Living in the increasingly phygital world, how Cloud4C, being one of the best professional cyber-threat solution providers in India, is protecting the modern data-centric digital realm of the global cyberworld is a question worth probing.
In these efforts, the company’s Chief Operating Officer (COO), Chanakya Levaka, answered each of CIOLook India’s crucial questions in detail in the following one-on-one discussion.
Welcome, Sir. As a trailblazer in the Cyber-threat solution industry, could you take us back to the beginning of your journey? What motivated you to step into this dynamic field?
The digital landscape, colloquially, is a ‘mine-field of roses.’ While it’s easy to spot the transformative possibilities of what digitalization can bring for enterprise operations at large, it’s far elementary to miss out on the evident landmines along the journey. Nine out of ten cyber incidents occur due to a lack of internal awareness within organizations.
The situation has escalated. Though the cloud grants enterprises the necessary modernized foundations to step up their digital game store, consolidate and leverage TBs worth of data, and adopt AI at scale, it’s equally necessary to have intelligent guardrails in place around the stack to operate in a risk-free manner, 24/7. That’s easier said than done, considering the complex landscape legacy and large-scale enterprises operate with – a mix of on-premises and cloud platforms, multiple third-party or partner environments, and loosely coupled thousands of endpoints. We realized, far ahead into the early years of Cloud4C’s inception, that this security conundrum is only going to explode as data and AI adoption boom. Born out of the data centre industry, the trend wasn’t very difficult to map out, and hence, we invested deeply into building a ‘security-first cloud transformation practice. Today, Cloud4C commands an exhaustive portfolio of cyber-defense offerings applicable to any size, scale, and mix of operational landscapes a business is running with.
Cloud4C has emerged as one of India’s best Cyber-threat companies. Could you share the guiding philosophy that has propelled your organization’s success?
As set by our CMD, Mr. Sridhar Pinnapureddy, Customer value is our primary business value. Cloud4C, as an organization, is keenly attentive to delivering maximized business value and growth to its customer enterprises adopting a digital or cloud transformation journey. And, that’s not possible without embracing a ‘proactive secure by design or security-first philosophy’; what value is left or lost if there are multiple business disruptions in the year, or even one? What will remain of the business reputation if the sensitive data of millions of customers is breached? And, unfortunately, even if such an incident occurs, what’s the best way to recoup value, safeguard consumers, and spring back on the business track without giving away too much to the competition?
Our Advanced Cyber-Defense Centre is, therefore, core to any long-term transformation initiative we sign, assisting enterprises in running their mission-critical operations or accelerating their digital futures without risk. We understand that cybersecurity cannot be a peripheral affair but the very guardrails on which a transformation exercise is blueprinted in the first place. Even if a customer doesn’t explicitly sign up for the security component at first, our hybrid Centre of Excellence model ensures cyber-defense professionals are immediately pooled in and consulted should there be a hint of risk.
And why proactive? At Cloud4C, we believe in staying one step ahead of challenges. That’s why we focus on AI-driven proactive threat and risk gap detection paired with automated remediation strategies. Our approach delivers a unique ‘self-healing’ technology stack for customer enterprises, enabling potential risks to be identified and resolved before they escalate, ensuring vulnerabilities are patched before any breach actually occurs.
The Cyber-threat landscape is continually evolving. How do you ensure that Cloud4C remains adaptable and ahead of industry trends, providing innovative solutions to your clients?
Change is the only constant, especially when it comes to cyber-defense. Modern cyber-attacks don’t follow algorithmic or usual invasive patterns, rendering them invisible to traditional scans. Threat TTPs have evolved largely to fool traditional behavioural analysis, and the adoption of AI has made bespoke, targeted penetrations common at scale.
At Cloud4C, we have a flexible yet advanced MXDR (Managed Extended Detection and Response) solution involving industry-leading SIEM SOAR core, addendum technologies and platforms from the world’s foremost cybersecurity companies, intelligent monitoring and deep threat hunting frameworks, in-depth analytics, automated managed Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), and a unique self-healing (predictive alerting and preventive maintenance) layer for our customers powered by our proprietary Self-Healing Operations Platform (SHOPTM). The MXDR framework is continuously assessed and upgraded, expanding automation capabilities and integration of AI-ML and GenAI models around the stack. Supporting the ecosystem is our global cyber-defense Centre of Excellence, a trusted Security Operations Center (SOC) team for 4000+ enterprises worldwide, including 60 of the Fortune 500 companies.
Sir, Cloud4C’s CMD, Mr. Sridhar Pinnapureddy’s leadership style is often recognized as a driving force behind Cloud4C’s achievements. Could you shed light on his approach to leadership and team building within the organization?
CMD firmly believes that an organization is as best as its people; it can grow and break barriers to innovation only when there’s an internal work culture actively promoting the same. I personally take a lot of inspiration from him. At Cloud4C, we celebrate individual achievements as well as collective ones, empower talents to grow beyond their usual KRAs or hierarchical and departmental barriers, and foster creative and leadership thinking. Often, that means setting up initiatives that proactively identify innate leadership qualities amongst employees, engaging them in upskilling programs from subject matter expertise and professional conduct POVs, and helping accelerate their growth through challenging yet inspirational projects. I feel that, like any renowned global institution, businesses should invest in strong talent development programs to build their leaders for tomorrow and in the future. This lays the foundation for a long-term resilient and high-performance enterprise. Our Future Leadership Programs for new joiners/freshers and Execution Leadership Programs for top-performing employees across all levels reflect that motive.
The essence of Cyber-threat lies in seamless digital transformation and encrypting the IT infrastructure. How does Cloud4C strike a balance between operational efficiency, a secure digital ecosystem, and customer satisfaction?
Often, companies may experience resistance to implementing stringent cybersecurity measures across operations. It could be that the legacy stack is not modernized enough to sync it with state-of-the-art AI-based cybersecurity tools, or the internal employees/end users themselves reject an additional security layer due to experiential hassles in accessing critical systems. A simple 2FA or MFA adoption could create mass confusion and require hundreds of hours of odd training.
Much of this mayhem occurs because security initiatives are undertaken in a siloed fashion, in many cases justifiably so, to prevent leakage of sensitive strategies or information to fortify operations in the long run. Cloud4C, over the years, ensures cyber-defense strategies are at the center of transformation initiatives without compromising larger operational efficiency or user experience. We conduct 1-1 workshops with customer leadership and involved user groups to clarify the objective and the long-term experiential impact of the security transformation exercise. Detailed SOPs, educational materials, and proactive communications with one-stop executive visibility ensure micro changes are rolled out in alignment with user behaviours and end-consumer experiences. Today, for some processes, we practice Just-in-Time (JIT) Access, a security practice that provides users, applications, or systems with the minimum required access for a limited time, reducing the risk of unauthorized or excessive access. This is how we implement the principle of least privilege (PoLP) by ensuring that access is granted only when needed and revoked afterward.
Sustainability and environmental responsibility are crucial aspects of the modern Cloud-powered IT era. How does your company integrate these principles into its operations and contribute to greener digital footprints?
At Cloud4C, in partnership with our group company CtrlS, sustainability is at the heart of our operations. CtrlS, as the world’s leading Rated-4 certified Data center provider, champions green energy adoption and efficient infrastructure. Building on these capabilities, we offer cloud-managed services that reduce IT carbon footprints and drive environmentally responsible digital transformation. This commitment is reflected in our approach across operations, practices, and technologies:
*Sustainability in Operations: We leverage cloud-native architectures, energy-efficient data centers, and scalable automation to minimize energy consumption and optimize resource usage, significantly lowering environmental impact.
*Greener IT Practices: Through FinOps, we enable organizations to efficiently manage resources, optimize costs, and reduce waste, ensuring operational transparency and sustainability.
*Ethical Technology: Our collaborations with DeepForrest and 8bit.ai, a Cloud4C and Group entity, respectively, deliver AI-driven solutions that are energy-efficient and environmentally responsible, aligning with global goals to reduce carbon emissions.
Cloud4C has achieved remarkable success. Could you highlight a transformative project or initiative that showcases your company’s commitment to excellence and innovation?
The firm is a leading global logistics and transportation company. It is recognized as one of the largest and most reliable providers of logistics solutions worldwide operating in more than 150 countries offering services including parcel delivery, express courier services, freight transportation, supply chain management, and e-commerce logistics.
The organization’s exhaustive operational scape and enterprise-wide digital initiatives necessitated a robust multi-cloud ecosystem integrating AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud resources without compromising performance, security, and compliance. Cloud4C, leveraging its expertise in designing and implementing large-scale cloud transformations for Fortune 500 companies, employed a Secure by Design approach to architect a unique multi-cloud solution for the global company. This rendered a single control plane for multi-cloud assets enhanced with 360-degree cyber defense including Zero Trust inspired identity and privileged access management solutions, proactive vulnerability management and Self Healing technologies, cloud native application protection platforms, and security innovations from globally leading ISVs. Automation further streamlined operations and visibility across the multi-cloud ecosystem; Infrastructure as Code for robust configuration management, CI-CD pipelines for application lifecycle automation, and automated compliance reporting aligned with key frameworks like ISO 27001, CSA, and others. Once deployed and running, the enterprise could scale operations seamlessly and risk-free across regions, experiencing industry-best availability, ultra-low latencies irrespective of geo location, and significantly amplified enterprise-wide protection against the most complicated threats.
In the realm of Cyber-threat, technology plays a pivotal role in enhancing efficiency. How does your company leverage technology further to optimize its solutions and stay ahead in a digital age?
Cloud4C deploys a mix of home-grown cyber-defense innovations and industry-leading platforms from technology giants such as Microsoft, AWS, Google, Oracle, IBM and globally renowned cybersecurity OEMs like Fortinet, CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, TrendMicro, Juniper Networks, Zscaler, McAfee, and more. Over 50+ such quality enterprise partners combined with our internal advanced cyber innovations cover anything and everything related to an organization’s risk management: Cloud Workload Protection, Network Security, Infrastructure Monitoring and Security, APM, Edge security, VAPT, IAM, Cyber Recovery, Data Security, Endpoint Security, Patch Management, WAF, DLP, key management, cyber-threat intelligence, advanced threat protection, SIEM-SOAR, Hardware Security Module, DevSecOps, Fraud detection, Anti-Phishing and Anti-ransomware, Anti-APT, and even Dark Web Monitoring.
Further to our no compromise stand when it comes to fortifying mission-critical operational environments, we implement Zero Trust technologies such as Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) round the stack. From advanced identity management, access controls, to proactive user behavioral monitoring, and threat intelligence, our focus lies in maximizing preventive approaches via cutting-edge technologies to thwart chances of breach to the minimum possible.
We’re launching our Air Gapped Backup Solution as well, a fully managed immutable storage completely isolated from production environments to render safe recovery in case of unprecedented cyber-attacks, hosted securely on any platform – On-premises, Cloud or Hybrid.
The workforce is the cornerstone of any successful organization. How does Cloud4C foster a culture of growth, skill development, and empowerment among its employees?
We believe in being driven by a system-led operational model that is scalable, agile, and composable. What it means is that our cybersecurity offerings are platform-led and heavily automated, enriched with comprehensive process SOPs for any kind of cyber action pre-, during, and post-attack. The core platform is enhanced with best practices from serving critical industry customers across the world, allowing us to be hyper-agile while serving any new customer requirement or incident. What our peers take to deliver in months, we can do in weeks, courtesy of our rich SOPs and automated workflows embedded within the core delivery platform. The same ecosystem also harbours comprehensive training and upskilling modules for our talented cyber-defence professionals to upgrade and implement global best practices continuously. A dedicated L&D team assists in procuring the latest cybersecurity training and courses, deploying milestone-based learning programs for our security professionals while also assisting and inspiring them in gaining the latest certifications.
As a leader in India’s Cyber-threat sector, your company has likely faced its share of challenges. Could you share an instance where your team’s resilience and ingenuity triumphed over adversity?
As a multi-cloud service provider, we have multiple customers hosting their mission-critical services with us. Our Cyber Defense team provides equal security for all customers, regardless of their line of business, geographic location, or revenue. This approach is especially significant given the diverse threat landscapes and varying adversaries targeting different customers. During a recent incident, our team encountered a Zero Day vulnerability as part of our internal Code Red process, which we use to prioritize patching and close vulnerabilities. However, the customer was unable to implement the necessary patching due to high year-end workloads. Recognizing the criticality of the situation, our team demonstrated resilience and ingenuity by swiftly taking proactive measures.
We developed Indicators of Compromise (IoC) and used cases specific to the vulnerability to monitor for any potential attacks. Additionally, we turned off VPN connectivity and enforced site-to-site connections exclusively from the customer’s organization. To enhance security further, we restricted web application traffic to the customer’s country, ensuring only authorized access. Despite the customer not opting for Web Application Firewall (WAF) services, we deployed it as a complimentary safeguard. These actions underscore our commitment to customer security and our readiness to go above and beyond contractual obligations when needed, ensuring robust defense against evolving threats.
Cyber-threat deals in the digital realm, touching on aspects like information and data safety, security, and machine learning. How does Cloud4C address these critical factors in its service offerings?
I’d like to give the larger picture here, how economies are shaping up in this era and why security is a key element within the same. A critical trend in today’s information age is the rise of data sovereignty and sovereign AI regulations across countries. Not just developed economies but also middle-world countries and fast-growing regions are implementing similar practices to wield influence over Indigenous data and, eventually, digital innovations within boundaries. It’s evident to these countries, a number fast increasing globally, that data is the new fuel for long-term economic prosperity and industrial, people, and societal development. Adhering to these data residency and sovereignty regulations is critical for businesses to operate in a risk-free manner and avoid costly penalties, or, on the flip, gain access to localized information and adopt or roll out new-gen AI solutions.
Cloud4C, owing to its deep in-country presence across 30 countries in most of the world’s fastest-growing economic belts, has become a trusted sovereign digital transformation partner for large-scale enterprises in core BFSI, manufacturing, energy, healthcare, government, automotive, retail, power, pharma sectors. Along with our public hyperscale cloud expertise, we’re also unveiling a fully managed, sovereign private AI cloud offering delivered by 8bit.ai, CtrlS-Cloud4C group’s novel GPU cloud and AI entity. The unique solution is autonomous-first powered by 8bit’s proprietary NeutrinoTM platform, an AI multi-agentic framework transforming managed operations including deep security maintenance and trust management on cloud. Hosted on our group’s AI-ready datacenters and seamlessly integrable with any existing IT environment or hyperscale cloud ecosystem, this grants enterprises of all sizes and across industries a security-first high performant AI and cloud stack for their end-to-end intelligence initiatives.
Cyber-resilience, hence, is no longer just about deploying a stack of peripheral monitoring and incident response solutions; it’s a larger guardrail allowing enterprises to operate responsibly, in compliance, and risk-free as they chase a massively disruptive digital and AI future. It’s uncertain, filled with unprecedented possibilities to leverage and grow from, only if operated in a security-first manner.
Looking to the future, what is your vision for Cloud4C? How do you aspire to continue making a significant impact on India’s Cyber-threat landscape?
India will become a global digital hotspot and an AI nerve center in the next few years. By 2030, the Indian digital economy is projected to be valued at over a trillion USD, led by one billion-plus internet users. The data center capacity is expected to grow to 17 GW by then. This speaks volumes about the data we will generate and play with, the digital innovations that are bound to happen, and the surge in the eventual demand and production of cloud infrastructure and AI. The early signs are positive: central and state governments are rolling out necessary initiatives and regulations to drive mass and industrial digital adoption responsibly, invariably triggering a data explosion. The confidential in-country compliant hosting, storage, and security of India’s data, the millions of businesses impacting 1.4 billion people, is a mission greater than any sole monetary goal.
Not many players, I believe, will have the right network of hyper-available, Rated-IV, and sovereign infrastructure, cloud, and application stack to securely house and manage India’s data, ensuring frictionless operations and intelligent transformations of the millions of businesses and the billions they serve. It’s not easy, and Cloud4C will be a leading confidante with the necessary technology capabilities and global expertise to support India’s sovereign digital and AI needs in a security-first manner around the stack. That’s my vision.
