CyberWire Daily Deepen Desai: A doctor in computer viruses. [CISO] [Career Notes]
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Jan 18, 2026 Deepen Desai, the Global Chief Information Security Officer at Zscaler, shares his fascinating journey from a family of doctors to combating digital threats. He discusses his early encounters with game-cheating apps that sparked his interest in OS security. Deepen emphasizes his role as a mentor, reflecting on the success of his past teams. He draws a compelling parallel between his work and a medical doctor treating viruses, while also giving aspiring professionals invaluable advice on mastering software fundamentals and balancing business tasks with research.
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From Game Cheating To Cybersecurity
- Deepen Desai traced his start to discovering cheating in an online game and reverse-engineering how those cheats worked.
- That curiosity led him to study Windows APIs, DLL injection, and OS-level behavior that launched his cybersecurity career.
Building Detection Tools Through His Career
- Deepen described building a client in grad school to detect DLL injection and then working on detection tech at SonicWall.
- He later joined Zscaler in 2014 to help deliver a cloud security stack that scaled global protections.
Cloud Security Scales Where Appliances Fail
- Zscaler's cloud security stack eliminated many appliance hassles and allowed scalable, global protection.
- The architecture proved especially resilient during the pandemic when legacy approaches struggled.