Bridging the Cybersecurity Gap: Cisco’s 2025 Readiness Index Reveals Urgent Need for Strategic Action in the AI Era

With the rapid rise of AI technologies and an increasingly complex cyber threat landscape, businesses are under growing pressure to strengthen their cybersecurity defences. According to Cisco’s 2025 Cybersecurity Readiness Index, only 7% of organisations in India have reached a ‘Mature’ level of cybersecurity readiness—an improvement from 4% last year, but still far behind what’s needed to counter today’s evolving risks.

Samir Kumar Mishra, Director of Security Business at Cisco India & SAARC, highlights the key findings from the report, pointing to major challenges such as fragmented security systems, lack of visibility into AI usage, and a critical shortage of skilled cybersecurity professionals. He outlines why a more unified, AI-powered approach—combined with stronger governance and training—is essential for Indian businesses to build true cyber resilience in the digital age.

What does this year’s Cybersecurity Readiness Index reveal about organisations’ cybersecurity readiness globally and specifically in India? How has this changed compared to last year?

Cisco’s 2025 Cybersecurity Readiness Index reveals persistent gaps in enterprise preparedness, despite growing awareness of emerging threats. Globally, only 4% of organisations have reached a ‘Mature’ level of readiness. In India, while that number has increased from 4% in 2024 to 7% in 2025 – the improvement is marginal and fails to keep pace with the rising complexity of the cyber threat landscape in the AI era.

This year’s Index highlights a widening disconnect between confidence and capability. Whilst businesses in India accelerate digital transformation and embrace technologies like GenAI, their security frameworks are not evolving at the same pace. Many still rely on fragmented, siloed solutions that hinder their ability to detect, respond to, and recover from emerging threats, including shadow AI usage, data privacy risks, and increasing regulatory complexities. Alarmingly, 45% of organisations lack visibility into shadow AI deployments, and 43% of IT teams are unaware of GenAI usage among employees. Meanwhile, 90% of organisations face increased risks from unmanaged devices and the challenges are compounded further with shortage of cybersecurity talent. About 92% respondents in India highlighted that the shortage of skilled cybersecurity professionals is a major challenge, with 65% reporting more than 10 positions to fill.

The findings call for a shift from incremental improvements to a proactive, strategic approach. Cybersecurity must become an integral part of digital trust through robust governance, workforce training, advanced threat intelligence, and continuous monitoring to achieve true cyber resilience.

What steps can companies take to accurately assess their cybersecurity posture and avoid overestimating their defences?

To accurately assess cybersecurity challenges, organisations must first simplify their existing security frameworks. Cisco’s 2025 Cybersecurity Readiness Index reveals that 84% of companies struggle with fragmented, multi-solution infrastructures that hinder threat response. Simplification through integrated, AI-driven solutions can enable quicker detection, response, and recovery. Equally as important, organisations must focus on developing a comprehensive security strategy, which includes implementing Zero Trust principles and advanced authentication methods like passwordless and multi-factor authentication.

Raising awareness of AI-related threats is also crucial. Only 66% of employees fully understand these risks, leaving organisations vulnerable. Structured training programmes are needed to educate teams on emerging threats and responsible AI use. Additionally, the ongoing talent shortage—cited by 92% of respondents as a major challenge—demands strategic investment in workforce development and AI-driven automation to close the skill gap and strengthen cybersecurity resilience.

What are the primary challenges businesses face in adopting robust cybersecurity measures, particularly with the rise of AI-driven threats and an increasingly complex security landscape?

Enterprises adopting AI-driven solutions face significant challenges across security, privacy, and operations. In fact, 95% of companies said they’ve had an AI-related security incident in the last 12 months. Threat actors exploit AI vulnerabilities through methods like model manipulation, data poisoning, and prompt injection. To mitigate these risks, organisations must prioritise safeguarding sensitive data, preventing unauthorised access, and avoiding data breaches and regulatory non-compliance. Robust data privacy measures and responsible data management practices are essential for mitigating these risks and ensuring compliance with regulations in the digital age. Algorithmic bias presents important ethical and legal considerations. AI systems trained on incomplete or biased data may produce outcomes that lack fairness, highlighting the importance of thorough evaluation and ongoing monitoring of AI models to ensure equity and accountability.

Operational complexities like workforce skill gaps, fragmented data infrastructures, and inadequate governance frameworks further complicate effective AI adoption. Organisations should prioritise strategic investments in cybersecurity, establish robust AI governance frameworks, and implement comprehensive integration strategies to securely and ethically harness AI for achieving their operational goals.

How does AI impact cybersecurity, and what role does it play in strengthening security measures?

AI is transforming cybersecurity by enabling organisations to proactively defend against evolving threats through enhanced automation and human expertise, as demonstrated by Cisco’s AI-driven solutions that automate threat detection, accelerate response times, and improve decision-making capabilities.

For example, Cisco’s Extended Detection and Response (XDR) platform leverages AI to correlate data across multiple security domains, endpoints, networks, email, and cloud to rapidly identify and prioritise threats. This significantly reduces incident response times and alleviates alert fatigue, enabling security teams to focus on strategic priorities rather than reactive tasks. Complementing this, Cisco’s AI Assistant provides actionable, context-aware insights to help Security Operations Centres (SOCs) navigate complex threats and improve efficiency. Guided by Cisco’s Responsible AI Framework, which emphasises privacy, security, fairness, and transparency, these AI-driven solutions not only enhance cybersecurity efficiency but also empower security professionals to confidently protect their organisations against sophisticated cyber threats.

Can you elaborate on Cisco’s strategy for helping customers enhance their cybersecurity posture in today’s evolving landscape?

Cisco’s approach to enhancing cybersecurity posture is grounded in a platform-first strategy that simplifies complexity while increasing security efficacy. As threat actors evolve and the digital footprint expands, a fragmented, tool-based model is no longer sustainable. Cisco is addressing this with the Cisco Security Cloud, a unified, AI-driven platform that provides end-to-end protection across users, devices, applications, and workloads.

At the heart of this strategy is innovation that scales with complexity. Cisco Hypershield redefines cloud-native security with real-time vulnerability defence and autonomous segmentation. Cisco Duo, now powered with continuous identity security, ensures that trust is dynamically earned, not assumed. With Splunk, Cisco is transforming Security Operations Centres (SOCs) by delivering full-stack observability, intelligent alerting, and automation enabling faster, more decisive responses.

As hybrid work and multi-cloud environments expand the attack surface, Cisco’s Cloud Protection Suite and Zero Trust Architecture provide consistent policy enforcement, dynamic risk-based access, and complete visibility across infrastructures. AI is not an add-on; it’s foundational. From detecting AI-generated threats to automating policy enforcement, AI powers Cisco’s ability to stay ahead of adversaries. All underpinned by Cisco’s Responsible AI Framework, ensuring secure, ethical, and transparent innovation.

How does the integration of Splunk into Cisco’s security portfolio improve businesses’ security operations?

The integration of Splunk into Cisco’s security portfolio marks a pivotal shift in the way organisations scale up in their capabilities to manage complex, evolving threats. At a time when cyber threats are becoming highly sophisticated and dispersed across hybrid environments, organisations need holistic visibility rather than fragmented, isolated tools with speed and intelligence. Cisco’s acquisition of Splunk uniquely positions us to offer a unified security and observability platform that delivers real-time, end-to-end visibility across the entire digital ecosystem, spanning networks, clouds, and endpoints.

The integration combines Cisco’s industry-leading network intelligence and threat detection capabilities with Splunk’s powerful security, observability, and data analytics tools, creating an unprecedented level of insight and resilience. This enables security teams to detect, understand, and respond to threats faster, while reducing time spent on manual tasks through automation.

Crucially, AI and machine learning are embedded throughout, enabling proactive, predictive security. Instead of simply reacting to threats, teams can now leverage advanced analytics, guided by contextual insights to anticipate and prioritise threats effectively. This empowers cybersecurity teams to take decisive, informed actions. It’s about empowering human decision-makers with smarter tools, not replacing them. Ultimately, this transformative integration of Cisco and Splunk equips businesses with robust, adaptive security operations, ensuring their readiness against current and emerging cyber risks. It’s a forward-looking approach, ensuring enhanced operational resilience and strategic readiness in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.

What advice would you give to businesses looking to strengthen their cybersecurity defences in the coming years?

Strengthening cybersecurity defences in today’s environment requires a multi-layered approach that integrates AI into their cybersecurity planning. The first step organisation can take is embedding AI into their security operations, not just to detect threats faster, but to accelerate incident response, automate repetitive tasks, and enhance visibility across their digital footprint. AI can serve as a force multiplier for overstretched security teams, enabling them to focus on what matters most.

Equally important is prioritising identity security. With the rapid proliferation of digital identities—across users, devices, and application identity has become the new perimeter. Organisations need centralised, risk-based controls to detect anomalies and prevent identity-based attacks before they escalate.

A fragmented toolset introduces operational complexity and creates blind spots in cybersecurity defences. To address this, businesses should transition to a unified, platform-based architecture that integrates networking, identity, and threat detection into a cohesive system. This approach enhances visibility, simplifies management, and strengthens security across domains. Organisations must also assess their cybersecurity readiness, invest in scalable, AI-native technologies, and foster a culture of continuous adaptation to build resilience against evolving cyber threats.