Articles by Kavitha
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Kavitha Mariappan shared this98% of organizations we surveyed have already had an agent-related disruption. 9 in 10 expect it to get worse. Only 3 in 10 have rollback capabilities they've actually tested. New research from Economist Enterprise supported by Rubrik gets at that gap. It includes interviews with leaders at Mastercard, Citi, Moody's Corporation, Verizon, Aon and AXA XL. Typical losses run $38,000 for small companies and up to $283,000 for large enterprises, with the worst cases topping $22M. Intangible assets, the software, data, and IP that make up nearly all the S&P 500's market value, are still guarded far less than they're worth. 42% of executives who suffered a breach around an M&A deal saw the deal's value drop as a result. Cyber risk now touches valuation, insurability, and creditworthiness, not just uptime. Until CFOs can price downtime as precisely as they price a ransom, the budget stays misaligned. Read the full piece: https://lnkd.in/gb22_UsQ #CyberResilience #BoardGovernance #CFO Bipul Sinha Arvind Nithrakashyap Emma Hall Kyle Fiehler Lauren Wojno Wise Rajat Sharma Kiran MangatThe Cost of Complacency: Why Cyber Resilience Needs to Be Valued | Economist EnterpriseThe Cost of Complacency: Why Cyber Resilience Needs to Be Valued | Economist Enterprise
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Kavitha Mariappan shared thisCybercriminals share tactics, so if we want to stay ahead, our defense strategies must be just as collaborative. That is exactly why I am looking forward to the upcoming Rubrik CXO Collective in Newport Beach, CA on Sept. 16-17. We are bringing together the C-level leaders who are actively defining cyber resilience today. We will be joined by a powerhouse lineup of CXOs who will pull back the curtain on how they navigate today's most complex cyber threats. Among them: ➡️ Steven Ramirez | VP & CISO/CTO, Renown Health ➡️ Aaron Gette | CIO, EōS Fitness ➡️ Andrew Geyer | CIO, Millennium Space Systems ➡️ Rob Davidson | CISO, Pacific Blue Cross If you are a technology or security executive looking to pressure-test your strategies, elevate your organization's resilience, and learn from the best in the business, you belong in this room. Register your interest today through the link in the comments below 👇
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Kavitha Mariappan shared thisWe tend to think about software supply chain security as a code problem. Increasingly, it is an identity problem hiding inside the software development lifecycle. This is one of the more important pieces of research our Rubrik Zero Labs team has published this year. After analyzing more than 400 software supply chain incidents in 2026, the team found that credential and secret theft has become the leading adversary objective. Maintainer accounts, CI/CD tokens, OAuth grants, service identities, and administrative credentials have become some of the highest-leverage paths into the enterprise. And AI is adding another layer of complexity. AI frameworks, coding assistants, agent ecosystems, and emerging skill marketplaces are creating new dependencies and new privileged identities faster than many organizations are extending governance around them. The implication for CIOs, CISOs, CDOs, and CTOs is that software supply chain risk can no longer be treated solely as an application security issue. It sits at the intersection of identity, software development, AI governance, and cyber resilience. The question is no longer, “Can we trust the code?” It is, “Who, or what, has the authority to change it, and how quickly can we recover when that trust is compromised?” I strongly encourage technology and security leaders to read the new Rubrik Zero Labs Software Supply Chain Threat Landscape 2026 report, linked in the comments. #CyberResilience #IdentitySecurity #SoftwareSupplyChain #RubrikZeroLabs #RZL Joseph Hladik Kyle Fiehler Amit Malik Kirtar Oza, CISSP GCFA Varadharajan Krishnasamy Sushant Paithane
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Kavitha Mariappan shared thisToday at Black Hat, I announced that Rubrik is joining the Cloud Security Alliance as Lead Founding Partner of its new AI Resilience Center of Excellence: an initiative under the CSAI Foundation. We're leading this effort alongside the Nevada Institute of Cybersecurity at UNLV and RSAC. Here's why: non-human identities now outnumber people in the enterprise 109 to 1. In our Rubrik Zero Labs research, 88% of security leaders told us they want an undo button for what the AI agents in their environment do. For three decades, security has rested on one assumption: find bad intent and block it. That assumption is breaking. Agents are already inside the perimeter, acting, authorizing, and moving data without a person in the loop for every step. We joined because this problem is bigger than any one vendor, and it won't be solved by one. Guided by an advisory committee of operating CISOs, CIOs, and risk leaders, we're turning AI resilience into an actual discipline: a reference architecture, board and executive briefings, tabletop exercise kits, and a guidance series with maturity models organizations can leverage. The organizations that come through this storm in good shape won't be the ones with the tallest walls. They'll be the ones who built in recovery before the storm hit. Press release: https://lnkd.in/eGSYxdJC #AIResilience #CyberResilience #Rubrik Bipul Sinha Jim Reavis Jen Easterly Emma Hall Lauren Wojno Wise Joseph Hladik Bryan Willett Francesco ChiariniCloud Security Alliance Launches AI Resilience Center of ExcellenceCloud Security Alliance Launches AI Resilience Center of Excellence
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Kavitha Mariappan shared thisAs AI agents gain more autonomy, the environments they operate in are growing more complex, making decisions, accessing sensitive data, and reaching across organizational boundaries in ways most governance programs were never built for. My team at Rubrik partnered with Atlantic Re:think to ask CXOs across the US and EMEA what it actually takes to govern that complexity. 89% told us they were confident in their ability to trace, contain, and audit a serious AI error. Only half said they comprehensively track the NHIs running inside their own organizations, and those identities are growing at 44% (last 12 months). The questions I ask every CXO now are: Can you trace an agent's action? Can you revoke its access in real time? Can you contain the blast radius of a mistake? Can you restore your systems to a trusted state? You cannot govern what you cannot see, and most organizations are governing a workforce they have never fully seen, and evolving quickly. Read some of the initial insights here: https://lnkd.in/eJrW5tuE #AgenticAI #CyberResilience #AIGovernance #Rubrik #TransformationTeamCompanies Think They Control AI. The Data Suggests Otherwise.Companies Think They Control AI. The Data Suggests Otherwise.
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Kavitha Mariappan shared thisThe threat has changed. Have we? I sat down with Wendi Whitmore and Jen Easterly, two people who see more of the threat landscape than almost anyone. What came out of that conversation wasn't reassuring, but it was clarifying. Four things every security leader needs to act on now. Link below.What Actually Changes When the Threat Gets SmarterWhat Actually Changes When the Threat Gets Smarter
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Kavitha Mariappan shared thisAI agents are breaking things and organizations know it. They are deploying more anyway. That headline comes from research we commissioned with Economist Enterprise that surveyed 804 senior executives from 9 countries. The findings are not comfortable. 98% have already experienced a disruptive agent-related incident. 90% say they are deploying agents faster than their security teams can evaluate or govern. Two-thirds do not have full visibility into what their agents are actually doing. And only 30% have tested, robust capabilities to contain and recover from harmful agent actions. The competitive pressure to adopt is outpacing the infrastructure to control and that gap is where incidents live. The report is called "Power without control." The organizations that come out ahead will be the ones that close that gap before an incident forces them to. Full research from Rubrik and The Economist here: https://lnkd.in/eVvHMzbF #AgenticAI #CyberResilience #AIGovernance Emma Hall Vaibhav Sahgal Kyle FiehlerPower without control: Keeping control in the age of agentic AIPower without control: Keeping control in the age of agentic AI
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Kavitha Mariappan shared thisExcited to share that Vanessa E. from Mapfre will be joining us at the Rubrik Resilience Summit in Madrid on 7 July! In a world where AI is reshaping the threat landscape, the conversation around leadership and data resilience has never been more urgent. I'm looking forward to a candid, unscripted discussion with Vanessa and Paco Salcedo, and to connecting with some of Spain's top technology leaders. Proud to bring this together with Microsoft and Spain's technology community.
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Kavitha Mariappan shared thisToday, I’ve been reflecting on legacy, and the people who shape ours long before we understand the impact they’re having. My dad grew up in Malaysia in the years just after the Second World War. It was a very modest upbringing, and things were not easy. Through hard work, determination, and a deep belief in the power of education, he and my mother gave my brother and me opportunities they never had themselves. But here’s what I didn’t fully appreciate until much later. Even during the years when money was tight and life was demanding, he made time for us. He prioritized us and showed up when it mattered most. My dad is one of the smartest people I know, but what I admire most is his quiet composure, humility, and unwavering devotion to the people he loves. Today, despite his own health challenges, he continues to care for my mother as she navigates Alzheimer’s. After a lifetime spent loving and caring for his family, that is still what matters most to him. Happy Father’s Day, Appa. When I think about your legacy, I think about the example you have set for all of us. Even today, after a lifetime spent putting your family first, that is exactly where your heart remains. 💜
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Congrats, Sandro! What an incredible run at NAB. Wishing you all the best in your new role.
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Kavitha Mariappan liked thisKavitha Mariappan liked thisCelebrating the opening of the brand new Rubrik London HQ … wow what a beautiful office!!!
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Kavitha Mariappan liked thisKavitha Mariappan liked thisI am beyond grateful to be able to post something like this… On September 15th, I get to interview Joe Montana. For anyone who knows me well, you probably understand just how surreal that sentence is for me. Joe Montana was my hero growing up. He’s the reason I wanted to play quarterback. He’s the reason I became a Notre Dame football fan. I wore his jerseys as a kid all the time, watched and read everything I could about him, and I’m pretty sure I collected every Joe Montana football card ever made. 😂 When people talk about meeting their childhood heroes, this is literally that for me. And now, somehow, I get the opportunity to sit down with him and have a conversation. I’ll be interviewing Joe during Rubrik’s AI + Identity Resilience Summit for a session called “Master of the Moment: The GOAT Playbook for the Agentic Era.” We’re going to talk about performing under pressure, preparation, leadership, trust, resilience, and what it takes to stay composed when everything is on the line. But if I’m being completely transparent, there’s probably going to be a moment when I’m sitting across from him thinking: “Holy sh*t. I’m interviewing Joe Montana!” 😂 This is a true bucket-list moment for me. I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity and seriously could not be more excited. September 15th can’t get here soon enough. Register to watch here: https://lnkd.in/gTwbsYva Let’s go!! 🏈☘️ #JoeMontana #Rubrik #IdentityResilience #AI #Leadership #GOAT P.S. A huge thank you to Timothy Andreasen Lindsay Reardon Kalie Radsmikham Ryan McKenna Ryan Lynch and Rubrik marketing for making this even possible.
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Kavitha Mariappan reacted on thisKavitha Mariappan reacted on this🚀 In today’s rapidly evolving AI landscape, the stakes for organizations are “existential,” according to Kavitha Mariappan, Chief Transformation Officer at Rubrik. At the upcoming Global CISO Community Executive Summit, Kavitha will deliver a keynote: "The Resilience Gap — When Downtime Becomes a Brand Crisis." In our latest article, she explains why organizations should shift from prevention-first thinking to resilience-first economics, as well as why organizations should focus on resilience gaps. Don’t miss her insights. Read the article: https://lnkd.in/eHvJwmGa #CISO #Leadership #Resilience #AI #ExecutiveSummit #Cybersecurity
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Kavitha Mariappan reacted on thisKavitha Mariappan reacted on thisKrista Case (Macomber) Case at THECUBE Research recently covered comments from head of Rubrik Zero Labs Joseph Hladik on where today's real cyber risk lives. It's not AI alone, but the combination of human tradecraft and new AI-enabled capbilities. The piece also cites Zero Labs researcher Ori Lahav's sandbox escape finding in a widely deployed enterprise AI assistant, responsibly disclosed and patched, as a case in point. Check out the full analysis linked in the comments.
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Kavitha Mariappan liked thisKavitha Mariappan liked thisHeading to San Francisco this week and I’m looking forward to connecting in person with colleagues, CXO leaders, and community members across the Bay and Silicon Valley. Recap of recent conversations with CISOs and cyber resilience leaders: 1️⃣ Add "resilience" into your cybersecurity mandate, org structure and operating model. Then flip next year's budget priorities towards resilience at scale, as more peers realize that readiness is heavily underinvested. Take 15 minutes to read the full research this week: https://lnkd.in/dy2_4bwK 2️⃣ About cloud-native backups - EōS Fitness found that native M365 data recovery could take up to 71 days during rapid M&A scaling. Upgrading to on-demand recovery cut their backup/recovery time by 80% and preserved over $120M in risk avoidance. 3️⃣ Architect for "modular reversibility": traditional "all-or-nothing" disaster recovery at data center level breaks especially when deploying agentic AI at scale. Zurich U.S. proved that resilience requires modular recovery - the ability to surgically isolate and restore a single compromised system without taking down the rest of the enterprise or inflating the blast radius. And if you’re in the Bay Area this week and want to grab a coffee to discuss AI resilience or continuous readiness, drop me a note! #CyberResilience #BoardGovernance #CFO Kavitha Mariappan Bryan Willett Surendra Narang ISSA Cyber Resilience Special Interest Group Radhika Rangarajan Kyle Fiehler Emma Hall Lauren Wojno Wise
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Kavitha Mariappan reacted on thisKavitha Mariappan reacted on thisI said no to a meeting this week. Nothing dramatic. My family was getting together for Onam lunch. It was a weekday, I had a meeting, and I decided I'd rather be at the lunch. It got me thinking about why we work so hard. For ourselves. For people in our industry to know we did something meaningful. And for the people closest to us to be proud. I've been lucky enough to hit milestones I once thought would define success. I became a CISO in my early 30s. I published a book. Built things I'm proud of. But professional milestones have a surprisingly short half-life. The title you worked years for eventually becomes another line on LinkedIn. Companies move on. Industries move on. Most of us couldn't name the people responsible for technologies we use every day. And I've realised I'm okay with that. What would bother me is getting to the end of my career and having the people I was supposedly doing all of this for remember that I was always too busy working. I still want to build things. I still have a ridiculous list of things I want to achieve. But I'm getting clearer about who I want those achievements to matter to. This week, the meeting could wait. Onam lunch couldn't. P.S. Happy Onam to everyone celebrating! 🌼
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Kavitha Mariappan reacted on thisKavitha Mariappan reacted on thisDatabricks just raised $5B at a $190B valuation. 13 years ago, I remember when it was just Ion Stoica and a handful of his PhD students. I first met Ion in 2008, when I joined the board of Conviva - the video optimization company he'd co-founded. Around 2009, he saw that data from web and mobile was exploding exponentially - while the systems that processed it were only improving linearly. The math didn't work. A fundamentally different approach was needed. At the time, Hadoop was all the rage. But it had a fatal flaw - every intermediate step of a computation had to be written to disk. For workloads that loop over the same data again and again - exactly what machine learning requires - this made it painfully slow. We lived this problem at Conviva. Hadoop couldn't keep up with real-time video analytics. So Ion pulled in one of his PhD students, Matei Zaharia, to solve it. The result was Apache Spark: an open-source engine that kept data in memory between steps instead of writing to disk, making iterative computation orders of magnitude faster. But enterprises wouldn't move off Hadoop. Machine learning was still a niche. So in 2013, Ion started Databricks to commercialize Spark and prove the technology worked at enterprise scale. By this point, Ion was juggling 3 jobs: Berkeley professor, Conviva co-founder, and founding CEO of Databricks. All while staying in good spirits. As soon as Ion told me about Databricks, I wrote one of the first checks in the seed round. How could I not? Ion was one of the smartest people I knew, solving a giant problem. 13 years later, Databricks is one of the most important AI infrastructure companies on the planet. Ion, Ali Ghodsi and Matei Zaharia could see where the world was headed - and had the conviction to build for it before anyone asked.
Publications
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Databricks' Kavitha Mariappan on Why Spark is So Hot Now
Database Trends and Applications
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A New Storage Model for the Next Generation Data Center
Virtualization Technology News and Information
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Online Shopper Rage: Technology Is Crucial To Retail Success
Business Computing World
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What Cloud Customers Can Learn From High-Profile Power Outages
WIRED Innovation Insights
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Unleash Your Applications with Cloud-aware Application Delivery
Data Center Knowledge
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