Proofpoint sees growing opportunities in Malaysia

The cybersecurity vendor recently hosted its first Proofpoint Protect Insights Kuala Lumpur, which was attended by customers and partners in the country.

Proofpoint continues to expand its presence in the region with the cybersecurity vendor organizing the first Proofpoint Protect Insights Kuala Lumpur. The event witnessed Proofpoint partners and customers come together to learn more about the challenges in the industry as well as how Proofpoint is capable of supporting them in their cybersecurity journey.

With Malaysia focused on becoming an AI Nation by 2030, building a trusted digital ecosystem is imperative. Fabian Bigar, Secretary General of the Ministry of Digital in Malaysia, who delivered a keynote address at the event, stated that events like Proofpoint Protect Insights are crucial platforms for exchanging on this shared vision and fostering collaborative action.

For George Lee, Senior Vice President, APJ at Proofpoint, the cybersecurity vendor is committed to supporting Malaysia’s cybersecurity ecosystem with actionable threat intelligence and human-centric security capabilities that help organizations address emerging risks associated with agentic AI and evolving collaboration environments.

In a session with journalists at the summit, Lee shared that most of the cybersecurity cases reported today involved humans, who are often the weakest link. However, with cybercriminals also using AI tools these days to launch more sophisticated cyberattacks, organizations also need AI to combat AI.

“So, one of the things that we did as a company was the acquisition of a company called Acuvity, which does AI equity and governance monitoring. So, previously, you wouldn't know when there's a conversation between you and AI, and when an agent would talk to another agent. At that level of monitoring, you typically wouldn't understand what's going on at the back end. So, with this set of technologies, we have a proactive technology to understand what the agents are doing behind the scenes when a certain problem is being run,” Lee explained.

Lee also pointed out that it is imperative for organizations, especially CISOs, to understand the whole end-to-end flow around what AI is doing, especially what AI agents are doing on the back end.

“That would be what I would advise companies and the new CISOs to kind of really look at, because the threat landscape has changed drastically over the last 12 months. As AI is being adopted into even more prevalent technology, into other industries, into government, this threats will really scale in a bigger way if we do not understand what AI is doing on the back end,” Lee said.

Proofpoint in Malaysia

With Malaysia focused on its ambition to be an AI Nation by 2030, Lee believes this will promote a lot of organizations into using AI-ready tools. Hence, it's even more important for organizations to have that visibility over their AI tools.

“This is an emerging market. We have a lot of digital market space, and more people are doing activities online. Whether it's online shopping, interaction, those businesses will get affected. That's the reason why I think we're investing pretty big in this region, especially in Malaysia. However, I would say customers in Malaysia are slightly different, compared to some of the regions that are a little bit more focusing on compliance and privacy,” Lee added.

In terms of the readiness dealing with the emerging threats, Lee said unfortunately most companies are still not fully prepared as the trends and technologies are still new.

“I think the market is not mature yet. I think the customers are still also trying to understand what the AI tools are to be adopted. And at the same time, what's the risk they are exposed to when they adopt those tools. So, I think there is still that balance that needs to be struck. And hence, therefore, that decision is not being made. But this will be a very steep curve. When it grows, it grows in a big way. Because if you don't do it, you'll be left behind. Businesses understand it,” Lee said.

This is also where Lee pointed out that Proofpoint’s partners in the country help carry the message to customers. This includes ensuring that the cost of the technology is manageable by customers.

“We are always looking at obviously bringing technology to the market where the cost is a viable cost. We will not price ourselves out of the market. But one typical aspect we do is work with our partners. Whether our partners can deliver that as a managed service or aggregate to 5, 10, 15 customers into one service. So, I would work with our partners to kind of do that for the companies that want to adopt cybersecurity,” Lee concluded.