As Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming in demand among organizations in ASEAN, cases involving AI-driven cyber threats continue to escalate. The threat landscape is rapidly evolving, with AI-driven attacks transforming to be more sophisticated.
Security teams in the region face these challenges as Erik Papir, Palo Alto Networks’ senior director for ASEAN Technical Solutions, noted that attacks are intensifying while organizations are still dealing with expanding attack surface, growing regulations, and complexity or having too many point products. But, on top of all of these, AI is proliferating
Generative AI continues to surge driven by the rapid adoption of GenAI tools in enterprise environments as investment in AI infrastructure is growing and expected to reach $270-billion in the next three years. While AI growth offers productivity benefits, this may rapidly expanded the attack surface for organizations.
Cybersecurity challenges in the Philippines include the recommendation of having stronger cybersecurity platform or solutions are needed to boost the resiliency of the fintech sector. Apart from this, the Philippines is one of the Top 20 countries targeted by cyberattacks in 2025.
Papir, in his presentation, disclosed that AI is turbocharging the speed and scale of attacks, enabling cybercriminals to execute more sophisticated threats in just a short period of time. The development of ransomware which previously took 12 hours, has now dropped to only three hours, and by 2026, it was estimated that attacks could be launched in just 15 minutes.
The compromise and exfiltration time has also reduced, indicating that attackers are now able to steal data faster than before. From nine days in the past, cybercriminals can now exfiltrate data in just one day and only 20 minutes by 2026, implying that data theft can now be done in shorter amount of time.
Now that attacks can be done in a much shorter amount of time than before, enterprises would require a robust detection and response capabilities to stay ahead of potential threats.
To address this, Palo Alto Networks introduced its latest innovations in AI-driven defense which highlight advancements in its comprehensive AI Security platform namely Cortex Cloud 2.0, Cortex AgentiX, and Prisma AIRS 2.0.
Cortex Cloud 2.0 is a unified platform that merges best-in-class cloud detection and response (CDR) with industry-leading cloud native application protection platform (CNAPP) and includes a workforce of autonomous AI agents, a reimagined Cloud Command Center and a performance-optimized CDR agent. This provides unified visibility and control across hybrid and multi-cloud environments, simplifying security operations and reducing risk.
Cortex AgentiX is a platform that enables enterprises to build, deploy, and govern AI agent workforces securely, offering broad control, tight integrations, and enterprise-grade guardrails. One advantage of AgentiX is automating a response to threats that have been previously unknown.
Prisma AIRS 2.0 is a security solution that delivers end-to-end AI security, combining AI Agent Security, AI Red Teaming, and AI Mode Security to protect AI models, agents, and runtime behavior, addressing AI-native threats and vulnerabilities.
