If incidents this year are any indication, deepfakes and “harvest now, decrypt later” attacks increased by the growing adoption of quantum computing projects are among the many concerns organizations in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region must address in 2025. Over the past year, cybercriminals operating in the APAC region have increasingly leveraged AI to launch sophisticated campaigns such as AI-generated phishing emails, adaptive malware, and deepfakes. The attacks have undermined trust in critical communications and exacerbated social tensions, says Clement Lee, security architect and evangelist at Check Point Software Technologies, Asia Pacific.
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"This was starkly demonstrated during recent elections seen across APAC: in India, where deepfakes fueled widespread disinformation; in Indonesia, where a doctored deepfake video aimed to stir anti-China sentiment; and in Hong Kong, a finance worker who was duped into sending $25 million by a deepfake impersonation of company executives," Lee says. As these tactics extend from the political sphere into the corporate realm, businesses must adopt AI-driven security defenses to counter them, Lee notes.
Simon Green, president of Asia, Pacific, and Japan at Palo Alto Networks, described the APAC region as on the cusp of a "perfect storm of AI-driven cyber threats" heading into 2025. He noted that attacks featuring deepfake audio and video will likely be the most visible manifestations of the trend. "We can expect deepfakes to be used alone or as part of a larger attack much more often in 2025," Green said. Audio deepfakes, in particular, will likely increase over the next 12 months as technology for highly credible voice cloning becomes more easily accessible.
We also expect to see more organizations in the APAC region looking for ways to protect their data better as they implement AI-enabled projects. "Our customers are asking how they can get more value out of their data while maintaining robust security, especially as they look to benefit from GenAI products like Microsoft Copilot," adds Max McNamara, vice president and managing director of Australia and New Zealand at AvePoint. "This starts with having secure, accessible data, ensuring you can scale with solutions that don't compromise your security posture, and rigorously adhering to increasingly complex regulatory standards," he says. APAC organizations will increasingly be looking to ensure their data is not just accessible but also fundamentally secure within their borders, he notes. "Our customers are asking how they can get more value out of their data while maintaining robust security, especially as they look to benefit from GenAI products like Microsoft Copilot," McNamara says, adding that this starts with having secure, accessible data, ensuring you can scale with solutions that don't compromise your security posture, and rigorously adhering to increasingly complex regulatory standards.
The growing number of quantum computing projects in the APAC region will likely fuel an increase in "harvest now, decrypt later" attacks. Such attacks involve adversaries collecting and storing currently encrypted data to decrypt it in the future when quantum computers become powerful enough to break today's encryption standards. The attacks pose a significant threat to sensitive information that must remain secure for extended periods.
According to Fortune Business Insights, Asia Pacific is the fastest-growing quantum computing market in the world, with multiple companies, including IBM, Microsoft, Google, Alibaba, Baidu, JSR, and D-Wave Systems, currently involved in large regional quantum software and hardware projects. One example is a new quantum computing cloud platform that Alibaba has deployed in collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Some quantum projects in the APAC region are happening at a national level, such as India's US-funded National Mission on Quantum Technologies & Applications and Singapore's Quantum Engineering Programs. "The advent of quantum computing threatens to render current encryption standards obsolete, risking exposure of sensitive data and compromising critical infrastructure," Lee says. "Quantum-resistant cryptography will gain traction as organizations prepare for future decryption threats."
According to Palo Alto Networks ' Green, organizations in the APAC region should expect increased interest in harvest now, decrypting later attacks from a wide range of adversaries, including nation-state-backed threat actors. Green said The attacks will threaten governments and businesses, civilian and military communications, critical infrastructure, and organizations developing quantum projects. According to Palo Alto Networks, organizations concerned about the trend should develop a quantum-resistant road map that includes deployment of quantum-resistant tunneling, more substantial crypto libraries, and quantum key distribution.
Richard Sorosina, chief technology security officer and vice president of solution architecture at Qualys' EMEA & APAC operations, believes that the APAC threat landscape's fast-evolving and increasingly sophisticated nature will likely accelerate the ongoing consolidation of security capabilities at many regional organizations. He expects organizations to increasingly move toward a unified security platform approach that will provide a centralized view of risk across the organization and mechanisms to remediate that risk when found. Many of these efforts will be "driven by a need to reduce complexity, increase operational efficiency, enhance detection and response capabilities, and reduce overall cost," Sorosina says.
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