2025 has seen deepfake technology become alarmingly accessible and sophisticated, fuelling a surge in high-impact incidents that erode confidence in institutions, media, and digital interactions. The proliferation of AI-powered deepfakes represents an existential threat to digital trust across Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. Singapore's leadership in countermeasures, including watermarking and advanced authentication, is crucial, yet recent CSA survey data reveals a stark reality: 75% of Singaporeans cannot reliably identify deepfakes, despite 78% believing they can. This confidence gap underscores the urgent need for robust digital identity verification and advanced IAM strategies.In this PodChats for FutureCISO, Jasie Fon, regional vice president for Asia at Ping Identity, covers some of the key issues, challenges and opportunities CISOs will find important in 2026.1. How severe is deepfake as a threat to businesses, governments and individuals in Asia in 2025?a. Should AI take credit for the rise of deepfakes in the region?2. How has AI impacted the cybersecurity function at organisations?3. In your view, is the (identity and access management) IAM roadmap of most organisations in Asia sufficiently aggressive in deploying phishing-resistant (FIDO2/Passkeys) and continuous authentication to mitigate deepfake-enabled account takeover? (DCI?)_4. In your view, do current incident response plan explicitly include procedures for dealing with deepfake-based fraud, extortion, or reputational attacks?5. With 2026 coming, does the rise in deepfake threat require CISOs to revise their cybersecurity strategy?a. Will this necessitate revising the cybersecurity budget priority and allocation?6. How will emerging regulations across ASEAN and Hong Kong specifically mandate deepfake detection and mitigation for customer interactions and internal communications?7. How can CISOs, CIOs and CFO effectively measure the ROI and efficacy of their deepfake detection investments across communication channels?8. What is your expectation around cybersecurity in 2026? Any recommendations for CISOs and CIOs in the coming year?

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