Duo has announced the opening of its first data center in India to assist customers with strengthening their cyber defenses and meeting data localization requirements. This is the most recent of Cisco’s investments in India to build future-ready, data-compliant security infrastructure.

The opening of the Mumbai data center is part of Duo’s global expansion strategy. The data center will support all of Duo’s zero-trust platform functionality, such as multi-factor authentication (MFA), single sign-on (SSO), VPN-less remote access, device trust, passwordless (in public preview), and adaptive risk-based policies. Businesses will be able to improve their performance by improving connection stability thanks to the local data center.

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This move is significant because Indian businesses, both large and small, are accelerating their digital transformation. However, this raises the issue of keeping up with an increasingly complex threat landscape. According to a recent Cisco survey, 37% of cybersecurity technologies used by Indian firms are considered outdated by their security leaders. Recognizing that the need to improve preparedness has never been greater, nearly nine out of ten Indian companies polled are investing in a zero-trust strategy, including passwordless security, to allow for greater agility, visibility, and control.

“As Indian organizations ramp up their security, they must focus on building a robust cloud-based, automated architecture to facilitate remote management of highly distributed users, applications, and networks. At Cisco, as we catalyze our transition to delivering a majority of our portfolio as a service, we are bringing Duo to more customers to help them not only prevent and respond to breaches but also be certain that their data is held securely within the region,” said Daisy Chittilapilly, President, Cisco India & SAARC.