India is our fastest growing region in APAC: Kaspersky’s Adrian Hia

In May, Adrian Hia was appointed the managing director of cybersecurity company Kaspersky for the APAC region. Hia, who comes with an experience of over 20 years in the IT enterprise sector, has been entrusted to grow the market footprint and scout for business opportunities in new territories. Hia spoke to TechCircle during the recently held Kaspersky Cybersecurity APAC 2023 event. Edited excerpts:

“There are three important Ps for me in the new role. First, it’s the people — I will work to upgrade and uplift my people at the company to become trusted advisors for our customers. The second is partnerships; as a partner-focused business, we look for the right partners to cover our customers. And lastly, the third P is products. In the next six to nine months, we will be launching a slew of new offerings,” said Hia.

On the expansion, Hia said that the company would be focusing on unchartered regions in South Asia Pacific regions like Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Laos, Cambodia, and Brunei. The company would also be expanding in countries like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, where it currently has a limited presence. Speaking of the Indian market, Hia said that the company sees huge potential in sectors like banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), manufacturing, and the oil and gas industry. “It is an exciting time to be doing business in India, which is in fact, our fastest growing region in the APAC region.” Kaspersky will also be increasing their workforce strength by 30% in 2024, he added.

Speaking on increased instances of cyberattacks, Hia said that phishing is the most common attack. “No one robs a bank anymore. All these criminals are becoming cybercriminals,” he equipped. He added that cybercrime has become more organised and is no longer one or two person operation. “It’s so easy to go to the dark web and get ransomware-as-a-service (Raas), or scam-as-a-service. If you have a good idea on how to scam money, you just have to go apply for these ‘services’ and do profit sharing.” Hence, it is really important for the sector growth and digitisation to be in tandem with cybersecurity preparedness, and should be the focus for top leaders, Hia said.

Speaking further on preparedness, Hia said that rapid digitalisation has created a big, albeit, unfulfilled need for cybersecurity specialists. This need is more pronounced in the mid-level suite. “It is not about how much you have studied, since we need experienced hands. About a decade back, the situation was different and there was not much investment made towards training such professionals. So when we go looking for experienced cybersecurity professions now, there is shortage. May be in the next 10 years the problem will go away for there is more focus on training, but at least for the next five years, there will be a crunch,” he said.

For the time, managed security service providers (MSSP) can help lower the pressure of cybersecurity on firms, as per Hia. A MSSP sells security services to businesses by offering both software solutions and expertise to monitor, examine, and respond to attacks. 

To be sure, Kaspersky’s latest IT Security Economic Report found that there has been a ‘shift in the mindsets’ of the organisations to outsource certain IT security responsibilities to MSSPs. Some of the top reasons for choosing MSSPs include understaffing, requirement of special expertise or to manage complex business processes. Hia told TechCircle that Kaspersky has appointed two Indian MSSPs.

(The author was in Bali on the invitation of Kaspersky to attend the Kaspersky APAC Cyber Security 2023 event)