When ransomware attacks began to cripple Akira and Ryuk all over the world, the first instincts in the cybersecurity industry was predictable. Build bigger walls, deploy more aggressive autoresponders, lock down everything. However, according to Romanus Prabhu Raymond, technology director at ManageEngine, there is another issue.
While its customers had requested aggressive containment capabilities, automatic isolation of suspicious hospital computers or banking counter systems could prove more devastating than the original threat. The dilemma – balancing rapid threat responses with real outcomes – illustrates why ethical cybersecurity practices have become one of the critical challenges of 2025.
In an exclusive interview shortly before his presentation at the Cybersecurity Expo in Amsterdam, Raymond revealed that major organizations are free from traditional security versus per-rate trade-offs and why companies embracing this “relief revolution” can rebuild their security.
First of all, the cybersecurity industry is at a critical time. Famous violations, evolving regulatory frameworks, and rapid integration of AI into security systems have created new challenges that go far beyond technical protection. Organizations are currently facing important questions about innovation and responsibility, privacy and security, and how to balance automation and human surveillance.
Define modern ethical cybersecurity
According to Raymond, ethical cybersecurity transcends traditional concepts of defense. “Ethical cybersecurity goes beyond the defense of systems and data. It is the responsibly application of security practices to protect organizations, individuals and society as a whole,” he explained in an interview prior to his presentation.
In the 2025 cloud-first environment, security is not a competitive differentiator, it is a baseline expectation. What sets you apart today is the ethical processing of data and implementing security measures.
Raymond protects public spaces without intruding into private areas, similar to installing security cameras in your neighborhood. Avoid looking into residents’ windows. Cybersecurity must work under the same principles.
ManageNentine operates this philosophy through what Raymond calls the “ethical design” approach, embedding fairness, transparency and accountability into every product. The company’s attitude towards customer data exemplifies this commitment. It is about maintaining that it belongs to customers only and does not monitor or monitor customer data.
Paradox of innovation risk
The tension between innovation and risk management is a key issue for modern organizations. Pushing too hard on innovation without proper safeguards puts businesses at risk of data breaches and non-compliance. With a focus on risk mitigation, organizations may find themselves unable to compete in evolving markets.
The “trust through design” philosophy incorporates responsibility and accountability into every stage of development, enabling rapid innovation and maintains compliance and ethical standards. When deploying critical components such as endpoint agents, the company ensures that new features are inherently compliant with industry standards and security requirements.
This approach extends to the global operation of the company. ManageEngine maintains data centers around the world to meet local privacy and regulatory requirements, and trains all employees to handle customer data in integrity to support engineers from developers. The company’s “translocalization strategy” allows local teams to serve local customers, creating operational efficiency and cultural trust.
AI Integration and Human Surveillance
As artificial intelligence becomes the centre of cybersecurity operations, the ethical implications of AI-driven security solutions have become more complicated. Raymond acknowledges that AI has evolved from a purely supportive role to a more critical function, raising questions about accountability, transparency and equity.
“Her Principles” in Raymond Expounds ManageEngine: Secure AI, Human AI, and Ethical AI. Secure AI involves building robust protection against manipulation and hostile attacks. Human AI ensures that human surveillance remains essential for critical security actions. For example, when AI detects a suspicious endpoint, it escalates to human validation rather than automatically removing the device from the network.
This is especially important in sensitive environments such as hospitals and banks where block systems can automatically have serious consequences.
The ethical AI component emphasizes explanability. Rather than generating “black box” alerts, the Engine system explains inference. The alert states, “At this point, the endpoint cannot log in and is trying to connect to too many network devices.” This transparency is essential for building compliance and trust with AI-driven security systems.
Navigate the privacy security trade-offs
The balance between required security surveillance and privacy violations represents one of the most sensitive aspects of ethical cybersecurity practices. Raymond acknowledges that aggressive surveillance is essential for early detection of threats, while creating a surveillance environment that treats employees as suspects rather than trustworthy partners.
ManageEngine uses principles that emphasize data minimization, purpose-driven monitoring, anonymization, and clear governance structures. We collect only the information needed for security purposes, ensure that all data has defined security use cases, use anonymous data for pattern analysis, and define data access permissions and retention periods.
The framework shows that security and privacy need not be mutually exclusive when led by ethics, transparency and accountability.
Industry Leadership and Future Challenges
Raymond argues that technology vendors must act as managers of digital ethics and gain trust rather than expecting blindly given to them. ManageEngine says it contributes to industry standards by embedding thought leadership, advocacy and compliance standards such as ISO 27000 and GDPR into its products from the start.
Raymond has identified AI-driven autonomous security and quantum computing as the biggest ethical challenges facing the industry. As security operations centers move towards full autonomy, issues of accountability and accountability become important. Quantum Computing’s ability to break traditional encryption threatens the basis of secure communications, but technologies like biometrics raise privacy concerns if not carefully managed.
Practical implementation
For organizations looking to integrate ethical considerations into their cybersecurity strategies, Raymond recommends three specific steps: It embraces the Cybersecurity Ethics Charter at the board level, embedding the privacy and ethics of technology decisions when selecting vendors, and explains why it explains not only the ethics that operate ethics through comprehensive training and control.
As the cybersecurity landscape evolves, thriving companies are those who recognize ethical cybersecurity practices not as constraints of innovation but as the basis for sustainable and reliable technological advancements. In the future, organizations need to innovate responsibly and maintain the ethical principles needed for human surveillance and digital trust.
See: European Specific Drive Ethics AI Compliance
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