At GITEX Asia 2025, thousands of tech leaders, innovators, and practitioners converged in Singapore to explore the future of digital transformation. As Asia’s flagship tech event, GITEX Asia brought together global voices across AI, cybersecurity, cloud, mobility, and enterprise infrastructure with each addressing urgent questions facing modern organisations.
Among the most relevant conversations was the cybersecurity panel “How AI Prevents Cyber Attacks: Intelligent Defense for a Complex World.” It tackled a growing reality: traditional cybersecurity approaches are no longer enough to address the scale and sophistication of today’s threats.
Michelle Parreno, Regional Solutions Architect at Fortinet, led the discussion with a sharp focus on real-world implementation. Drawing from over 15 years of experience across sectors such as logistics, healthcare, and telecom, she demonstrated how artificial intelligence serves both as a tool and a strategic necessity for digital defense.
Her insights weren’t centered on futuristic AI scenarios—they were grounded in scalable, actionable approaches that organisations across Asia can adopt today.
Why AI is Now Essential to Cybersecurity Strategy
As organisations expand their digital ecosystems, they inherit wider attack surfaces. This trend isn’t isolated to large enterprises, SMEs are equally vulnerable, especially those transitioning into cloud and hybrid environments.
Parreno emphasised that AI is no longer a complementary layer in cybersecurity. It has become a foundational component for any organisation seeking to defend at speed and scale. The key lies in its ability to interpret behavior, respond to anomalies in real-time, and coordinate defensive actions with minimal latency.
Meet Michelle Parreno: Fortinet’s Expert on AI-Driven Security Solutions
As Fortinet’s Regional Solutions Architect for the Healthcare and Education verticals, Michelle Parreno brings deep technical and industry knowledge to the conversation. Her background includes leadership roles in SD-WAN, SASE implementation, and multi-sector enterprise infrastructure—giving her an end-to-end view of security from operations to governance.
Her role involves tailoring Fortinet’s solutions to meet the specific needs of APAC organisations navigating regulatory complexity, IT sprawl, and rising threat sophistication.
How AI Is Transforming Cybersecurity Across Industries
Artificial intelligence is making a measurable impact across sectors: finance, manufacturing, datacenters, education, retail, logistics, healthcare, and more. Each of these industries carries unique digital risks, yet AI’s core strength which is its ability to learn from data and adapt rapidly—remains universally relevant.
Parreno noted that cross-industry AI adoption reflects an urgent shift toward proactive defense, particularly in regions like Southeast Asia where digital transformation is accelerating.
Real-World Use Cases: AI in Threat Prevention & Detection
The panel detailed how AI is elevating cybersecurity from detection to decisive action. Use cases included:
- Phishing email detection
- Network traffic anomaly analysis
- Insider threat monitoring
- Automated patching and access control
- Malware classification
These capabilities directly support faster response times, greater accuracy, and better prediction of vulnerabilities. AI’s ability to identify emerging attack patterns also enables security teams to prepare for threats before they escalate.
AI Assistants in Cybersecurity: Enhancing SoC & NoC Efficiency
AI assistants are now embedded into critical operations such as Network Operations Centers (NoCs) and Security Operations Centers (SoCs). These assistants handle early threat detection, incident triage, and coordination of system responses.
Their presence enables cybersecurity professionals to focus on higher-level decision-making by offloading the time-sensitive, repetitive tasks that previously strained internal teams.
ArkStack’s Role in Delivering AI-Enabled Cybersecurity for Businesses
At ArkStack, we view cybersecurity as an ongoing strategy and not a one-time investment. AI plays a key role in how we help clients improve infrastructure visibility, automate threat detection, and build lasting resilience.
Through our managed services, we support businesses in integrating intelligent defense without disrupting daily operations. The result is a more agile and protected IT environment, built for growth and designed for trust.
Cybersecurity Built on Intelligence: Key Takeaways from GITEX Asia
As Michelle Parreno concluded, the future of cybersecurity will be defined by speed, coordination, and systems that learn and evolve.
AI is already a critical part of today’s defense playbook. For businesses in Asia and beyond, the opportunity now lies in operationalising that intelligence, ensuring that strategy and technology work hand in hand.
Ready to future-proof your business with AI-enabled cybersecurity? ArkStack helps you lay the groundwork for a secure, scalable AI-driven infrastructure—built to handle today’s threats and evolve with tomorrow’s technologies. Contact us to explore how we can support your transformation.
2025-04-254 mins
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