As India races ahead with digital transformation, a critical vulnerability is emerging that most enterprises haven’t fully grasped: the explosion of machine identities that now vastly outnumber human users. This Cybersecurity Awareness Month, industry leaders are sounding the alarm that traditional security approaches are no longer sufficient in an era where AI, automation, and cloud technologies are reshaping the threat landscape.
The Invisible Threat Multiplying Daily
The numbers paint a concerning picture. According to CyberArk’s 2025 Identity Security Landscape report, 77% of Indian organizations admit they prioritize speed and efficiency over cybersecurity. Even more troubling, 68% identify AI and cloud as key sources of unmanaged access risk. “Machine identities now far outnumber human ones, yet they remain severely under-protected,” warns Rohan Vaidya, Area Vice President, India & SAARC, CyberArk:
These machine identities—from application workloads to RPA bots and microservices—represent a sprawling attack surface that most companies barely monitor. Nearly a third of these identities have privileged or sensitive access, meaning a simple misstep, such as an expired certificate or orphaned credentials, can trigger major outages or breaches.
Security Must Start at the Silicon Level
The solution requires rethinking cybersecurity from the ground up. “Securing the future with intelligence means embedding cybersecurity at the very core—within both the silicon and the development environment,” explains Navin Bishnoi, AVP – Data Center Engineering and India Country Manager, Marvell Technology. As data movement accelerates across AI, enterprise, and cloud environments, protecting information only at the software layer has become inadequate.
This hardware-first approach extends to supply chain security, requiring rigorous assessment of every link in the chain. With global teams collaborating at cloud speed, resilience cannot be an afterthought—it must be engineered into every layer of the technology stack.
The AI Double-Edged Sword
Generative AI has fundamentally changed the game for both defenders and attackers. “In an age where even deception can be AI-generated, trust has become our most valuable digital currency,” notes Norman Norman Gottschalk, Global CIO & CISO, Visionet Systems. The digital battlefield is no longer just about firewalls and encryption—it’s about authenticity and discernment.
This reality demands what Gottschalk calls the “human-in-the-loop approach.” While AI can detect anomalies at scale, it often lacks the necessary context and ethical judgment required for high-stakes decisions. The future lies in synergy between AI precision and human intuition, ensuring not just protection but trust in an increasingly synthetic world.
Application Layer Under Siege
For Indian enterprises, the threat has moved beyond traditional perimeters. “Cyber adversaries are no longer knocking at the perimeter—they’re already inside the applications and APIs that run our digital economy,” warns Pratik Shah, Managing Director India & SAARC, F5 From UPI payments to citizen platforms, everything faces bot-driven attacks, API abuse, and automated threats at scale.
Advanced protections, such as Distributed Cloud WAAP, AI-powered bot defense, and API security, have become essential for maintaining real-time visibility and adaptive controls across multi-cloud environments.
Building Security as Culture
The most critical shift needed is cultural. “The real test for enterprises is not how fast they can react, but how well they can anticipate,” says Amit Luthra, MD, Lenovo ISG India This requires embedding intelligence into security itself, governing every identity with zero trust, and designing architectures that strike a balance between sovereignty, compliance, and scale.
With 85% of Indian organizations facing increased pressure from insurers and regulators to secure privileged access, the message is clear: companies that internalize security as culture and foresight as discipline will not only safeguard their future—they will define it.
As India’s digital economy continues its remarkable growth trajectory, cybersecurity can no longer be relegated to the margins of strategy. It must be the foundation upon which digital transformation is built.
