CyberTech Top Voice Interview with Piyush Pandey, CEO at Pathlock

Hello, CyberTech community. Welcome to part #20 episode of the CyberTech Top Voice interview series with Piyush Pandey, CEO at Pathlock. 

Piyush, the CEO of Pathlock, a leading provider of identity and access management solutions, shared his extensive experience in cybersecurity and a deep understanding of the evolving threat landscape. Piyush has been instrumental in guiding Pathlock’s mission to help organizations enhance their security posture through innovative solutions. As companies continue to embrace digital transformation, the Zero Trust model is becoming increasingly vital in safeguarding sensitive data and systems. Piyush will discuss how businesses can strategically invest in Zero Trust frameworks, the challenges they may face, and the tangible benefits of adopting this security model.

Zero Trust investments in 2025 will vary based on company size and existing security infrastructure, with costs ranging from under six figures for SMBs to multi-million-dollar budgets for enterprises. Optimizing costs requires leveraging existing tools like IAM, endpoint security, and SASE, alongside a phased implementation approach. Key challenges include modernizing legacy systems, minimizing user friction, and securing executive buy-in. AI-driven threat detection and automation will enhance Zero Trust strategies, reducing complexity and improving ROI. Businesses must prioritize security alignment with operational goals for long-term success.

In this interview, Piyush shares valuable insights into the concept of Zero Trust investments—an essential approach to modern cybersecurity.

Here’s the full interview conversation with Piyush. 

How much should zero trust investments cost in 2025? Any tips on optimizing these costs for better outcomes and security results? 

 The key tip is not to make investments to achieve complete Zero Trust or Zero Risk, as this is both impractical and impossible. Instead, optimizing for better security should be the mission guiding you towards the right investment decisions.  

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What are the top challenges when implementing a Zero Trust strategy, and how have you overcome them?  

The top challenge is identifying, prioritizing and managing critical business risks. As organizations modernize their operations digitally, the risk of unauthorized access to regulated applications at the transaction level becomes a crucial concern. 

 Modern Zero Trust approach requires that access control goes well beyond traditional perimeter-based identity access and authentication strategies, requiring organizations to continuously monitor and control complex processes that are being executed across multiple applications, each with different security models. 

Which technologies do you consider essential for building a successful Zero Trust framework, and why? 

A dynamic, agile access control technology to automate compliant provisioning, high-risk access monitoring and critical application infrastructure health maintenance is a critical element of a robust Zero Trust project. Such technologies help prevent unauthorized access to regulated applications at the transaction level and significantly reduce an organization’s exposure to fraud, breaches, and non-compliance. 

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How do you ensure alignment between your Zero Trust strategy and broader business goals, especially when securing remote and hybrid work environments? 

Securing digital business access risk must be owned, understood and managed by the business as a whole, not just IT. Think office of the CFO, if not CEO. 

What is your approach to Zero Trust investments—do you recommend a phased implementation, or a full-scale overhaul, and why? 

Absolutely phased, prioritized by a combination of risk severity and automation modernization sequencing. 

 Looking ahead to 2025, how do you see Zero Trust solutions evolving in terms of cost, complexity, and ROI for organizations, and how should businesses prepare for these changes? 

As technology has consistently evolved over several decades, digital access security will continue to get better, consolidate and operate more efficiently.

Thank you so much, Piyush, for your delightful insights. We look forward to having you again at the CyberTech Top Voice engagements.

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