PodChats for FutureCISO: Practical defence strategies against industrialised cyber threats

Traditional defences fall short in the region's rapidly digitising landscape, with vulnerabilities in cloud, OT, supply chains, and critical sectors like healthcare. For CIOs, CISOs and CROs, the industrialisation of cyber threats requires pivoting to practical defence strategies against industrialised cyber threats that operate like efficient enterprises, powered by AI agents and automated workflows compressing attack lifecycles to minutes.

What does a resilience strategy look like? What should be the approach taken by organisations to achieve machine-speed adaptability in 2026.

For more on this, we are joined by Jonas Walker, director of threat intelligence, Fortinet.

1.       Describe what for you is an industrialisation of cybercrime?

2.       How has this industrialisation of cybercrime in Asia necessitated a shift from reactive to proactive defence strategies?

3.       What role do AI-enabled agents play in accelerating attack stages, and how can defenders in the region counter this by operationalising threat intelligence at machine speed?

4.       Why must defences prioritise refining established controls over novel innovations, and what does this mean for managing dwell times in environments with expanding OT and IoT exposures?

5.       How are botnets and insider recruitment threats amplifying industrial-scale attacks, and what defensive measures should leaders implement to disrupt these?

6.       In recent years, governments around Asia have raised concerns around the vulnerability of critical infrastructure. Can you suggest 1 or 2 practical strategies to mitigate blended threats such as ransomware and data extortion, including essential tools and frameworks like integrated SecOps for automated detection and containment?

7.       In the context of today’s hybrid, meaning human and machine workers, why is identity governance becoming central to defence? More importantly, how can it be enforced in AI-driven cloud environments?

8.       What is the answer to Asia’s perennial security skills gap? How can organisations build specialised expertise in areas like detection engineering and AI operations to support resilient defences?

9.       What practical incentives can Asia’s leaders leverage to disrupt cybercrime ecosystems and enhance accountability, and how can CISOs and CIOs work together to strengthen long-term defence strategies against evolving industrialised threats?