The cybersecurity industry is undergoing a fundamental philosophical shift, and Rubrik wants to lead the charge. With global cybercrime costs projected to hit $10.5 trillion this year, Hema Mohan, Vice President of Product Management at Rubrik, argues that the era of protection has officially ended — and the era of resilience has begun. Speaking ahead of RSA Conference 2026, Mohan lays out how Rubrik is repositioning cyber resilience from a reactive “plan B” into a proactive competitive advantage, uniting three critical pillars of modern enterprise risk — Data, Identity, and AI — under a single platform designed to keep businesses running even after a breach.
From a first-of-its-kind enterprise “undo button” for AI agent disasters to a unified identity resilience platform spanning Microsoft Active Directory, Entra ID, and Okta, Rubrik is making bold moves as autonomous threats rewrite the rules of engagement. With 90% of IT leaders citing identity-based attacks as their single largest threat, and non-human identities now outnumbering humans 82 to 1, Mohan reveals why traditional perimeters are becoming obsolete — and why, by 2027, time to clean recovery will replace perimeter strength as the KPI that matters most to the Board. Catch Rubrik at Booth S-926 in Moscone South all week for live demos, breakout sessions, and a whole lot more.
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VMblog: Give VMblog readers a quick overview of your company and its core mission.
Hema Mohan: As the global cost of cybercrime is projected to hit $10.5 trillion this year, the inevitability of a breach has become the ultimate business tax. Rubrik (NYSE: RBRK), the security and AI operations company, is moving the finish line from simple defense to absolute business continuity. Rubrik’s core mission is to secure and accelerate the world’s AI transformation, turning cyber resilience from a reactive “plan B” into a proactive competitive advantage.
By uniting the three critical pillars of modern risk – Data, Identity, and AI – Rubrik is the engine behind the unstoppable business. In an era where attackers use AI to bypass traditional perimeters in seconds, Rubrik ensures that even if an organization is hit, it never stops. The resilience revolution is here!
VMblog: Where can attendees find you at RSA 2026? What’s your booth number, and what kind of experience can visitors expect when they stop by?
Mohan: We are showcasing our core theme “Resilience for Everything: Identity. Data. AI.” all week! Join Rubrik at Booth S-926 in Moscone South for an immersive booth experience, including 16 interactive demos focused on AI governance, identity resilience, and rapid data restoration. Attendees will discover how to protect their entire ecosystem across Microsoft Active Directory (AD) and Entra ID, and Okta, while seeing our undo button in action.
Between sessions, enjoy our custom T-shirt station, Matcha and Boba bars, or our evening Beer & Wine hospitality. We’re also giving away premium swag, including custom socks, hats, and water bottles, all week long. Check out our two breakout sessions:
- Monday, March 23, at 1:10 PM: Identity Resilience
- Wednesday at 9:40 AM: New Control Plan for Cyber Resilience
VMblog: With the proliferation of AI agents and autonomous systems in enterprise environments, how is Rubrik Agent Cloud addressing the security challenges of agentic AI?
Mohan: AI agents can enable us to scale and work in ways we never thought possible, but we’re also grappling with the “AI Agent Paradox,” where the increased autonomy granted to AI agents creates a significantly higher risk of unrecoverable disasters. We’ve given agents the keys to the kingdom, but they can now do 10 times the damage in one-tenth the time.
This is where Rubrik steps in with a “Ctrl+Z” for the enterprise.
Rubrik Agent Cloud is the first enterprise-grade safety net designed to let innovation run wild without the fear of a point of no return. Key capabilities of the platform include:
- Rubrik’s undo button – Agent Rewind. If an AI agent accidentally deletes production code or exfiltrates sensitive API keys, Rubrik allows IT leaders to rewind the environment to a precise moment before the blast radius spread.
- Stopping the machine-speed disaster: Monitoring isn’t enough when damage happens in milliseconds. Rubrik provides natural language guardrails, allowing teams to set security policies in plain English that block risky agent behavior in real-time.
- Total visibility: A single pane of glass to track every agent across Azure, AWS, Microsoft 365, and Salesforce AgentForce. No more shadow AI. You know what agents you have and exactly what they’re touching.
By 2028, 33% of enterprise apps will be powered by agentic AI. With Rubrik Agent Cloud, Rubrik is moving the industry from “What did the agent just do?” to “We can fix it.”
VMblog: With identity now firmly established as the new perimeter, how does your solution address identity threats, including deepfakes and AI-powered social engineering?
Mohan: The perimeter hasn’t just moved. It has dissolved. According to Rubrik Zero Labs research, 90% of IT leaders cite identity-based attacks as the single largest threat to their organizations. Rather than breaking in, attackers use AI-driven deepfakes to simply log in, exploiting a landscape where non-human identities outnumber humans 82 to 1.
If AI makes a breach inevitable, Identity Resilience makes it survivable. Rubrik doesn’t just watch the front door, but we ensure that when a deepfake succeeds, the damage is reversible. Rubrik Identity Resilience stands as the only platform providing unified protection and orchestrated recovery across Active Directory, Entra ID, and Okta.
Through integrations with CrowdStrike, Okta, and others, Rubrik combines real-time threat detection with automated recovery, closing the loop between “We’ve been hit” and “We’re back online.”
VMblog: What’s your perspective on the most critical cybersecurity trends that will shape the industry in 2026-2027?
Mohan: This year and going forward, organizations that win will be those that prioritize fast recovery over building higher walls against autonomous threats. As AI agents and non-human identities proliferate, traditional perimeters are becoming obsolete, shifting the focus toward a non-human workforce strategy. To stay resilient, firms must integrate identity security directly into their data protection layers through a unified control plane.
As AI sprawl continues, having a rewind button for autonomous mistakes is moving from a luxury to an absolute requirement. Since machine-speed malware makes breaches statistically inevitable, the industry is pivoting toward isolated, immutable cyber vaults. By 2027, time to clean recovery will replace perimeter strength as a key KPI that matters most to the Board. Ultimately, the era of protection has ended, and the era of resilience – where recovery is the core metric – has begun!
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