Vaibhav Tare, Chief Information Security Officer, Fulcrum Digital
“This year’s Cybersecurity Awareness Month theme, Stay Safe Online, is often read as a consumer message, but enterprises can’t afford to treat it that way. As AI agents take on more of the day-to-day work inside organizations, from processing documents to executing transactions, every one of those agents needs the same basic hygiene we ask of employees: strong identity controls, least-privilege access and continuous monitoring of what they’re allowed to do. Attackers rarely need to break through a firewall if they can walk in through an unmonitored agent or a reused credential. The organizations that stay resilient won’t necessarily be the ones with the newest security tools, they’ll be the ones that got the fundamentals right for both their people and their AI systems. At Fulcrum Digital, we build that discipline into how we design AI systems from day one, because prevention is still far cheaper than recovery.”
Sunil Sharma, Managing Director & VP – Sales (India & SAARC), Sophos
“India’s digital transformation is creating unprecedented opportunities for businesses of all sizes. From digital payments and AI-driven innovation to cloud adoption and connected ecosystems, organizations today are embracing technology to drive growth, improve customer experiences, and stay competitive. As this journey accelerates, cybersecurity is no longer just an IT consideration. It has become a critical business priority that underpins trust, resilience, and long-term success. The conversation around cybersecurity is also evolving at the leadership level. Regulatory developments such as the Digital Personal Data Protection Act have reinforced the importance of responsible data stewardship, while growing digital dependencies have made cyber resilience an essential component of business strategy.
This Cybersecurity Awareness Month, companies should view cybersecurity as a shared responsibility that extends across the organization. Building a culture of awareness, accountability, and preparedness is just as important as investing in technology. The organizations that embed security into their growth agenda today will be best positioned to earn stakeholder trust, adapt to change, and thrive in an increasingly digital economy.“
Ross McKerchar, CISO at Sophos
The expectations put on CISOs and their teams are at an all-time high. Today’s security leaders are expected not only to manage threats, but also to communicate risk to boards, navigate regulatory requirements, and guide business decisions while maintaining an extremely secure environment.
AI is only adding more pressure to the equation, with security teams finding themselves in what we call a triple bind; where AI is accelerating vulnerability discovery, introducing a growing population of AI agents that need to be secured, and enabling more code to be written and reviewed than teams have historically been staffed to manage. Each of these trends increases workload on its own, but together they fundamentally reshape how security teams prioritize their work.
As those demands continue to grow, many organizations are finding themselves competing for a limited pool of senior security talent capable of managing both today’s security risks and tomorrow’s business challenges. The organizations that will be most resilient are those that treat cybersecurity as a shared business responsibility and ensure security leaders have the support, visibility, and resources they need to succeed.
Milind Shah, Managing Director, Randstad Digital – India
“Cybersecurity Awareness Month is a good reminder for leadership teams to look at how security is built and maintained inside their organizations. AI-enabled threats and regulations such as NIS2 and DORA are raising the standard for how consistently security teams must operate, and reactive models built around alert queues struggle to meet it. Hybrid security teams offer a practical answer. Strategic leadership stays in-house, where context and accountability sit, while specialized external pods handle complex, tactical execution. Enterprises gain access to the right expertise at the point of need, without waiting months to fill a vacancy.
The same thinking applies to choosing a security partner. The right partner works towards business outcomes: fewer bottlenecks, no unnecessary tool sprawl, and a foundation that lets teams innovate and scale with confidence. Good security should feel invisible to the people relying on it every day.
Enterprises also have a role in building the talent pipeline. Working with employers to create structured routes into cybersecurity produces specialists who can implement what boards have already prioritized. We encourage organisations to review their security model, their partners and their talent strategy together, because resilience depends on all three working as one.”
Dr. Sanjay Kukreja, Chief Technology Officer, eClerx
“Cybersecurity Awareness month is a timely reminder that resilience is built by every person who touches the data, and that client trust is earned one secure interaction at a time.
In data-intensive operations like ours, where client processes span geographies and teams, the strength of our security posture is determined by daily habits: how quickly an employee reports a suspicious email, how consistently access is reviewed, and how early security is designed into a workflow rather than bolted on afterward.
At eClerx, cybersecurity is the foundation that allows us to innovate with confidence. In a world where AI accelerates both opportunity and risk, our responsibility is clear: protect client trust, embed security into every process and platform, and foster a culture in which every employee is a defender. Resilience is practiced every day and not achieved in one month.”
