Author: Nikhil

Networking is essential for both humans and technology to progress further. Like humans, IT infrastructure has also been shaped by the evolving changes across the technological landscape. It has evolved from building more to mindful building by taking into consideration regulatory, geopolitical, environmental, financial, and even computational constraints. These constraints clearly reflect the following trends set to dominate the domain in 2026. Baked-in AI Nativity and the Expansion of AIOps Let us first start with THE most obvious: AI. AI has upended every market landscape and will continue to do so. In 2026, “AI-enabled” infrastructure will make way for AI-native infrastructure, where AI is embedded into the control plane rather than layered on top as an optimization feature. This is expected to see expansion of AIOps. AIOps has evolved from anomaly detection and alert noise reduction to…

While the dead internet theory may be considered a conspiracy theory, there are, in fact, a lot of bots on the internet, some good, some bad. Bot management solutions are necessary to ensure access and interactions with only the good ones. This comparison and analysis of the Bot Management SPARK MatrixTM for 2024 and 2025 includes major vendors and their rankings as per customer impact and technology excellence. These rankings can be a vital asset while choosing a product that is the best fit for your establishment. (If you are interested in analyses going further back, here is the analysis of the 2023 and 2024 SPARK Matrix TM.) Comparing the Q3 2024 and Q3 2025 SPARK Matrices for Bot Management…

The number of incidents involving stolen credentials in 2025 is, to quote an ancient meme, “too damn high.” A Checkpoint report cites a 160% increase in compromised credentials between 2024 and 2025. In addition, Verizon’s Data Breach Investigation Report cites a staggering 22% of breaches involved credential abuse. This is another list of major incidents in 2025, many involving credentials. A bombastic sentence worthy of writing by an AI, complete with the em dash, explains the situation perfectly: the real blast radius is no longer just a compromised endpoint or a vulnerable server – it’s a compromised identity. And this is why SOC playbooks, which have revolved around endpoints, networks, and malware families for years, are now also incorporating identity-centric detections. This move has been needed for a long time. Identity-led incidents…

While we may think ransomware is a 20th-century phenomenon, it has existed in its most primitive form almost from 75 BCE. This is kidnapping of data for ransom, and the angle of physical harm and personal danger is also covered when medical facilities are targeted, as seen by the 2025 NHS breach. It has already been “democratized” by becoming available as a service, and anyone knowing the right TOR addresses can use it. And so, as a new year approaches, we must ask, will it get any better (for us), or worse (for us, again)? Let us be real, it…

While adoption of SASE is accelerating across all sectors due to a variety of reasons, their approach to solve their clients’ network architecture is not the same across the aisle. Some vendors like Fortinet and Cisco have evolved from security and networking backgrounds, while vendors like Cato Networks began as pure SASE vendors. This background is critical in influencing customers’ choice between consolidation with one provider and composing a stack from several. There is a rising trend towards opting for a single vendor rather than compiling a stack through procurements from various vendors. Let us see what factors are influencing this…

Digitalized healthcare provides numerous benefits. These include improved patient outcomes through personalized care, enhanced access to services via telemedicine, and increased efficiency in healthcare delivery. These technologies also help reduce costs and empower patients to take control of their health. However, the benefits are also offset by the very nature of its connected nature, which opens it to a large type of threats. In this case, the threats can easily turn life-threatening. This comparison and analysis of the Connected Medical Devices Security (CMDS) SPARK MatrixTM for 2024 and 2025 includes major vendors and their rankings as per customer impact and…

Are most of the CAPTCHAs we see today are even trying to block automation? The only users CAPTCHAs are stopping are the elderly, visually challenged, people on low-end devices, users with shaky connectivity, and non-native language speakers.

An SBOM is a comprehensive list of all the software components, dependencies, and metadata associated with an application. The SBOM functions as the inventory of all the building blocks that make up a software product. With it, organizations can better understand, manage, and secure their applications: CrowdStrike. So why has inventorying become a necessity? Because modern software supply chains have become too opaque and too fragmented for organizations to manage safely. This was because, as enterprises grew, they built, bought, and ran applications composed of hundreds or thousands of components without any clear visibility into their origins, dependencies, or vulnerabilities.…

Theoretically, it is a simple choice. It is preferable to opt for full SASE over ZTNA. If you have to choose between a full cybersecurity suite and an anti-malware software, all-around capabilities makes sense, because ZTNA is a core capability of SASE. SASE even extends security by combining ZTNA with networking (SD-WAN) and other security functions, like SWG, CASB, DLP, and FwaaS, under a single, cloud-native service fabric. But both technologies are becoming divergent choices for enterprises. Why? The technologies’ capabilities mean that some organizations will go all the way and add the entire SASE experience to their stack, while…

Endpoints remain a perennially favorite vector for many types of cyberattacks. Hence, endpoint monitoring and visibility are both critical. Agent-based monitoring has various pain points. Installing an agent on every endpoint is difficult. Instalment takes time and creates extra work every time there’s a new device, an update, or a configuration change. In addition, too many agents can slow down devices or cause resource conflicts, as each agent uses system resources. What is the option? Enter agentless monitoring. As the name suggests, agentless monitoring involves the collection of telemetry directly through APIs, protocols, and integrations instead of installing a dedicated…