Kaspersky Highlights AI Threats and Cyber Visibility Gaps in Asia Pacific

The Asia Pacific (APAC) region is now facing increasingly complex cyber security challenges amid the massive use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) by criminals.

Kaspersky’s Managing Director for Asia Pacific, Adrian Hia, revealed that organisations are not only racing against time, but also fighting “obscurity” or visibility gaps within their own systems.

According to Hia, the integration of AI into cyber attacks allows hackers to move faster than an organisation’s ability to detect and respond. This creates significant blind spots in both Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) environments.

Kaspersky has noted a rising trend of attacks leveraging AI, infrastructure sabotage, and sophisticated cyber espionage. One concerning finding is the emergence of AI agents as a new supply chain layer that is vulnerable to misuse.

“This year alone, Kaspersky has identified more than 15,000 malware samples disguised as AI agent software. Because these agents rely on third-party APIs and plugins, a single upstream compromise can have a wide-ranging impact across the entire downstream system,” Hia explained.

Facing increasingly “AI-native” threats, Kaspersky emphasises that investment in technology alone is not enough. Organisations require a mature Security Operations Centre (SOC) to shorten the attack window and provide full visibility.

Kaspersky itself has applied a “Human-Machine Intelligence” philosophy for two decades. Since 2004, the company has refined Machine Learning (ML) models trained ethically using global telemetry from millions of endpoints.

“AI is not an add-on at Kaspersky; it is embedded across all layers of our technology for faster detection and smarter automation,” Hia added.

To help organisations in APAC, Kaspersky offers the Kaspersky Next product line, which provides EDR/XDR capabilities as well as generative AI models to turn raw data into actionable intelligence. This step is expected to bridge the skills gap among security teams in the field.

In addition to technical solutions, Kaspersky also provides managed services such as MDR (Managed Detection and Response), Incident Response, and SOC Consulting services to help companies build resilient security centres from the initial stage through to operational improvement.