anomalies efficiently. True resilience is not created after a crisis, it is embedded into every system, integration, vendor engagement, and workflow.
Stronger together: the role of public–private collaboration
Cyber threats transcend borders, jurisdictions, and organisational boundaries. Strengthening the digital shield of global travel therefore requires coordinated resilience, not isolated readiness.
Governments, technology providers, cybersecurity agencies, and travel-industry partners must operate as a unified intelligence network. This includes secure channels to exchange real-time threat signals, harmonised biometric-protection norms, shared incident-response playbooks, and aligned protocols for identity assurance and cross-border data flows. Such collaboration accelerates standardisation—whether it is in API security, digital identity frameworks, or traveler data governance—ensuring that protection is consistent regardless of where a journey originates or ends. When public and private entities align on intelligence, standards, and response, cyber resilience becomes systemic rather than fragmented.
The unseen layer that keeps the world moving
The modern travel industry is built on an invisible yet indispensable layer of cybersecurity. When this layer is strong, travellers move freely, governments operate confidently, and global mobility thrives. When it is weak, the world slows down. Our responsibility as industry leaders is not merely to secure the systems of today, but to build resilience for the systems of tomorrow: adaptive, intelligent, transparent, and trusted. Cyber resilience is the backbone of modern travel and strengthening it is fundamental to ensuring that global mobility remains open, safe, and uninterrupted.