Last year alone, the world saw a staggering 659% increase in cryptojacking attacks, as reported in the 2024 SonicWall Cyber Threat Report. The report further states that over 800,000 people fall victim to cyberattacks annually and that every 39 seconds a cyber attack takes place somewhere in the world.

Cryptojacking is a common issue faced by cloud service providers, involving cybercriminals, who exploit vulnerabilities, to install cryptomining malware and use the cloud provider’s resources for cryptocurrency mining. 

Disney is investigating a major breach of its internal Slack channels, with hacker group Nullbulge claiming to have leaked over 1 terabyte of sensitive data. Meanwhile, US phone giant AT&T also suffered a data breach in which customers’ phone numbers and call records were stolen.

In India, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd recently experienced a data breach, with a threat actor allegedly accessing sensitive information such as international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) numbers, SIM card details, home location register data, and critical security keys. 

A few years ago, Aditya Birla Group too fell victim to it. 

“The impact of cryptojacking in India is no different from what it is in downtown Australia or Japan. There’s consistency in the use cases and the problems we are addressing for our customers”, said Gavin Selkirk, the VP and general manager for APAC at Sysdig. 

Sysdig is a San Francisco-based firm that specialises in cybersecurity solutions designed for cloud-native environments. It focusses on container security, Kubernetes security, cloud security, and advanced monitoring capabilities.

Recently, the company announced the expansion of its cloud-native security platform with a new SaaS region in India. 

This move addresses the growing customer demand, as India’s cloud market is expected to reach $20.3 billion by 2027. By 2026, the global cloud computing market is projected to reach $947.3 billion and by 2025, 95% of new workloads are expected to be in the cloud, making cloud security a critical focus area.

Founded in 2013 by Loris Degioanni, Sysdig is known for Falco, an open-source, cloud-native runtime security project, now an incubating project under the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). Falco acts as a security engine, detecting and alerting unexpected behaviours within cloud-native environments.

One of the key challenges in cloud security is the speed at which attacks can occur. While traditional on-premises attacks might have a dwell time of 16 days, cloud-based attacks can unfold in as little as 10 minutes. 

Using Falco, enterprises running their applications on the cloud can detect and alert threats in real-time (within 2 seconds) anywhere in the cloud fabric, stopping attacks instantly. 

“Falco has become the de facto standard for cloud data threat detection today. Our open-source technology has seen wide adoption with over 100 million downloads and broad ecosystem support from companies like Red Hat, IBM, Amazon, Azure, and others,” said Sysdig CEO Suresh Vasudevan in a recent interaction with AIM.  

AI x Cloud Security 

Sysdig has developed a new tool called Sysdig Sage, a cloud security AI assistant. It helps security teams uncover hidden risks, respond faster to threats, and work more efficiently in cloud environments by employing advanced multi-step reasoning to mimic the investigative processes of security professionals.

It is built on top of a proprietary LLM and allows users to ask questions in natural language. 

One of the most common concerns among customers is whether their data is safe. “We don’t collect any data; we just read through the logs,” said Simarpreet Singh, regional director, India, Sysdig, explaining that it does not put any software in the container. “We simply go through the logs that have been collected and provide details to the customer.”

Sage simplifies the role of chief security officers by automating security reporting. The security dashboard is essential for monitoring the overall health and security status of the system.

“If you’re a CFO or CEO, you typically need to interpret security reports in business terms or rely on security experts for detailed analyses. With Sage, this is no longer necessary, as it can interpret data and independently generate comprehensive findings,” he explained.

Sysdig is Not Alone 

With the rise of AI, cloud security has become a necessity, so much so that Alphabet Inc, the parent company of Google, is in advanced negotiations to acquire the rapidly growing cybersecurity startup Wiz for approximately $23 billion. 

Founded in 2020, Wiz, like Sysdig, specialises in providing comprehensive cloud security solutions that enable organisations to quickly identify and mitigate risks within their cloud environments.

Similarly, Orca, a formidable competitor of Sysdig, has announced a new tool called AI Security Posture Management (AI-SPM). It provides enterprises with a complete view of all AI models deployed in their environment and alerts them if any AI models or training data contain sensitive information, allowing appropriate action to prevent unintended exposure. 

However, Sysdig’s USP is the 555 benchmark, a new standard for cloud security detection and response. It challenges organisations to detect threats within 5 seconds, correlate the data within 5 minutes, and respond within 5 minutes, aiming to outpace attackers in cloud environments.

En Route to India 

“India is our third-largest market after the USA, Japan, and ANZ. In just 18 months, our India business accounts for about 20% of our ARR and is projected to represent 50% of our new licence bookings over the next 12 months,” said Selkirk.

“We are working with the largest SI companies who have helped us secure big customers through some value-added distribution companies, and lots and lots of partners,” he added. 

Singh said that some of the Indian government agencies are Sysdig customers. “The government is very serious about security. GST, as the largest revenue body, cannot afford any cloud security breaches. They have released an RFP solely focused on security and are investing INR 100 crore to address these concerns.”

“‘One card, one nation’ includes significant security features. The income tax department and passport services have also requested new security measures. Every government project will see substantial security enhancements,” he added.