Southeast Asia Summit

The cybersecurity leadership paradigm is undergoing a fundamental transformation as AI reshapes both attack vectors and defense strategies across Southeast Asia.

As adversaries deploy AI that learns, adapts and coordinates faster than traditional defenses can respond, the modern CISO role demands evolution from tactical guardian to strategic architect of cyber resilience. The plenary session will dissect the evolution of the CISO role, moving beyond traditional risk frameworks to embrace a new mandate focused on building AI-driven trust, fostering resilient organizational cultures and articulating the strategic value of AI-centric security to the board.

CISOs play a crucial role in advancing cyber readiness and building organizational resilience. But how are they shifting from response to resilience? 

This session will cover:        

• The leadership shift: From technical expert to strategic resilience architect;
• Redefining leadership in the face of adversity;
• Building resiliency against growing incidents and navigating through AI complexities;
• Developing proactive threat intelligence capabilities and cross-functional crisis response teams;
• Reskilling security teams for AI-native operations.

As Southeast Asia accelerates its digital transformation, nation-states face unprecedented complexity in securing cloud infrastructures, telecommunications networks, operational technology systems and AI-driven services - all while defending against sophisticated, cross-border cyberthreats.

The government’s experience in building a cohesive national cybersecurity strategy offers critical insights for regional leaders navigating similar challenges. This session will explore practical frameworks for building national-scale cyber resilience, coordinating cross-sector responses and fostering ecosystems that enable both security and innovation in an increasingly interconnected regional landscape.

This session will cover: 

• Architecting resilience for critical information infrastructure (CII); 
• Bridging the technology and security gap; 
• Fostering collaboration between the government, industry and academia to co-create security solutions;
• Building the technology architecture for better defenses;
• Redefining security leadership in the AI era.

Operational technology environments underpin critical infrastructure and industrial processes across Southeast Asia - from manufacturing floors and energy grids to water utilities and transportation networks.

As the region accelerates digital transformation and Industry 4.0 adoption, OT environments face a rapidly expanding and sophisticated threat landscape, requiring cybersecurity leadership that transcends traditional IT approaches. 

This fireside chat will explore how leading cybersecurity executives are elevating OT security from a technical challenge into a strategic imperative – aligning governance frameworks, regulatory compliance and risk management to build resilient, mission-critical defenses against nation-state actors, ransomware campaigns and supply chain compromises.

This session will cover: 

• Unified IT-OT cybersecurity strategies; 
• Network segmentation and access control; 
• Incident response and crisis management for OT.

In Southeast Asia’s increasingly volatile threat landscape, resilience is the defining trait of effective cybersecurity leadership.

Cyberattacks, regulatory change and business transformation are relentless forces – and it is the CISO’s ability to anticipate, absorb and adapt that determines organizational survival. 

It is critical to understand how CISOs are building the required resiliency by navigating major incidents, forging business trust and leading the human and technological transformation necessary for today’s high-stakes risk environment. 

This session will cover: 

• Defining resilience beyond recovery;
• Building a resilient defense architecture across platforms;
• Regulation vs. resilience: Where is the challenge?
• Adaptive risk management in dynamic environments;
• Navigating through disruptive technologies.

As Southeast Asia’s banking and financial sector races to harness artificial intelligence for instant payments, lending and digital finance, AI has become both the engine of transformation and a vector for new, complex threats.

Yet, this AI-powered transformation comes with a dual promise: unprecedented efficiency and innovation, alongside a formidable new frontier of security risks. This panel assembles leading CISOs and security executives from Southeast Asia’s BFSI landscape to explore the tangible security dividends of AI adoption, including enhanced identity governance, automated compliance and resilient ecosystems that balance innovation with trust. 

This session will cover:  

• Securing the AI development life cycle;
• AI governance and compliance in a multi-jurisdictional region;
• Architecting an AI-native security operations center.

As quantum machines edge closer to cracking widely used encryption standards like RSA and ECC, attackers are already launching "harvest now, decrypt later" campaigns, banking on encrypted information to unlock once quantum power arrives.

Waiting is not an option: Leaders must act today to accelerate post-quantum readiness, future-proof cryptography, and champion new approaches to cyber governance before the quantum storm hits. This session clarifies the technical landscape, regulatory imperatives and urgent CISO actions essential for building quantum-resilient enterprises throughout Southeast Asia. 

This session will cover: 

• “Harvest now, decrypt later”: The evolving risk model;
• Vulnerabilities of RSA, ECC and other foundational protocols;
• Accelerating post-quantum readiness: Practical steps for CISOs.