As AI adoption accelerates and scales, internal and external threats are increasingly targeting the global tech sector and outpacing traditional security models.
AI continues to drive new business growth and value creation opportunities for technology products and services providers through digital transformation. Combined advancements in generative AI (GenAI) and agentic AI are enabling increased operational efficiencies through automation and improved business outcomes using personalised knowledge augmentation, enhanced enterprise decision-making, and autonomous actions. At the same time, AI-driven threats within and beyond the enterprise pose rapidly growing risks for tech firms.
Insider threats may arise, for instance, from an organisation’s own employees exposing business operations, inventions and strategic product launch plans, as well as other intellectual property or sensitive information. Potential avenues for exposure include social engineering manipulation, negligence and accidental leaks, or even intentional sharing and misuse. Vendors and third-party software sourced through the supply chain may also introduce vulnerabilities when they fail to comply with industry security standards and provide the right controls.
Downed systems and compromised data from cyberattacks translate into costly operational disruptions and legal fines for tech firms. Moreover, as trust erodes, damage done to business reputations and relationships may be long-lasting and even irreparable.
Tech leaders who adopt a converged consulting and operational model can pre-emptively identify, analyse, and neutralise cyber threats with a strategic, future-ready approach. In effect, it is not just about patching vulnerabilities that arise but enabling a comprehensive, intelligence-driven cyber framework that can address the complex supply chain nuances and increased compliance requirements of global businesses.
“To strengthen their overall cybersecurity posture and reduce their risk exposure, tech firms must gain a unified view of the business and operations,” explains Mustafa Chaudhary, Global Head of Cybersecurity Practice, Technology and Software Services (TSS) Business Group, TCS. “By bringing the two sides together, they can assess the potential risk impact across the organisation and invest in the right controls based on insightful and actionable intelligence.”
Tech leaders are challenged to shift their security stance from fragmented and reactive to unified and proactive.
Among the key challenges in securing a tech enterprise and its interactions with ecosystem partners are navigating misconfigurations across multi-cloud environments and addressing the inadequate enforcement of controls during application development and integrations. Tech firms also face increasing sophistication of cyberattacks and a constant influx of security alerts. They must manage supply chain disruptions due to geopolitical tensions and material shortages in addition to staying on top of continually evolving regulations and compliance requirements.
Maintaining compliance across jurisdictions, including federal and local levels, demands a flexible, well-orchestrated governance model. Global tech firms must comply, for instance, with stringent regulations spanning the EU General Data Protection Regulation, the US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, and the California Consumer Privacy Act.
These challenges are compounded by a lack of coordination between the consulting and operational sides of an organisation, resulting in siloed views of security threats and risks. For example, a network misconfiguration, server issue, and even a single password change can negatively impact or shut down enterprise operations with ripple effects across the entire supply chain. By combining business insight with technical execution, firms can better assess and mitigate security risks.
Today’s cyberattacks are largely AI-driven and will be bolstered by quantum computing in the not-so-distant future.
AI and GenAI technologies are unleashing more sophisticated cyberattacks across the tech sector but are also being leveraged to bolster security capabilities. Tech firms can derisk AI adoption and enhance cyber capabilities by deploying autonomous AI agents, effectively using AI to secure AI.
Looking ahead, quantum computing is poised to significantly disrupt the tech landscape. By around 2030 or possibly sooner, TCS expects quantum computers will advance enough to break current cryptographic protocols. Commonly employed encryptions, such as the Rivest-Shamir-Adleman algorithm, elliptic curve cryptography, and even the Advanced Encryption Standard are at risk. Malicious threat actors are already engaging in “harvest now, decrypt later” strategies. They are collecting encrypted data today with the intent to decrypt it when quantum computing becomes commercially available.
To safeguard sensitive data and maintain business continuity, tech firms can start on their post-quantum cryptography (PQC) journey now, applying a three-pronged approach. They can:
As AI and quantum computing will completely reshape the threat landscape, tech firms must evolve their cyber posture. By taking a proactive stance, they can ensure cyber agility and resilience and preserve trust among clients and ecosystem partners to maintain a competitive technology advantage for driving continued business growth.
To lead their businesses into the future, tech firms must reimagine their cyber programs and set priorities based on five growing trends.
The multifaceted challenges facing tech firms today are rooted in larger technological and operational trends. Industry leaders can reimagine their cyber programs as a two-phased approach, focusing on the essential priorities first before tackling a more advanced set of priorities.
Tech firms must adopt a cybersecurity strategy based on a proactive approach that leverages AI automation capabilities for speed and efficiency and is deeply integrated across application development, operational processes and systems, and compliance functions. Only then can they minimise the potential risk impact of cyber threats and ensure resilience and trust to support continuous innovation and growth into the future.
CISOs and CIOs can ensure their cyber investments deliver tangible value for stakeholders through a converged consulting and operational model.
Through a unified view of the business and operations, chief information security officers (CISOs) and chief information officers (CIOs) can leverage predictive intelligence to make wiser investment decisions about security solutions. By seamlessly integrating their cybersecurity strategy with digital transformation initiatives, they can facilitate more efficient and effective allocation of cyber resources and minimise potential risks to ensure business continuity.
For instance, tech firms are naturally focused on accelerating and scaling AI adoption across the enterprise. Many, however, lack an overarching strategic approach supported with validated industry use cases, resulting in poor returns on their AI investments and mounting technical debt. As they look to boost their cyber strategy with AI-driven solutions, they must first seek to understand the full risk potential of a given threat based on a unified view of the business and operations. They must then analyse insights from tested proof of concepts against their specific needs before making an investment decision.
Mergers and acquisitions as well as divestitures are examples of other key areas of opportunity where a unified approach to security can help tech firms optimise their investments. As businesses integrate their operations and restructure their organisations, they face challenges in optimising overlapping technologies, managing licensing costs, and ensuring consistent security controls. A unified approach can help identify and address security gaps across newly transformed business and operational environments.
Cybersecurity is not a siloed function—rather, it is key to enabling business innovation for continued growth.
For tech firms, innovation is tightly coupled with business outcomes. Every product and service offering should represent a technological advancement and deliver measurable commercial value. This dual objective requires a secure and trusted technology foundation. Integrating a cybersecurity strategy across an organisation’s people, processes, and technologies helps lay the foundation for supporting business growth with the right controls in place.
Through a converged consulting and operational model, tech firms can effectively bridge the gap between strategy and execution. They can gain a unified view of the security threats and risks that may inhibit their growth potential.
With enhanced visibility, tech firms can leverage valuable insights to fortify and quickly adapt their cyber strategy and responses at scale based on changing needs. And organisational leaders can make overall better informed, risk-aware decisions to prioritise their security investments and optimise returns.