When I first heard of ‘Digital Twin Technology it sounded right out of a science fiction movie. I was admittedly nervous and felt like I was way out of my league, but as I talked to Sapna Sumbly, the field CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) of Trend Micro India, I realized it’s not so complicated as it sounds.

Before we go any further, let’s first define what a digital twin is. A digital twin is a digital replica of an actual model or environment, designed for testing and fine-tuning in real time. Some real-world use cases and examples of digital twins include sailing boats used in competitions. Digital twins are used to analyze and study the optimal outcomes for the ships in different scenarios. SpaceX’s Dragon capsules also use digital twin technology to help mission control monitor the status of the Dragon capsules through real-time data.

Trend Micro is exploring how to help organizations adopt a proactive cybersecurity approach using digital twins.

Much of our conversation focused on how digital twins can take a more proactive approach to cybersecurity, enabling organizations to be better prepared and take action so that untoward incidents don't occur in the first place.

The long-term goal of proactive security is cyber resilience.

One of the ways Trend Micro helps achieve this proactive stance in its cybersecurity platform is through its massive threat research center. Two of which are located in the Asia Pacific, and one of the largest workforces is based in the Philippines. The job of the threat researchers is to proactively look at the vulnerabilities or the gaps that could be exploited later on.

Another is through their security bug bounty program. Trend Micro conducts three on-site events every year, which help create visibility into vulnerabilities in attacks. In the last event in Milan, a vulnerability in Microsoft’s SharePoint was discovered. This helped Trend Micro’s customers deal with the threat before it even became an issue.

Digital twins are possible because Trend Micro also released an industry-first cybersecurity domain LLM (Large Language Module) last year, called Cybertron (someone is a Transformers fan). Cybertron is an in-house cybersecurity domain LLM (Large Language Model) that consists of data sets and machine learning technologies, which helps accelerate outcomes, to bring in new solutions like digital twins.

Cybertron is designed for proactive prediction, detection, and response, which Trend Micro has identified as the three layers of defensive depth in endpoint security.

Here are some ways in which digital twins help businesses: First, they help stakeholders make more informed decisions about which actions and priorities to take. In Cybersecurity, the biggest problem (including in the Philippines) is the skill gap, the knowledge workers. If you look at any security operations team, they handle up to 20,000 alerts, each of which needs to be investigated. With digital twins, this gap can be closed by focusing only on those that have meaningful value in the investigation.

It provides significant relief for industries where cybersecurity testing is limited. A digital twin is a replica of their entire cybersecurity posture. They can provide a holistic predictive analysis of their environment, rather than only taking a sample. Because the digital twin is always connected to their production environment, it provides real-time data, allowing you to see the actual results of any security testing.

Attackers are constantly looking for ways to exploit your environment. Digital twins always run in real time without impacting your production. This is also important, as any testing requires downtime.

AI and digital twins are concepts that were unheard of some years back, but the world is changing at unprecedented speeds, and what we could only imagine in sci-fi films is now here in everyday life. There is still so much to learn from this kind of technology, but the important thing is that we keep learning. As the world continues to progress and change, we too must learn to adapt or be left behind.

You can learn more about Trend Micro’s Digital Twin technology on their website.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.