Mumbai, India – The Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit 2025 commenced with an emphasis on AI-enabled cybersecurity, API security risks, and an increasing focus on identity-first security. The keynote session titled “Harness the Hype: Turning Disruption Into Cybersecurity Opportunity” featured insights from Gartner analysts Deepti Gopal and Dennis Xu on the effect of AI hype on cybersecurity strategies.
“Hype can drive organizations to overinvest in unproven technologies or cause cyber and risk teams to slow down excessively, risking missed market opportunities. However, hype often contains a kernel of truth and signals change that cannot be ignored.Organizations are investing in hyped, cutting-edge technologies like generative AI, and the CISO plays a crucial role in balancing innovation’s rewards and risks by guiding intelligent risk-taking,” warned analyst Deepti Gopal.
She urged security leaders to educate themselves on the basics of AI, to promote critical thinking, and to appoint AI champions to ensure that AI solutions are adopted safely and strategically.
API security emerged as another critical concern. William Dupre, VP Analyst at Gartner, warned “API security breaches are a major concern among organizations, as an average API breach leads to at least 10 times more leaked data than an average security breach, causing more damage. AI and APIs have a symbiotic relationship, with APIs playing a crucial role in training AI models. This makes securing APIs essential to protect AI systems from unauthorized access and data breaches.”
He emphasized the need to secure APIs, since they are often used to train AI models. Dupre provided a five-step framework for designing an effective API security strategy: API discovery, posture management, testing, runtime protection, and fine-grained access control.
“Begin API discovery and posture management with a focus on access control issues. Anticipate and prepare for the additional workload that comes with implementing behavior-based API runtime protection,” he advised.
Abhyuday Data, Director Analyst at Gartner, emphasized the growing need for identity-first security strategies to combat evolving threats. He said, “The legacy approach to identity and access management (IAM) fails to address security risk pervasively or in real-time, prompting leaders to shift investments to identity-first security. Cyberattacks often begin by targeting the identity infrastructure, requiring a defense-in-depth approach to IAM infrastructure that includes prevention, detection, and response.”
“Security leadership must understand ITDR as a security discipline and reach a consensus on who will serve as the ITDR owner or facilitator. An IAM leader is accountable for connecting the ITDR initiative into the larger IAM program and deriving business value from it. Collaborate with security and business teams to leverage insights from various tools, address high-risk issues, and understand their use of identity to explore intersection points,” said Data.
Source: https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025-03-10-gartner-security-and-risk-management-summit-2025-india-day-1-highlights
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