Pukhraj Singh

I am a cyber threat detection engineer with two decades of experience — and, for want of a better term, a cyber geostrategist. By day I run a cybersecurity operations centre; by night I think about what cyber operations mean for the world order.

My training spans both the technical and the strategic. I hold a computer science degree and a master's in cyber geostrategy (with Distinction) from UNSW Canberra at the Australian Defence Force Academy. That breadth — across threat intelligence, detection engineering, malware analysis, Indo-Pacific multilateralism, military doctrine, and information operations — shapes how I see problems that others tend to see only in part.

My operational career began in the aftermath of the 26/11 attacks of 2008, when I became the first lateral entrant inducted from the private sector into India's signals intelligence agency, the NTRO, under the Prime Minister's Office. I led counterintelligence work on GhostNet — the Chinese cyber espionage campaign discovered that same year — long before such activity attracted mainstream attention. In 2010, I served as incident commander assessing Stuxnet's impact on India, work that contributed to the establishment of the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre. My assessments reached the highest offices of government and informed bilateral dialogues between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Premier Hu Jintao.

After leaving NTRO in 2013, I remained close to the frontlines. In 2019, I tipped off the Indian government about intrusions into the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant and the Indian Space Research Organisation — the latter coinciding, troublingly, with the loss of the Chandrayaan II lunar mission.

Beyond operations, I have trained senior military commanders, advised on India's draft cyber doctrine, and participated in Track II diplomatic dialogues on cyber policy. My writing has appeared in the Hindustan Times, The Indian Express, The Tribune, Deccan Herald, and Outlook, as well as in publications by the Australian Defence College, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, and the US Military Academy. I have spoken at Black Hat, AusCERT, and other international conferences at the intersection of threat intelligence and geostrategy.

In 2021, my family and I moved to Australia under the Distinguished Talent program. I have since engaged with national cyber crisis management exercises and capacity building initiatives of the Australian government. We are now settled in Melbourne, where in November 2024 our second son was born.

My corporate experience spans technology companies across Canada, India, Malaysia, and Israel. Outside of work, I am the founder of Abroo — a now-defunct initiative for the empowerment of Dalits and marginalised communities in the Indian Punjab — an amateur poet, and a devoted listener of Punjabi Sufi music.