As artificial intelligence becomes a staple in modern IT infrastructure, cybercriminals are rapidly turning it into a weapon. At its annual APAC Cyber Security Weekend, global cybersecurity firm Kaspersky warned that cyberthreats have officially entered an “AI-native” era, creating severe visibility gaps for defenders across the Asia-Pacific region.
Speaking under the event’s theme, “When Speed Outpaces Visibility,” Kaspersky Managing Director for APAC Adrian Hia highlighted that attackers backed by AI are now operating faster than enterprise security teams can detect or respond to.
“As speed and connectivity reshape modern enterprises… security teams face growing blindspots across IT and OT environments,” Hia stated. “Cybersecurity today is no longer just a race against time. It’s a race against invisibility.”
Attacks Spilling into the Physical World
The threat landscape in APAC is accelerating both in volume and real-world impact. Kaspersky revealed that it detected and blocked 500,000 unique malicious files daily over the past year—a 7% bump compared to 2024.
More concerning is how digital breaches are translating to physical disruptions:
- Logistics Hit: Logistics giant Nichirei Corp recently suffered a cyberattack that disrupted its distribution network.
- Industrial Ransomware: India’s manufacturing sector has emerged as a major target, with ransomware groups repeatedly shutting down factory floors and industrial IT operations.
- Trojanized AI Agents: Kaspersky identified over 15,000 malware samples disguised as agentic AI software this year alone. Because AI agents rely heavily on third-party APIs and frameworks, compromising a single upstream link can trigger a cascading breach across interconnected enterprise systems.
The Invisibility Problem: Incidents Unnoticed for Years
A major takeaway from the conference was how long threats remain hidden inside compromised networks. Data from Kaspersky’s Compromise Assessment division showed that in 31% of analyzed incidents, malicious activity went undetected for over three months.
Even worse, 52% of high-severity compromises took longer than 90 days to discover, with the oldest undetected intrusion lasting four full years before being uncovered.
Kaspersky noted that while many organizations have bought security software, tech alone cannot compensate for poor monitoring and operational gaps.
Balancing Speed with “HuMachine Intelligence”
To counter automated, fast-moving attacks, Kaspersky advocates combining AI automation with human oversight—a philosophy it calls “HuMachine Intelligence.”
By training machine learning models on ethically sourced global endpoint data since 2004, Kaspersky is integrating generative AI into its Kaspersky Next platform to help security analysts parse raw threat data into actionable intelligence faster. The company is also pushing for modernized Security Operations Centers (SOC) paired with continuous monitoring services like EDR/XDR and Managed Detection and Response (MDR) to help regional enterprises spot intruders before they can move laterally or escalate privileges.
