AI-powered cyberattacks are becoming more complex and evasive. This is the stark warning from Parag Khurana in his interview with CIO&Leader. As Country Manager for India and SAARC at Barracuda Networks, Khurana has spent three years scaling the company’s business across the region. In this interview, he emphasizes that organizations must focus on both prevention and rapid response to build true cyber resilience.
Khurana outlines how 24/7 security platforms with automated responses can dramatically reduce detection and mitigation times. His recommendations for CIOs stem from his understanding that modern security requires “a different approach to security, one that combines multi-layered, defence-in-depth security solutions with a strong understanding of cyber risk and resilience.” Edited excerpts are below:
Country Manager, India,
Barracuda Networks
CIO&Leader: Which emerging cybersecurity and data protection trends do you foresee as most impactful in 2025?
Parag Khurana: Cyberattacks are increasingly complex and evasive. Over the coming year, we expect more attacks to leverage AI for automation and targeting as threat actors try to quickly and successfully infiltrate systems and spread laterally across IT environments, both on-premise and in the cloud, which has far-reaching implications for cybersecurity and data protection.
While incident prevention should remain the cornerstone of IT security strategies, organisations must also focus on incident detection, response and mitigation: how to spot, deal with and minimise the impact of attacks that breach the network. This is cyber resilience.
Cyber resilience can be boosted by integrated, 24/7 security platforms with automated incident response that measurably reduce detection and mitigation times. Such solutions ensure that threats are identified and contained before they can cause real damage.
Integrated security needs centralised security management, automated policy enforcement, and continuous threat detection to address misconfigurations and access control risks. In addition, AI-based security will help to counter AI-powered threats. For example, adoption of AI-powered threat intelligence and anomaly detection will be essential to counter AI-enabled adaptive malware and deepfake-based social engineering.
CIO&Leader: How will these trends reshape CIOs’ strategic decision-making in terms of securing cloud workloads, integrating automated threat intelligence, and ensuring business continuity, given the rapid pace of digital transformation?
Parag Khurana: CIOs need to protect an ever-expanding digital attack surface against continuously evolving, adaptive threats – a challenging goal in a world of resource constraints and skills shortages. Understanding risk and how to keep the business going in the wake of an incident have become critical components of every security decision.
Many CIOs and CISOs – not to mention the security leaders in companies not large enough for a C-suite security role – are looking at security tools and services that will help with some of the heavy lifting. A good example of this is Managed Extended Detection and Response (XDR).
Automated threat intelligence and AI-driven tools will be key for detecting and neutralising sophisticated attacks in real-time, reducing the risk of breaches. Alongside this, business continuity will require a robust cyber resilience strategy, incorporating comprehensive data backup, disaster recovery, and rapid incident response mechanisms.
CIO&Leader: According to you, what are the most pressing technology challenges for CIOs in 2025?
Parag Khurana: CIOs will face growing cyber threat complexity, talent shortages, and AI-driven threats. Expanding attack surfaces and ‘threats as-a-service’, from email to malware and ransomware, demand a different approach to security, one that combines multi-layered, defence-in-depth security solutions with a strong understanding of cyber risk and resilience and how to respond to and recover from a successful breach.
CIO&Leader: How do Barracuda’s comprehensive solutions support CIOs in addressing these priorities and fortifying their organizations against emerging cyber risks?
Parag Khurana: Our comprehensive solutions empower CIOs to tackle emerging cyber risks with cloud-native security, AI-driven threat protection, and integrated backup and recovery. We Managed XDR provides 24/7 threat detection and response, reducing incident response times from hours to minutes. Advanced email protection defends against phishing and impersonation attacks, while API security safeguards cloud applications without disrupting operations.
Comprehensive backup and recovery ensure business continuity in the face of ransomware or data loss. By leveraging these solutions, we help CIOs strengthen cyber resilience, mitigate risks, and drive seamless digital transformation.
CIO&Leader: What are your top business and technology priorities for 2025?
Parag Khurana: We will continue to innovate by expanding AI and machine learning capabilities to enhance threat detection and automated response, driving the adoption of Managed XDR for scalable, proactive security services. We are advancing email protection to counter increasingly sophisticated phishing and impersonation attacks and strengthening our backup, data protection, and disaster recovery to ensure robust data security in multi-cloud environments.
Through AI-powered security, streamlined data protection, and comprehensive managed security services, Barracuda remains committed to helping organisations build resilience and stay secure in an evolving cyber threat landscape.