Anand Naik, co-founder and CEO at Sequretek, explains why cybersecurity needs to shift its focus to continuous risk management. This article originally appeared in Insight Jam, an enterprise IT community that enables human conversation on AI.

Imagine locking every door in your house before leaving, double-checking the deadbolts, securing the garage, and arming the alarm system. You feel confident that everything’s safe. But what if, while you were focused on those doors, you forgot the windows were left wide open?

That’s essentially what happens when cybersecurity is reduced to a checklist for compliance. The doors, firewalls, encryption protocols, and strong password policies may be locked tight. But the windows, the vulnerabilities that evolve daily, the unpredictable human errors, and the sophisticated new malware are often left unguarded. Compliance tells you everything was secure during the last audit, but it doesn’t guarantee it still is.

In today’s fast-changing digital world, relying solely on compliance is like trusting last week’s weather report to decide if you need an umbrella today. The threat landscape changes too quickly, and attackers are no longer just trying the front door.

The Limits of Compliance in a Fast-Moving World

Regulatory frameworks like ISO 27001, NIST, GDPR, and HIPAA serve an important purpose. They set minimum standards, help organize security processes, and demonstrate accountability. But they’re also, by nature, static. They offer snapshots in time, proof that certain measures were in place during an audit. However, they don’t tell us much about what’s happening now.

Threats, unlike regulations, don’t stick to a schedule. Cyber-criminals work around the clock. They exploit unpatched vulnerabilities hours after they’re discovered. They use AI to generate personalized phishing emails. They manipulate trusted insiders and analyze behavior patterns to find weak links. An organization can be fully compliant and still fall victim to an attack the next day. Worse, a focus on compliance can lead organizations into a dangerous sense of security. It feels like a finish line when cybersecurity is a race with no end.

What Continuous Risk Management Looks Like

So, how do we move beyond this checkbox mentality? The answer lies in treating cybersecurity as not a one-time task but a continuous, living process. Continuous risk management is like upgrading from a traditional alarm system to a smart security setup. It doesn’t just check whether you locked the doors—it monitors every part of the house, watches for strange behavior, and alerts you the moment something feels off. It’s adaptive, responsive, and, most importantly, always on.

This means real-time monitoring of networks, systems, and endpoints, and looking for breaches and early warning signs. It involves constantly reviewing where the risks are, understanding how behaviors change over time, and identifying patterns that indicate trouble. It’s about being proactive instead of reactive.

It’s also about context. For example, it’s not just about noticing that a file was downloaded; it’s about recognizing that this user doesn’t normally download files from an unknown server at midnight. That nuance can be the difference between catching a breach early and discovering it too late.

AI: The Silent Sentinel

In this new approach, artificial intelligence and automation are also helpful and essential. No matter how skilled, human teams can’t keep up with the sheer scale and speed of modern threats.

AI systems can analyze millions of events in real-time, looking for anomalies and suspicious patterns. They can distinguish noise from real danger and get smarter over time. When something goes wrong, automated systems can immediately isolate the problem, disconnect a device, revoke access, and roll back changes, often before a human knows there’s an issue. These technologies create a 24/7 watchtower over your digital infrastructure, detecting threats before they erupt into full-blown crises.

Changing the Mindset, Not Just the Tools

Transitioning from a compliance-based model to continuous risk management isn’t just a technical shift; it’s a cultural one. It requires organizations to rethink how they define success. It’s no longer about passing audits but reducing the time it takes to detect and respond to threats. It’s about how many potential breaches were avoided, not just how many policies were followed.

Cyber risk needs to be part of everyday business decisions. From product development to vendor selection, from the boardroom to the break room, understanding and managing digital risk must be baked into the organizational DNA. That also means training teams, not just the cybersecurity professionals, but everyone, must recognize that threats are fluid. Employees need ongoing education to spot phishing attempts and social engineering tricks. Executives need to support adaptive investment in security tools and talent. And IT departments need the freedom to automate wherever possible, so they’re not overwhelmed by repetitive tasks.

The Real Payoff: More Than Just Security

This shift toward continuous risk management isn’t just about better security—it’s about better business. Companies that detect and contain breaches quickly suffer far less damage. The HIPAA Journal reports that the average data breach cost has risen to $4.88 million, with the highest breach costs at critical infrastructure entities. That’s a number any CFO will notice.

But beyond cost savings, there’s resilience. Businesses that can respond to threats in real-time are less likely to suffer major operational disruptions. They bounce back faster. They inspire confidence in regulators, customers, and partners, not because they’re perfect, but because they’re prepared.

In a world where trust is a premium currency, showing that you’re serious about cybersecurity can become a competitive advantage. Especially in industries like healthcare, finance, or e-commerce, demonstrating that you’re not just compliant but actively vigilant builds credibility.

Act Today So You’re Not in the News Tomorrow

We don’t live in a static world, and our cybersecurity strategies shouldn’t be static either. Compliance will always have its place; it’s the foundation. But it can’t be the whole structure. While compliance might ensure the doors are locked, continuous risk management ensures no one slips through the windows.

It’s about shifting from a mentality of “Are we compliant?” to “Are we safe right now?” And that shift could mean the difference between staying secure and being tomorrow’s headline. In the end, cybersecurity isn’t just about locking things down; it’s about watching the whole house, every hour, every day.

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Steven Taylor, the Global Sr. Product Manager of Cybersecurity Services at Rockwell Automation, explains endpoint security’s critical role in operational technology (OT) environments and why it goes beyond traditional monitoring. This article originally appeared in Insight Jam, an enterprise IT community that enables human conversation on AI.

Today, connectivity lies at the heart of our lives. Whether at work, at home, or traveling, we are invariably increasingly connected to technology in some way. With that increased connectivity comes the need for robust protection to safeguard data. In the modern industrial landscape, operational technology (OT) systems face increasingly sophisticated cybersecurity risks. While many organizations focus on network monitoring and perimeter defense, there’s a compelling argument to be made that a robust endpoint security strategy is also essential for truly effective OT cybersecurity.

As an experienced professional in OT security, I’ve seen firsthand the rapid evolution of cyber threats targeting Industrial Control Systems (ICS). The convergence of OT with Information Technology (IT) has ushered in a new era of digital transformation, but it has also exposed critical infrastructure to unprecedented vulnerabilities. In this article, I’ll delve into the complexities of implementing robust endpoint security in OT environments and why traditional IT security approaches fall short in addressing these unique challenges.

The OT Security Landscape: A Complex Tapestry

Implementing endpoint security in OT environments is a multifaceted challenge that extends far beyond the scope of conventional IT security approaches to meet the particular challenges of industrial systems, which run everything from power plants to manufacturing lines. Through extensive work across numerous industrial sectors, we have identified the following critical factors that complicate our efforts.

Device Diversity

First, most devices running within an OT network do not run on a standard operating system like Windows, Unix, or Linux; instead, they run on protocols for ICS equipment OEMs, where deploying traditional IT security agents is impossible. Even the Windows-based devices in OT environments make third-party management difficult without deep experience in those highly specialized systems. With OT networks comprising a diverse and extensive range of devices, from legacy systems to cutting-edge IoT sensors, most run proprietary protocols and cannot support traditional security agents. This heterogeneity presents a significant obstacle to uniform security implementation.

Process Criticality

Another factor that adds to the complexity of OT environments is the critical nature of the processes they control. Unlike IT systems, where brief interruptions are often tolerable, OT processes control physical operations where even momentary disruptions can have severe consequences. Even slight disturbances in these systems result in extensive operational downtime, financial losses, and safety hazards. A company cannot, for example, reboot its turbine controls when they run an update without risking shutting down an operation for an extended period. This sensitivity means any question of security updates and patches must be done carefully and measured.

The processes controlled by OT systems are much more sensitive than any ordinary IT process, and this heightened sensitivity demands security solutions that are both robust and non-intrusive. This resilience to disruption makes the implementation of security measures a balancing act, with solutions called upon to enhance protection without compromising system availability or performance.

It’s therefore important to emphasize an all-inclusive approach to OT endpoint security. When every endpoint is a potential attack vector into an organization, network protection and perimeter security fall woefully short in indicating risk. Endpoint security enables you to go beyond monitoring and detection to manage OT systems for true cybersecurity progress.

Geographical Dispersion

Industrial OT assets are frequently scattered across vast geographical areas, making centralized management and updates a logistical nightmare. Most systems reside in remote environments, and solutions must be low-cost and easy to operate. Another issue is that updating and patching OT systems is extremely labor-intensive: hundreds of non-IT applications are typically involved, with many OT vendor websites to check to identify the availability and scope of updates. When updates are identified, the actual update process typically consists of a slow process of manually visiting each device with a memory device to upload the update. This dispersion necessitates innovative approaches to remote security administration.

Fragmented Solutions

Adding to these challenges, most of the existing solutions are fragmented. Many of these are provided by the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) themselves, each with their own proprietary systems and security protocols. The result is a patchwork of solutions that are often incompatible and difficult to integrate. While each OEM operates its respective equipment, there is almost no visibility throughout the network. Due to this, comprehensive endpoint protection management in OT environments is either hugely time-consuming or, in many cases, simply not done.

The Emergence of Best-In-Class OT Endpoint Protection

As the threat landscape evolves, we’re witnessing the emergence of best-in-class OT endpoint protection platforms. These platforms are designed from the ground up to address the unique challenges of industrial environments, and with ISC in mind, they provide an end-to-end OT endpoint protection platform. Benefits associated with such an approach include reduced costs, enhanced network visibility, and better security posture. Key factors in their design include:

• OT-Specific Protocols: Support for industrial protocols and communication standards ensures compatibility with a wide range of OT devices across many industry segments.
• Non-Intrusive Monitoring: Advanced monitoring techniques that don’t interfere with critical processes, ensuring operational continuity without additional downtime.
• Distributed Architecture: Architectures designed to efficiently manage and secure geographically dispersed assets.
• Vendor-Agnostic Integration: Capabilities to integrate with various OEM solutions, providing a unified security posture across diverse environments.

The 360-degree OT Risk Management Approach

In my experience, the most effective strategy for OT security is what I call the “360-degree OT Risk Management” approach. This is the extension of basic asset attributes by full security posture comprised of all identified users and accounts, assessment of the status of endpoint protection, review of configuration settings, criticality of assets, operational context of your production environments, training and skills of personnel, verification of the recency and accuracy of backups, and detection of potential vulnerabilities in the network, such as dual NICs.

Core Components

The framework operates through six integrated elements. First, sophisticated algorithms drive risk prioritization, assessing and ranking potential threats based on their impact and likelihood to ensure optimal resource allocation. Second, AI-driven systems enable automated remediation, providing immediate threat response and mitigation without human intervention, which is crucial in fast-moving industrial environments.

The third component, continuous monitoring, maintains real-time surveillance of OT networks and endpoints for anomaly detection. Fourth, adaptive security policies evolve dynamically with the threat landscape and operational requirements. The fifth element introduces a closed-loop update service, integrating security patches from numerous OT applications and vendors. Finally, OT-specific application whitelisting provides OEM-specific controls, enabling true lockdown capabilities.

Implementation Strategy

Implementation follows the “Think Global, Act Local” philosophy. This approach standardizes organizational risk analysis and remediation planning at the enterprise level while empowering local technicians through automated tools. These technicians can then execute final remediation steps using their intimate knowledge of specific plant systems, ensuring solutions align with local operational requirements.

Benefits

The comprehensive nature of this approach yields significant advantages. Organizations achieve a lower total cost of ownership through integrated endpoint protection, while the “OT Safe” design incorporates decades of industrial controls engineering expertise. Enhanced network visibility comes through automated asset management, extending beyond Windows-based systems to encompass all OT assets. This approach streamlines update processes through automated patch management and provides comprehensive configuration and patch status monitoring.

Current Industry Challenges

Recent research reveals concerning vulnerabilities in industrial environments. The average industrial site harbors over 1,000 critical vulnerabilities, accompanied by hundreds of missing critical patches. Network segmentation, a crucial security measure, is strictly implemented by only 15-20 percent of companies. Embedded OT devices, such as PLCs and RTUs, present a particular challenge. While they may have few known published vulnerabilities, they frequently face unpublished risks and insecure configurations that could be leveraged in exploits.

As industrial environments become increasingly connected, this comprehensive approach to endpoint security proves essential. It significantly reduces cybersecurity risk while fostering operational reliability and safeguarding critical infrastructure from emerging threats. The methodology’s success lies in its ability to balance robust security measures with the practical demands of industrial operations, creating a sustainable framework for long-term protection of critical industrial processes and infrastructure and leveraging resources where the most impact can be made at the right times.

Conclusion: The Path Forward

In conclusion, as the threat landscape for OT environments continues to evolve, the importance of robust endpoint security cannot be overstated. By adopting a comprehensive, OT-specific approach to endpoint protection, organizations can significantly reduce their cybersecurity risk, enhance operational reliability, maintain their assets throughout their lifecycle, and safeguard critical infrastructure against emerging threats. As we move forward in an increasingly connected industrial world, such measures will be crucial in ensuring the security and resilience of our vital industrial processes and infrastructure.

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The editors at Solutions Review summarize some of the most significant ways AI has impacted cybersecurity jobs, hiring, skillsets, and more.

Regardless of your job title or industry, artificial intelligence (AI) has likely impacted your company’s internal and external processes. This can be especially true for cybersecurity professionals, as AI has changed how threat actors plan and execute attacks and introduced new ways to combat potential and active threats. What is less clear is the specific impact AI has had on cybersecurity and whether these professionals have cause for concern.

As AI is integrated into cybersecurity operations at unprecedented levels, the form and function of a company’s cyber team will continue to undergo rapid changes. To keep track of those changes, the Solutions Review editors have outlined some of the primary ways AI has changed cybersecurity, what professionals can do to remain agile during those evolutions, and what the future may hold for them and the technologies they use.

Note: These insights were informed through web research using advanced scraping techniques and generative AI tools. Solutions Review editors use a unique multi-prompt approach to extract targeted knowledge and optimize content for relevance and utility.

How Has AI Changed the Cybersecurity Workforce?

In just a few years, the impact of AI on cybersecurity has dramatically restructured the industry’s roles, responsibilities, and required skill sets. This transformation has been freeing for many, as AI technologies have streamlined user workloads and empowered teams to focus on more specialized, high-value tasks and projects. For comparison’s sake, consider how the global market for AI in cybersecurity is estimated to reach a market value of USD 133.8 billion by 2030, compared to its reported USD 14.9 billion in 2021. These technologies are exploding, and they’re not going anywhere.

However, it’s not uncommon for cybersecurity professionals to feel uneasy about the rapid adoption of these technologies, as they have already proven capable of rendering some tasks and roles nearly obsolete. Here are some of the job roles and processes that have been impacted the most by AI:

AI-Powered Automation and Analysis

AI is reshaping how cybersecurity analysis happens by expanding its scope and compressing its cognitive overhead. Traditionally, analysis involved hours of log inspection, correlation of alerts, and cross-referencing of threat intel feeds. However, with AI, especially those using machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP), companies can automate those time-consuming processes to reduce alert fatigue and allow analysts to focus on the highest-risk threats.

For example, consider how leading cybersecurity platforms like Microsoft Defender XDR or IBM QRadar use ML models to correlate log entries and contextualize hundreds of alerts into real-time attack narratives. These streamlined analyses can dramatically reduce workloads by streamlining the process of identifying probable causes, unlocking cross-functional insights, and deploying that data to defend against future threats.

AI might be evolving what “analysis” looks like in cybersecurity, but it’s not ready to fully replace the necessity of human intervention. With AI handling the workload of detecting and aggregating information, human analysts will commit their time and expertise to interpretation, intent modeling, and escalation decision-making.

Threat Hunting and Adversarial Behavior Modeling

For years, traditional threat hunting has been hypothesis-driven: an analyst suspects that a particular tactic—e.g., credential stuffing or lateral movement—is occurring and searches logs or telemetry for artifacts that confirm or debunk that suspicion. However, this process is often narrow and human-biased, which is where AI can help. With its unsupervised learning and clustering capabilities, AI can identify and track patterns without preconceptions.

AI has essentially made “continuous hunting” possible. Some of the leading cybersecurity tools already use AI and behavioral models to proactively surface deviations, such as beaconing new domains or unusual SMB shares accessed at odd hours. Since AI can run 24/7, threat hunts no longer have to be ad hoc. It also adds a new data engineering dimension to threat hunting, as cybersecurity professionals are now encouraged (if not outright expected) to have AI-specific skills around curating telemetry, labeling behavior, and tuning features.

There’s no denying that AI is a double-edged sword for cybersecurity—cyber-criminals launched 36,000 malicious scans per second in 2024, according to Fortinet, and there’s been a 1,200 percent surge in phishing attacks since the rise of GenAI in late 2022. However, if companies want to keep up with the volume of attacks, they need the support that AI-boosted cybersecurity tools provide.

The Emergence of AI-Centric Cybersecurity Roles

The rise of AI in cybersecurity has not only affected existing workflows—it has spawned entirely new job categories, restructuring the profession around data-centric and model-centric competencies. These AI-centric cybersecurity roles represent a convergence of disciplines: traditional security, data science, ML operations (MLOps), and even behavioral psychology. Other roles like “blue team analysts” or “SOC engineers” are supplemented or outright replaced by titles like AI Threat Analyst, ML Security Engineer, and Adversarial ML Red Teamer.

It’s also possible that the future of cybersecurity jobs will start to resemble AI safety roles more than traditional InfoSec. This would involve an increased focus on validating agent boundaries, applying RLHF to constrain behavior, and building sandboxed testbeds for threat simulations. While there’s potential in that future, active and aspiring professionals should be wary, as that trend could result in a skills bar that leaves traditional network defenders behind unless they retrain aggressively.

The meta-trend here is becoming clear: Cybersecurity is evolving into a data science problem, and the workforce is shifting accordingly. The people who can reason statistically, build or probe AI systems, and think adversarially will define the next generation of cybersecurity leadership. Conventional roles will likely persist but may increasingly resemble operational support for AI-first tooling. Regardless, like LinkedIn’s Skills on the Rise report says, AI literacy will continue to be the skill that “professionals are prioritizing and companies are increasingly hiring for.”

Upskilling for the Future

AI isn’t a new technology, but it’s hitting the cybersecurity job market fast and hard. According to Cybersecurity Ventures, there will be 3.5 million unfilled jobs in the cybersecurity industry through 2025, a 350 percent growth from the one million open positions reported in 2013. If professionals want to keep their jobs—or future-proof themselves from potential displacement—they must equip themselves with AI-centric skills as soon as possible.

To reinforce that urgency, look at IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report, which shows that half of the organizations encountering security breaches also face high security staffing shortages. Even with 1 in 5 organizations using some form of generative AI, that skills gap remains a real challenge. Companies across industries need professionals fluent in adversarial and algorithmic logic, as that expertise will empower them to stay relevant regardless of the future. Mike Arrowsmith, the Chief Trust Officer at NinjaOne, puts it like this: “The best way to rein in AI risks is with more employee training. People have to know what to look out for, especially as AI technology evolves.”

One area professionals can focus on is soft skills. A recent study by Skiilify demonstrated that 94 percent of tech leaders believe soft skills—like curiosity, resilience, tolerance of ambiguity, perspective-taking, relationship-building, and humility—are more critical than ever. Soft skills can also help cybersecurity professionals understand how models can fail, how attackers exploit statistical assumptions, and how to wrap AI systems in resilient human oversight.

With Gartner predicting that, by 2028, “the adoption of GenAI will collapse the skills gap, removing the need for specialized education from 50 percent of entry-level cybersecurity positions,” it’s more crucial than ever for cybersecurity professionals to find and refine the skills that make them unique.

Will AI Replace Cybersecurity Professionals?

“AI won’t replace cybersecurity professionals, but it will transform the profession,” says Chris Dimitriadis, the Chief Global Strategy Officer at ISACA. The cybersecurity marketplace is already changing in response to AI tools and threats, but the transformation is far from finished. Even if the profession itself doesn’t go away, there’s a chance that current cybersecurity practitioners will be left behind as their job evolves into something they’re no longer equipped for.

In the longer term, AI will likely reshape cybersecurity professionals into decision supervisors. Their responsibilities will be less focused on making decisions and instead emphasize overseeing, calibrating, and intervening in AI-driven decision-making as necessary. It’s a subtler shift, but if the current workforce doesn’t upskill themselves in preparation, they may find that their expertise isn’t quite as valuable as it used to.

According to Sam Hector, Senior Strategy Leader at IBM Security, AI will “fundamentally shift the skills we require. Humans will focus more on strategy, analytics, and program improvements. This will necessitate continuous skills development of existing staff to pivot their roles around the evolving capabilities of AI.” The future of cybersecurity will be charted by practitioners who expand their perspective, prioritize their professional growth, engage with their peers, and collectively learn how to improve their AI-centric skills and literacy.

Want more insights like this? Register for Insight Jam, Solutions Review’s enterprise tech community, which enables human conversation on AI. You can gain access for free here!

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Alon Levin, the Vice President of Product Management at Seraphic Security, explains why browser extensions are a security risk and provides four ways companies can manage them better. This article originally appeared in Insight Jam, an enterprise IT community that enables human conversation on AI.

Browser extensions—third-party, installable software that adds custom functions to a core browser, like ad-blocking, calendar management, and AI-based summarizers—are widely popular. The Chrome Web Store alone offers 145,650 extensions, with tens of thousands more available for other browsers. However, these extensions can pose unique and significant security risks because of their close relationship with browsers. Many browser extensions access sensitive data, but enterprises historically have had little visibility into their risk, forcing them to take privacy disclaimers at face value. Extensions generally have a broad, all-or-nothing approach to user data access requirements to function.

Entering criminal territory, some extensions are built with malicious intent, and legitimate extensions can be compromised by hackers, exposing a vast attack surface that criminals exploit to exfiltrate data, harvest credentials, and inject malicious code. One prime example is last year’s Cyberhaven attack, which began as a targeted phishing attack on one of its developers. This ultimately enabled the threat actor to replace Cyberhaven’s extension with a new version loaded with malicious code. Through automatic updates, the malicious extension was delivered to nearly 400,000 users.

As risks stemming from malicious extensions continue to grow in the wild, enterprise security leaders must put protections and policies into place that monitor extension usage across the organization and educate employees about the risks. Here are four best practices I recommend to IT leaders to mitigate browser extension-based threats:

Enforcing Extension Management Policies 

Extension management policies, such as adhering to an easily accessible list of vetted and approved extensions, give employees clear, jargon-free guidelines to navigate the extensions landscape and keep employee and company data safe. While low-tech, such methods are effective if policy management and enforcement are consistent.

Performing Regular Audits 

Although extension activity can be difficult to observe, regular audits can still monitor the extensions installed across an organization’s devices. This goes for unmanaged devices, too, because employees often access work resources from personal devices. While not a silver bullet, company knowledge of extensions used across all devices on its network can alert leadership to unfamiliar (and possibly dangerous) extensions that may require further investigation.

Educating Your Team 

Employee education is a key aspect of effective malicious browser extensions defense. Regular training will help staff recognize risky extensions, understand permissions prompts, and follow approved usage guidelines. Building awareness won’t just empower employees to make informed decisions about the browser add-ons they choose. It will enable them to contribute to IT’s range of vigilance by flagging potentially dangerous software used by colleagues and third parties.

Augmenting Native Browser Security

Take advantage of native browser controls and policies that can be enforced across managed devices. Adding a layer of extension security defense can alleviate the pressure of manual extension monitoring and auditing, and fill in critical security blind spots.

Browser extensions can be extraordinarily useful, and it’s no surprise that the install rate is only accelerating. This means every enterprise needs to figure browser extensions into its security strategy. Proper management, monitoring, and education will enable employees to continue accessing these productive tools without compromising sensitive enterprise data.

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Serge-Olivier Paquette, the Chief Product Officer at Flare, identifies some of the most significant blind spots in today’s cybersecurity workforce and explains how attackers are exploiting them. This article originally appeared in Insight Jam, an enterprise IT community that enables human conversation on AI.

Downloading Roblox on a work laptop might seem innocent—until it isn’t. A single infostealer infection from a browser extension or a malware-laced game downloaded by an employee’s child can provide the same level of access as a sophisticated supply chain attack.

Security teams must rethink what “threat” means and stop underestimating the soft spots. Personal device usage, remote and hybrid work, and shadow IT create unexpected weak links in security posture. These blind spots aren’t just minor oversights; they are the preferred entry points for adversaries deploying the latest TTPs. Non-technical departments need to be as clued in as the rest of IT, but there is still a prevalent issue of data silos. If the SOC team detects an AI-crafted phishing attempt but doesn’t immediately share it with HR or finance, attackers have a window to target executives with payroll fraud emails.

The attack surface continues to grow with businesses using multi-cloud and hybrid work environments. Even with adaptive security systems, organizations struggle with issues like identity sprawl, poor segmentation of personal and corporate resources, and slow response to AI-powered attacks. Moreover, AI-driven breaches are surging, with 87 percent of organizations impacted in the past year.

The most overlooked security workforce deficiencies are threat actors’ biggest targets to actively exploit. Understanding how attackers manipulate them is the first step to reliable defense.

Compliance Frameworks Were Built for a Simpler Security Model

If we consider typical cybersecurity teams that assume clear demarcation lines between IT, OT, and cloud environments, we identify part of the problem. Data processing and business applications might sit with IT, while the systems that automate industrial processes concern OT; they are increasingly interconnected, and adversaries understand that.

The blurred perimeter of modern enterprise networks—where endpoints, cloud workloads, and remote access merge—has led to a rise in identity-centric attacks, supply chain compromises, and cloud service abuse. A cloud misconfiguration in an exposed API could allow attackers to move laterally into OT networks, where compliance never accounted for cloud-originated attacks.

The shift to hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructures requires security teams to adopt a unified threat-centric approach. They must implement active detection and response to catch these cross-domain threats, indicating that compliance frameworks also need updating.

Most frameworks (ISO 27001, NIST 800-53, SOC 2) require organizations to document incident response processes, but don’t enforce real-time automated responses to ongoing attacks. A company might log cloud identity and access management (IAM) changes (as part of general compliance requirements) but fail to detect an attacker escalating privileges until after a breach. Security teams must go beyond the standards and implement continuous threat hunting or adversary simulation to ensure threats are being detected.

More to the point, attackers don’t care about policy documents; they care about misconfigurations, excessive IAM permissions, and unsecured API endpoints that allow lateral movement across hybrid environments. Rather than relying on compliance checkboxes and isolating responsibilities between departments, cybersecurity teams must regularly test whether attackers can pivot between environments and implement strict just-in-time access and least privilege principles.

Poor Isolation Between Corporate and Personal Resources

As IT, OT, and cloud environments are no longer isolated, similar issues are happening at the user level. The same corporate-issued devices used to handle sensitive data are frequently logged in for personal activities, such as checking Facebook or employees’ kids downloading games. This lack of clear segmentation creates prime opportunities for threat actors to leverage infostealers and clone sessions.

A child might think they’re downloading Roblox from an official source, but it’s actually a malicious installer loaded with spyware or a stealer. These trojans can silently scan browser storage or install keyloggers, capturing login credentials as users type or copy them.

Malicious actors can extract saved credentials and exfiltrate sensitive data from the compromised device to bypass MFA and gain persistent access to privileged enterprise applications. Without active session monitoring, these attacks can go undetected long after the breach. This was the case with Marriott Hotels, whose database was breached in July 2014 and went undetected until September 2018.

The industry’s continued reliance on weak or outdated device posture management, bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies, and user education on session persistence creates an ideal attack surface for hackers.

Organizations today, especially those with highly sensitive data, must segment networks into isolated zones and restrict communication between different parts of the network. For instance, financial or legal services often use remote browser isolation (RBI) to prevent malicious code from reaching devices. However, it can slow processes down due to cloud-based rendering. It is more expensive than identity-based controls (IAAC), which might suffice for the general workforce since it grants access based on who you are, where you are, and what device you’re using. If an employee logs into personal Gmail in the same browser as their corporate Single Sign-On (SSO), IAAC forces reauthentication or denies access to corporate apps.

Security Teams Are Losing the Race Against Automated and AI-Driven Attacks

While enterprises deploy traditional SOC workflows and SIEM rules, adversaries leverage automation, AI-driven reconnaissance, and LLM-powered phishing. According to the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, over 90 percent of successful cyber-attacks begin with phishing emails.

Security teams often struggle with tool fatigue, drowning in alerts without context. Say a phishing attack steals a user’s credentials; SIEM alerts on “multiple logins.” But analysts don’t know if it’s just the user logging in on different devices or an actual takeover. Since modern security tools—SIEMs, EDRs, and cloud security platforms—generate thousands of detections daily, it can be tricky to keep clear prioritization or identify a correlation to real threats.

Returning to our earlier point, a more holistic threat-detection approach is needed. Security teams must look for ways to automate tools that link identity, network, and endpoint signals to detect real compromises. They should also pay closer attention to unusual session persistence, token reuse, and privilege escalation instead of basic login anomalies.

With the advancement of malicious AI and the sophistication of today’s phishing attempts, which scan victims’ social platforms and generate realistic scams at scale, it’s safe to assume some phishing attacks will bypass detection. Actively hunting for anomalous lateral movement or session takeovers is no longer a precautionary measure but a requirement.

The shift toward AI-generated phishing and hyper-personalized attacks is drastically reducing the effectiveness of legacy detection mechanisms. Organizations must transition from a reactive approach to a unified adversary-centric model, where threat intelligence isn’t just collected—it’s operationalized into detection engineering, continuous red teaming, and active threat-hunting efforts.

The post The Biggest Blind Spots in Today’s Cybersecurity Workforce, and Why Attackers Are Exploiting Them appeared first on Best Endpoint Protection Security (EPP) Tools, Software, Solutions & Vendors.

Ofer Regev, CTO and Head of Network Operations at Faddom, explains how companies can identify NIS2 and DORA vulnerabilities in minutes. This article originally appeared in Insight Jam, an enterprise IT community that enables human conversation on AI.

As cybersecurity threats evolve, organizations operating within the European Union face stringent regulatory requirements to ensure operational resilience and digital security. The Network and Information Systems Directive (NIS2) and the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) became mandatory in October 2024 and January 2025, respectively, and organizations must take proactive measures to comply. However, many enterprises struggle to meet the demands of these compliance requirements in time.

The challenge is to identify vulnerabilities, ensure compliance, and maintain resilience without deploying time-consuming and expensive solutions. A real-time Application Dependency Mapping (ADM) platform provides a streamlined solution to this challenge. By leveraging an agentless approach, organizations can accurately identify critical vulnerabilities, ensure regulatory compliance, and strengthen operational resilience in minutes, eliminating complexity and uncertainty.

The NIS2 and DORA Compliance Challenge

NIS2 and DORA establish strict cybersecurity and risk management requirements for organizations in critical sectors such as finance, energy, healthcare, and supply chain services. Key mandates include:

• Proactive ICT Risk Management: Organizations should continuously monitor and address cybersecurity risks.
• Real-Time Incident Detection and Reporting: Identifying and responding to cyber incidents is essential.
• Third-Party Risk Oversight: Enterprises must ensure their external vendors comply with strict security protocols.
• Operational Resilience and Business Continuity: Companies must regularly test their ability to withstand cyber disruptions and demonstrate their readiness.

Achieving full compliance with these regulations requires complete visibility into IT environments, which traditional security tools often fail to provide effectively.

How an Application Dependency Mapping Platform Identifies Vulnerabilities in Minutes

A complete IT visualization and agentless dependency mapping platform offers a groundbreaking approach to compliance by providing real-time, comprehensive visibility across IT environments. Here’s how such a platform facilitates rapid compliance with NIS2 and DORA:

1) Unmatched ICT Risk Management

An automated, agentless ADM platform allows organizations to visualize their entire IT infrastructure, from on-premises servers to cloud applications, mapping critical business processes in real-time. This comprehensive visibility empowers companies to:

• Identify security gaps instantly.
• Prioritize vulnerabilities based on their business impact.
• Strengthen their cybersecurity posture by continuously monitoring ICT risks.

Such platforms automate risk assessments, accelerating compliance efforts and eliminating manual processes, often slowing down risk management.

2) Rapid and Accurate Incident Reporting

Timely incident reporting is essential for compliance with both NIS2 and DORA regulations. In the event of a cyberattack, organizations must detect the threat, assess its impact, and report it quickly to regulators. A complete IT visualization platform simplifies this process by:

• Providing real-time detection of security threats, including CVE vulnerabilities and unauthorized access attempts.
• Offering instant insights into the affected areas and their dependencies.
• Facilitating clear, business-oriented communication to help IT teams and executives make informed decisions.

With enhanced IT visibility, compliance teams can respond to incidents more swiftly, minimizing downtime and reducing the risk of regulatory penalties.

3) Third-Party Risk Monitoring

Modern organizations increasingly rely on various third-party service providers, heightening their exposure to cybersecurity risks. An agentless dependency mapping platform enhances oversight by:

• Continuously monitoring external traffic (North-South) to detect unexpected interactions.
• Conducting SSL certificate analysis to verify the security of third-party communications.
• Uncovering shadow IT elements that may pose compliance risks.

By identifying external risks before they escalate into threats, organizations can meet DORA’s stringent third-party oversight requirements while improving overall cybersecurity.

4) Operational Resilience with Dynamic Testing

The DORA regulation requires rigorous operational resilience testing to ensure financial institutions and critical infrastructure can endure cyber disruption. A real-time IT visualization platform offers:

• Automated Resilience Testing: Simulating cyber incidents and mapping their impact in real-time.
• Change Management Support: Visualizing IT changes before deployment to prevent potential vulnerabilities.
• Ongoing Business Continuity Assurance: Ensuring that core business functions remain operational during disruptions.

A proactive approach to resilience planning ensures that organizations maintain business continuity at all times rather than waiting for an incident to occur.

Why Organizations Need a Comprehensive IT Visualization Solution

Unlike traditional solutions that require complex integrations and extensive deployment times, an agentless application dependency mapping platform offers:

• Rapid Deployment: No agents are required, and operations are not interrupted. Full deployment can be achieved in minutes.
• Cost-Effective Compliance: Avoid costly consulting fees and manual audits with automated compliance mapping.
• Comprehensive Security: In addition to compliance, enhanced cybersecurity is achieved through continuous monitoring, anomaly detection, and risk analysis.

With NIS2 and DORA now in effect, the need for compliance is more urgent than ever. Organizations that leverage real-time IT visualization will meet regulatory requirements and strengthen their overall cybersecurity posture.

Final Thoughts

Compliance is no longer a future goal for organizations subject to NIS2 and DORA; it has become a vital operational necessity. The deadlines have passed, and regulatory scrutiny is on the rise. Failing to comply is not just a financial risk but a threat to operational integrity and business continuity. As a result, having an automated and consistently accurate application dependency mapping solution is more critical than ever.

Achieving and maintaining compliance should not be an overwhelming challenge. Using real-time application dependency mapping and automated IT visualization, organizations can gain complete visibility into their IT infrastructure, swiftly identify security gaps, and continuously monitor compliance without adding operational overhead.

An agentless, real-time dependency mapping approach, like Faddom,  ensures organizations maintain an up-to-date and comprehensive view of their IT environment. This enables proactive risk management, streamlined audits, and rapid incident response. With the right tools, businesses can confidently navigate the evolving cybersecurity landscape, ensuring ongoing compliance, enhancing cyber resilience, and protecting critical operations from disruptions.

The post Identifying NIS2 and DORA Vulnerabilities in Minutes appeared first on Best Endpoint Protection Security (EPP) Tools, Software, Solutions & Vendors.

For World Password Day 2025, the editors at Solutions Review have compiled a list of comments from some of the leading industry experts.

As part of this year’s World Password Day, we called for the industry’s best and brightest in Identity and Access Management and the broader cybersecurity market to share best practices, predictions for the future of passwords, and personal anecdotes. The experts featured represent some of the top influencers, consultants, and solution providers with experience in these marketplaces, and each projection has been vetted for relevance and ability to add business value. The list is organized alphabetically by company name.

World Password Day Quotes from Industry Experts in 2025

Tim Eades, CEO and Co-Founder at Anetac

Arun Shrestha, CEO and Co-Founder at BeyondID

“Passwords are old news, and World Password Day—once a reminder of cybersecurity best practices—now underscores the importance of phasing out the very authentication method it once championed. With stolen credentials topping the breach origin charts and phishing attacks up 4,151 percent since the launch of ChatGPT, it’s clear that traditional passwords are no longer sufficient. Modern threats call for passwordless authentication—not just for stronger security, but for a frictionless user experience. It’s time to answer the phone.”

Read on for more.

“For decades, passwords have been the weak link in cybersecurity–outdated, overused, and increasingly ineffective. But now, organizations are making a clear shift. Multi-factor authentication and sign-in links have emerged as the primary methods for user authentication across the US, UK, and globally, overtaking passwords.

“This step change comes as over half of business and IT decision-makers report higher fraud attempts with username and password alone compared to other methods. We’re at a cybersecurity inflection point: passwords are no longer sufficient. Modern, layered authentication methods, such as facial biometrics, device recognition, or generated codes, are stepping in.

“Rather than forcing users to create longer, more complex passwords, it’s time for organizations to embrace a passwordless future where customers and employees can prove their identity conveniently and securely using their biometrics. This approach reduces risk, streamlines access, and meets the expectations of today’s digital-first users.”

Joel Burleson-Davis, Chief Technology Officer at Imprivata

“This World Password Day, it seems appropriate to shift the discussion from securing and managing passwords to the demise of the password. Passwords have served us well (sort of), and we’ve been long talking about ditching the traditional, complex password because of their burden and unintentional insecurity. However, with every second mattering in critical work, now more than ever, passwordless authentication has become business-critical.

“There are signs of good adoption of both passwordless strategies and shunning our old password-burdened ways in mobile devices, which are built with and extensively leverage facial recognition for security purposes, but some of our most critical technologies in our most critical sectors have been reluctant to implement similar solutions in their operations. As life- and mission-critical industries like healthcare and manufacturing cope with staffing challenges while being increasingly targeted, it’s time they reconsider access management and their relationship with the password paradigm.

“In healthcare, for example, and in particular, the delivery of health care, where a 17-character password is not practical for clinicians who are treating patients who need rapid and frequent access to Electronic Health Records (EHRs) in all kinds of situations. Entering a complex password for these users only creates barriers that delay patient care, eats up clinician time, and exacerbate burnout.

“Passwordless solutions, particularly biometrics-based ones, offer a tailored and frictionless experience that enables everyone from healthcare providers to manufacturing operators to maintain the highest security standards while empowering them to deliver timely, critical work without unnecessary barriers. I look forward to a World Password Day in the future that is full of cheering and celebration because we’ve finally released ourselves from the burden of putting memorized, complex strings into a little prompt box for the sake of security.”

Stephanie Schneider, Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst at LastPass

“World Password Day is a great reminder for every organization that identity access management is the foundation of effective company security. Abusing legitimate credentials is one of the easiest and most common ways hackers gain unauthorized access to systems. Given the rise of infostealers over the last few years, which frequently target credentials and other sensitive data to resell on underground marketplaces, acquiring these is easier than ever. Credentials and session cookies stolen from employees’ personal devices can be used to breach corporate networks.

“A key aspect of stealers is their heavy reliance on the ‘spray-and-prey’ tactic, rather than directly targeting corporate networks, they’re counting on individuals having weaker security on their personal devices and using their work credentials on personal devices. The time from infection via stealer malware to the time that information is posted to the dark web can be speedy, especially with automation tools. Organizations must monitor for exposed credentials and change credentials as quickly as possible to disrupt breaches and attacks before they can occur. In a world where hybrid work has blurred the lines between personal and professional devices, businesses can’t afford to be casual about credential management.

“Using strong, unique passwords is just the tip of the iceberg when protecting your identity access. Reusing passwords across services is still one of the most common mistakes employees make—and one of the easiest ways for attackers to gain access. Requiring multi-factor authentication (MFA) should be standard for every business account, and it is a good idea for personal accounts, too.

“This World Password Day, take a look at your access policies. Are you protecting your company or making it easier for someone else to break in?”

“Leverage passkeys as the primary authentication method whenever possible. While passkeys are not immune to cyber-attacks, they are significantly more secure and phishing-resistant because they are linked to a device or leverage biometric authentication. Plus, they’re a whole lot easier to manage than constantly juggling new password combinations.”

Anthony Cusimano, Solutions Director at Object First

“I believe the death of the password is just around the corner. Passwords are no longer a secure method of authentication and should not be treated as secure. So, I’ll share the advice I have taken up in the last year: use a password manager, app-based or browser-based (either works!).

“Password managers securely store your passwords in a locked vault and come with convenient browser extensions that autofill logins. They can also generate unique, complex passwords for every account. Many of these tools allow you to customize password requirements according to your preferences, including specifying length and incorporating symbols, numbers, and mixed case. Additionally, password managers can alert you to duplicate or weak passwords and often suggest optimal times for changes.

“The password alone is NOT a secure authentication method; that’s why I have given up trying to maximize their security and left the brainwork to someone else. It’s 2025—let an app do the password legwork for you, and here’s to hoping that passwords become a thing of the past sooner rather than later.”

Nicolas Fort, Director of Product Management at One Identity

“Passwords have come a long way, from punch-tape reels in 1961 to the world of multi-factor authentication and fingerprint identification we inhabit today. The next leap is already happening—passkeys tied to devices, one-time AI-generated tokens, and even blockchain-backed session receipts. It’s no accident that password technology is constantly evolving.

“Cyber-attacks are more frequent, threat actors have more sophisticated tools at their disposal, and as businesses continue to store more and more sensitive data online, regulators are rightly demanding that they keep up. The EU’s NIS2, the UK’s Cyber Resilience Act, DORA, HIPAA, and countless other rules and regulations now demand rock-solid control over user accounts at every touchpoint. That means audited sessions, behavioral analytics, rotating passwords, and just-in-time credentials—so that no matter how hard attackers try, there’s simply nothing there to steal.”

Drew Perry, Chief Innovation Officer at Ontinue

“As positive a day as World Password Day is, I look forward to the day it no longer exists or is at least renamed! With the rise of passkey support across major platforms and devices, we’re finally seeing a shift towards more secure and user-friendly authentication. Passkeys are cryptographic credentials that eliminate the need for passwords entirely, offering phishing-resistant, biometric-based access. It’s time we moved beyond passwords, which are too often reused, weak, or compromised. Simpler identity protection is needed so we, as humans, don’t just pick a random string of characters that we will never remember!”

“We have come a long way. Password manager adoption is rising, multi-factor authentication is available for most critical online services, and people are reusing the same passwords less. But still, hackers are succeeding in their attacks. We have been saying since the early 2010s that “hackers don’t hack in, they log in,” and as time goes on, it becomes even more true.

“Stolen credentials overtook email phishing as the second most frequently observed initial infection vector in 2024 during intrusions into businesses. At Ontinue, we have witnessed first-hand the rise of sophisticated infostealer malware, which captures passwords as they are entered by users during login. This enables attackers to simply log in if no other secondary authentication methods are enabled, which, sadly, is often the case.

“Awareness is key. Enable passkeys where possible. I suggest we lay the password to rest and embrace the passwordless future.”

“World Password Day serves as an annual reminder of a universal truth: passwords are a pain. Despite being a cornerstone of our digital lives, they consistently fall short. From the widespread practice of password reuse—a virtual invitation to cyber-criminals—to the ease with which they can be compromised through social engineering or simple guessing, the inherent weaknesses of password-based authentication are undeniable.

The post World Password Day Quotes from Industry Experts in 2025 appeared first on Best Endpoint Protection Security (EPP) Tools, Software, Solutions & Vendors.

The editors at Solutions Review are exploring the emerging AI application layer with this authoritative list of the best AI agents for cybersecurity use cases that teams should consider integrating into their business security efforts.

The proliferation of generative AI has ushered in a new era of cybersecurity, and AI agents are heavily involved in that transformation. As threat actors continue to find new ways to disrupt businesses, AI has become an essential tool in every company’s lineup of defense systems. Whether autonomously monitoring network traffic, detecting anomalous patterns, or responding to potential threats in real-time, AI agents in cybersecurity can help your company adapt its defense strategies and remain agile as new threats present themselves.

In this up-to-date and authoritative guide, our editors will spotlight some of the top AI agents and agent platforms available today for cybersecurity teams to help you find the right tool for your specific needs. This resource is designed to help you:

• Understand what makes cybersecurity AI agents different from traditional automation tools
• Explore the capabilities and limitations of each available agent or agent platform in the marketplace
• Choose the best solution for your team based on use case, skill level, and scalability options

Note: This list of the best AI agents for cybersecurity was compiled through web research using advanced scraping techniques and generative AI tools. Solutions Review editors use a unique multi-prompt approach to employ targeted prompts to extract critical knowledge and optimize content for relevance and utility. Our editors also utilized Solutions Review’s weekly news distribution services to ensure the information is as close to real-time as possible. The list is organized in alphabetical order.

The Top AI Agents for Cybersecurity Teams

Arctic Wolf Agent

Description: Arctic Wolf’s Agent is a lightweight software designed to autonomously collect actionable intelligence from their IT environments, scan endpoints for vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, and even respond to emerging threats.

Arctic Wolf Agent is managed 24×7 by security operations experts from the Arctic Wolf Concierge Security Team (CST), which provides clients with additional support in their threat detection, assessment, and containment efforts. It’s designed to extend IT bandwidth by monitoring wireless networks, event logs, process tables, installed software, SSL certificates, and more.

Key Features:

• Identify and benchmark risk profiles against globally accepted configuration guidelines and security standards.
• Host-based vulnerability assessment will continuously monitor servers and workstations for vulnerabilities and misconfigurations.
• Only 10MB of memory utilization under normal operating standards.
• Block data exfiltration and propagation of threats by preventing servers and workstations from communicating.

Get Started: Arctic Wolf Agent can be installed transparently via the existing software deployment processes your IT department is working with. It uses universal installers (i.e., MSI and PKG), requires zero maintenance once implemented, carries no performance impact, and can be updated seamlessly through the Arctic Wolf Platform.

Darktrace

Description: Darktrace’s Cyber AI Analyst combines human expertise with the speed and scale of artificial intelligence. It’s designed to reduce the time spent investigating alerts by streamlining workflows so your security team can focus on urgent or higher-value tasks.

Unlike copilots or prompt-based AI agents built to interpret text, Darktrace’s Cyber AI Assistant can replicate the human investigative process by questioning data, testing hypotheses, and reaching conclusions based on the results, all without human intervention. The Analyst also runs continuously, so it can re-investigate existing alerts with emerging data in real-time to ensure thorough analyses.

Key Features:

• The Analyst can recommend the next-best actions unique to each incident.
• Set up repeatable, integrated investigative workflows that are custom to your organization.
• Autonomous responses stop malicious actions while giving defenders time to analyze and remediate.
• Simplify incident understanding with detailed insights and investigative processes.

Get Started: The Cyber AI Analyst is built to underpin the Darktrace ActiveAI Security Platform, which allows clients to trial the company’s platforms in unison across use cases and technologies.

Fortinet

Description: FortiClient, an agent for the Fortinet Security Fabric solution, provides businesses with protection, compliance, and secure access, all from a single, modular, lightweight client.

The agentic tool runs on an endpoint like a laptop or mobile device. It autonomously communicates with Fortinet Security Fabric to provide users with the information, visibility, and control they need to manage each device. This can minimize the need for manual intervention and promote faster threat remediations across environments.

Key Features:

• Secure endpoints with ML anti-malware and behavior-based anti-exploit.
• FortiClient enables remote workers to securely connect to a network using zero-trust principles.
• Control access to cloud-based applications, including visibility to shadow IT.
• Harden endpoint security with vulnerability scanning, automated patching, software inventory, and app firewall functionalities.

Get Started: FortiClient comes in several models with increasing degrees of protection and capabilities. It’s built to integrate with the key components of Fortinet Security Fabric and is centrally managed by the Endpoint Management Server (EMS). Clients can also enhance the tool’s value with Fortinet’s professional services offerings, which can help streamline upgrades, patches, deployment, and monitoring processes.

Purple AI by SentinelOne

Description: Purple AI is a cybersecurity analyst powered by agentic AI technologies that enable teams to use natural language prompts and context-based suggested queries to identify hidden risks, respond to threats faster, and conduct in-depth investigations.

SentinelOne designed Purple AI to scale autonomous protection across the enterprise and amplify a security team’s capabilities by streamlining and automating SecOps workflows. For example, Purple AI can generate incident summaries, self-documenting notebooks, and recommended queries.

Key Features:

• Purple AI is architected with the highest level of safeguards to protect against misuse and hallucinations.
• Synthesize threat intelligence and contextual insights in a conversational user experience.
• View and manage security data in one place with a unified console for native and third-party security data.
• Generate summaries that communicate the seriousness of an incident, key findings of the hunt, and recommended actions.

Get Started: SentinelOne’s agentic AI functionalities are available in the Complete, Commercial, and Enterprise models of the company’s Singularity solution. Each offering provides scalable features to help companies of all sizes and needs streamline and improve their cybersecurity efforts.

Alex by Twine

Description: Alex is Twine’s first digital employee. The AI agent is designed to join your team and handle the execution and orchestration of identity and access management processes.

Alex is capable of planning, approving, and automatically executing tasks. Potential use cases for Alex include onboarding users to a new application, assigning employees to orphaned accounts, optimizing a company’s existing identity governance and administration (IGA) platforms, and more.

Key Features:

• Autonomously repairs issues, removes roadblocks, and recovers whatever is needed to complete objectives.
• Handle and fix edge cases and exceptions with minimum human intervention.
• Connect and bond multiple HR systems, identity silos, and SaaS platforms within larger organizations.
• Identity applications that require multi-factor authentication (MFA) and migrate them into an MFA framework without disrupting your team’s workflow.

Get Started: Twine’s Digital Employees are designed to integrate easily with a company’s existing systems. The agents learn and adapt to each client’s unique requirements, environments, and applications. Twine’s engineers can even research and build specific integrations to suit special cases when needed.

Want the full list? Register for Insight Jam, Solutions Review’s enterprise tech community, which enables human conversation on AI. You can gain access for free here!

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Erich Kron, a Security Awareness Advocate at KnowBe4, explains why cybercrime often spikes during tax season. This article originally appeared in Insight Jam, an enterprise IT community that enables human conversation on AI.

Each spring, as Americans gather their financial records and prepare for tax season, cyber-criminals prepare too—but not to file. These scammers gear up for a digital crime spree that preys on urgency, confusion, and trust. Tax season is stressful for many people, making it an open season for scams, and each year brings new twists on old tricks, making it one of the riskiest times of the year for individuals and organizations alike.

Why Tax Season Is Prime Time for Cybercrime

Money is always the motivator, and tax time is when money and sensitive personal data are moving. Between January and April, W-2s, Social Security numbers, financial statements, and other valuable documents get uploaded online and sent around by email. This creates an attractive attack surface that threat actors just cannot resist.

Cyber-criminals do not need to conduct sophisticated attacks to exploit people during tax season. Social engineering tactics like phishing spike during this season, targeting employees with emails that appear to be from the IRS, tax software companies, or even internal HR departments. These emails often contain malicious links or attachments designed to steal logins, install malware, or trick users into fraudulent transactions.

The rapid turnaround and strict deadlines of tax filing contribute to the pressure because the IRS carries so much authority, and dealing with it can be very intimidating for many. In that heightened stress environment, people are more likely to click first and think later. Threat actors are very aware of this and capitalize on this window of vulnerability.

Common Tax Scams to Watch For

W-2 Scams

Attackers will impersonate company executives or someone from HR and request employee W-2 forms. Once acquired, they are sold on the dark web or used to commit tax fraud. These scams often start with a simple spoofed email to HR or payroll teams. The information contained in these forms also makes identity theft trivial for bad actors looking to open fake credit accounts or take out loans in the victim’s name.

IRS Impersonation Scams

Emails or phone calls claiming to be from the IRS threaten legal action or demand immediate payment. The IRS does not initiate contact by email, text, or social media and will only send initial correspondence about issues through postal mail. Knowing that one fact can save victims thousands.

Tax Refund Phishing

Victims are lured into clicking links that promise faster or larger refunds or tax credits. These fake sites often mimic government portals and are used to steal login credentials or install credential-stealing malware.

Malicious Tax Software Lookalikes

Fake versions of popular tax filing software lure users into entering sensitive data, which is then exfiltrated. Many are advertised as free versions of popular paid software; some may even function normally while secretly stealing data in the background.

Businesses Beware: More Than a Personal Problem

Organizations are especially vulnerable this time of year as Finance and HR departments handle a very high volume of sensitive data. A compromised employee account during tax season can trigger BEC attacks, payroll fraud, or ransomware incidents targeting financial systems.

Smaller businesses are particularly at risk. They may lack the budget for advanced threat detection tools and often rely on just-in-time tax filings, leaving little room for error. For them, a single phishing email can result in a devastating loss of data, money, or both.

Even large enterprises are not immune. Attackers often target the supply chain vendors, contractors, and service providers with weaker defenses to leapfrog into larger targets. Tax-related information passing between these parties becomes a valuable target.

Defense-in-Depth: Your Best Strategy

There is no silver bullet in cybersecurity, especially around tax time. Defense-in-depth is key, meaning combining technical controls, employee education, and strong policies:

• Email Filtering and Monitoring: Whenever possible, catch phishing emails before they reach users’ inboxes. Look for flags such as unusual sender addresses, an urgent tone, or unexpected attachments.
• Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): This step is critical for accounts related to finance and HR platforms, as well as other accounts. Even if credentials are compromised, MFA can often stop unauthorized access. It is not foolproof, but it does help significantly.
• Security Awareness Training: Employees should be taught to identify IRS scams and report suspicious emails, text messages, or phone calls quickly. Teach people to pause and verify before taking any action.
• Data Loss Prevention (DLP): Prevent sensitive tax documents and information from unintentionally leaving the network. Alerts should be configured for large data exports or unauthorized access to sensitive information.
• Incident Response Plan: Be ready to act if something slips through. A fast, coordinated response can minimize damage and preserve evidence.

Final Thoughts

Tax season is stressful enough without the added complication of cybercrime. The stakes are high, and attackers know it, but education, awareness, and preparation are powerful tools. Individuals and organizations alike must treat this time of year with heightened caution.

The post The Tax-Time Trap: Cybercrime’s Seasonal Spike appeared first on Best Endpoint Protection Security (EPP) Tools, Software, Solutions & Vendors.

Jeremy Kirk, the Executive Editor for Cyber Threat Intelligence at Intel 471, explains how threat actors can leverage remote monitoring and management (RMM) software solutions. This article originally appeared in Insight Jam, an enterprise IT community that enables human conversation on AI.

Remote monitoring and management (RMM) applications, such as AnyDesk, Atera Agent, ScreenConnect, and TeamViewer, are powerful and useful tools for administrators who do not have on-site, physical access to machines. Organizations frequently rely on RMM software for essential information technology (IT) tasks, such as system updates, asset management, software deployment, endpoint troubleshooting, and maintenance scheduling.

Unsurprisingly, threat actors find these RMM tools useful as well and are increasingly leveraging them to gain access to networks, install malware, disable security features, and escalate privileges. Detecting malicious actions using RMM tools, unfortunately, is difficult because they are so widely used and deeply integrated into IT workflows. RMM is legitimate software, so these applications are unlikely to be flagged as malware. Abusing RMM tools offers a distinct advantage over remote access tools (RATs), which are custom-designed malware tools that need to employ other techniques, such as valid signing certificates, to avoid being flagged by security software.

RMM software abuse is not a new technique, but it registered at a persistent level throughout 2024, and we anticipate this trend to continue in 2025.

How RMM Tools Are Exploited

Threat actors frequently can gain access to RMM software by initially compromising RMM user credentials through social-engineering tactics or by exploiting vulnerabilities in outdated software. This allows attackers to use a preinstalled tool, thus potentially attracting less attention when misusing it. In some cases, attackers will take proactive steps to preserve their illicit access to an RMM tool. This can include creating additional accounts for RMM software in case it is discovered that account credentials have been compromised and are reset.

Attackers also may social-engineer victims into installing RMM software under misleading pretenses. This scheme has often manifested as a bogus request from an organization’s IT department to solve a problem. An employee who wants to take the right action may comply, installing the software and then allowing access to the attackers. Attackers can then use RMM software to map the network and identify valuable assets. They typically move laterally using credentials harvested from compromised systems to exfiltrate sensitive data, deploy ransomware, or launch further attacks against downstream clients.

To ensure long-term access or facilitate additional malicious activities, threat actors often install additional RATs to maintain persistent access. These tools can serve as backups for remote desktop sessions or establish reverse connections to adversary-controlled servers, leading to widespread operational disruptions, significant financial losses, and potential supply chain vulnerabilities.

Ransomware Group in Focus: Black Basta

The Black Basta ransomware group emerged in mid-April 2022 and evolved into the third most impactful ransomware group that year. Its members are experienced Russian-speaking ransomware and cyber-crime veterans, some of whom worked with the infamous Conti ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) group. In February 2025, a leaker released about 197,000 messages from different Matrix chatrooms the Black Basta group used. The leak provided deep insight into the group’s tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), including how it gained initial access to victims and networks using RMM software.

The group ran a sophisticated operation, researching organizations it thought might pay a ransom and compiling lists in Google Sheets of individual employees it planned to target. In one scenario, an employee would be targeted in a spam attack that would fill the person’s inbox. Then, someone from Black Basta would call the person and—reading from a pre-drafted script—impersonate an IT support member from the victim’s organization. The attacker would offer to install antispam software on the user’s machine, but in order to do that, the victim needed to install remote access software such as AnyDesk, Quick Assist, or TeamViewer.

After the victim installed the software, Black Basta would contact one of its malicious penetration testers, who would then try to install additional malware to enable persistent access. The pentester would provide a code the victim was supposed to enter on the computer, allowing the pentester to establish another foothold. The leaked chat messages did not reveal what malware was used to obtain persistent access.

However, one member claimed to run a batch (.bat) file that prompted the employee to enter credentials for the corporate virtual private network (VPN) portal. These credentials would then allow Black Basta’s actors to access the domain network, advancing the data exfiltration and ransomware attack by one more step.

Defensive Mitigations

To mitigate the escalating risks associated with RMM tools, a comprehensive defense strategy is critical. Detection efforts should include deploying endpoint detection and response (EDR) platforms, conducting network traffic analysis, and utilizing behavior-based intrusion detection systems (IDSs) that are tuned specifically to recognize RMM-related activities. It is also vital to enforce stringent application listing, which would prohibit users from installing RMM software as a result of falling prey to a social engineering campaign.

Only vetted, preapproved RMM software that has tight access controls should be used across the organization to minimize the attack surface. Lastly, security teams are advised to undertake threat-hunting exercises routinely to detect early signs of misuse, such as anomalous network connections or other suspicious activities that may suggest unauthorized access.

For example, AnyDesk is a common and widely utilized tool for remotely controlling machines. However, many actors have also adopted it to remotely access victim machines and deploy malware or ransomware payloads. Threat actors may install AnyDesk but put its executable in an uncommon directory, such as the ProgramData and System32 temporary directories, in an attempt to hide it.

Additionally, to appear more legitimate, some attackers may utilize installation paths that include legitimate-sounding names, such as “Microsoft Management” or “Customer Service.” These types of behaviors, drawn from threat intelligence based on real attacks, can be used in threat hunts that search security information and event management (SIEM) or other logging systems that may have recorded the malicious activity, allowing an organization to undertake incident response to remove the threat.

By integrating these measures—enhanced detection capabilities, strict access management, and proactive threat hunting—organizations can more effectively stay ahead of adversaries who seek to exploit RMM tools.

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