Through deepfakes and data breaches, CEOs must lead cybersecurity battle

From a financial services perspective, Visa Consulting and Analytics, Asia Pacific Risk Practice Lead Sen Dibyajyoti described the escalating scale of fraud in digital payments.

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He pointed to phishing, social engineering, and Al-driven scams as the most immediate threats for banks and fintechs."Resilience depends on embedding security by design across payment ecosystems," Dibyajyoti said.

Fraud and social engineering were recurring concerns. Deepfakeenabled scams, such as impersonated CEO and CFO phone calls, have already cost global firms millions. Panellists highlighted the importance of layered security using multiple controls such as callbacks, shared secret questions, and verification protocols to counter increasingly sophisticated attacks. Education was stressed as a frontline defence, not only for employees but also for consumers, who are often the most vulnerable target group.

Rajah & Tann Cyber Security CEO Wong Onn Chee reinforced this by warning of ransomware-as-a-service and state-sponsored cyber espionage as top regional threats. He noted that fragmented regulations make coordinated responses difficult. Around seven in ten executives worldwide share this concern, citing cyber regulations as overly complex, fragmented, or burdensome.

With cloud migration accelerating across industries, SECGRA Director Paul Hidalgo focused on the structural vulnerabilities of multicloud environments. He stressed that traditional perimeter-based security models are obsolete in today's distributed systems. Instead, he advocated for zero-trust architectures that continuously validate users and devices, combined with strong incident response frameworks.