Industry leaders say 2026 comes at a completely different stage of cybersecurity development. Because the threat landscape has changed drastically, while the basics have not changed, AI poses a greater risk and simply being aware of cyberthreats is no longer sufficient,. October is the Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and it gives companies, government bodies, schools and everyday users a chance to check how well they are protecting themselves in an increasingly connected world. But this year’s edition arrives at a very different point in the cybersecurity story. Organisations now have to prepare for new kinds of attacks – that can operate at machine speed, that take advantage of flaws found by AI, that target interconnected digital ecosystems, and so on.
Avaneesh Vats, vice president – Information Technology, Techno Digital: As AI, cloud computing and automation become integral to India’s digital economy, cybersecurity must extend beyond protecting data and networks to securing the critical infrastructure that keeps essential services running. Data centres and power systems are increasingly interconnected through IT, operational technology (OT) and intelligent monitoring platforms. However, their security priorities differ fundamentally. integrity and availability (CIA), OT environments prioritise availability, integrity and confidentiality (AIC), as operational continuity and safety are paramount While traditional IT security emphasises confidentiality. As these environments converge, vulnerabilities in one system can potentially affect critical operations and service continuity.
We saw this threat escalate recently with PHP2Shell (CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619), a pair of catastrophic, unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerabilities that left defenders with zero lead time. With details leaked on October 20 before patches were ready, attackers immediately began exploiting the flaw in the wild. Because of it, they’ll be the ones that learned from it and became stronger. Because it is no longer operating in isolation, dhananjay Ganjoo, Managing Director – India & SAARC, F5 AI is changing the very nature of enterprise risk.
The organisations that come out ahead won’t be the ones that avoided disruption. This Cybersecurity Awareness Month, the priority must shift from securing individual systems to building resilience across the entire infrastructure ecosystem. This calls for a secure-by-design approach, where cybersecurity is embedded into infrastructure architecture from the outset through network segmentation, continuous monitoring, secure access controls and tested incident response mechanisms. As AI becomes increasingly integrated into critical operations, human oversight remains essential, particularly where automated decisions influence power and cooling systems. Ultimately, cyber resilience is not just about preventing attacks but about designing infrastructure that can withstand disruptions and sustain critical operations. Mandy Andress, CISO, Elastic: Each year, Cybersecurity Awareness Month brings the same reminders: use strong passwords, turn on MFA, and think before you click. They still matter, but this year I keep coming back to one thought: AI isn’t just another item on the awareness list; it’s changing what security means. Models, API keys, and agent permissions are now high-value targets, and attackers noticed before most asset inventories did. Phishing emails no longer contain typos, and a voice call can sound exactly like your CFO. We need to train people to verify the process, not just spot mistakes. Agents are also a new kind of identity. When software can reason and act on its own, ‘who has access to what’ becomes much harder to answer. But defenders get leverage too, with AI compressing detection, investigation and response in ways I didn’t expect to see this soon. What hasn’t changed is that security is a team sport. AI governance can’t sit only with security; it needs legal, IT and the business at the same table, with shared ownership. Across Indian organisations, AI models and autonomous agents are becoming part of business-critical operations, connecting to applications, accessing sensitive data and increasingly making decisions in real time. it also opens new avenues for attackers through malicious prompts, API abuse and unauthorised data access While this creates opportunities for innovation. Critical vulnerabilities can be exploited and weaponised by bad actors at the speed of AI, and the only way to fight this is to introduce AI-driven defense . For sectors such as banking and healthcare, the response cannot be limited to detecting threats after they occur. Enterprises need greater visibility into how AI systems interact with sensitive information, stronger controls to identify unusual behaviour and the ability to stop malicious activity as it happens. These safeguards must work consistently across on-premises and cloud environments without disrupting critical services. You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.