I've always had what I would consider a hacker mindset, a curiosity to take things apart, understand them, and use that knowledge to solve problems. That mindset took me on a circuitous route into the cybersecurity industry; after being kicked out of high school for hacking computer systems, I worked a range of jobs, managing office supply companies by day and cracking Wi-Fi networks by night until I started a Digital Forensics degree which led me to the world of security research.
"These incidents involve the intentional use of deceptive or illegal practices to fraudulently obtain money, assets, or information from individuals or institutions, and include actions carried out over cyber channels."
"World Cloud Security Day is a useful reminder to recognize how much cloud risk now comes down to everyday access decisions and overlooked misconfigurations," says James Maude, Field CTO at BeyondTrust.
For mid-market organizations, cybersecurity is a constant balancing act. Proactive, preventative security measures are essential to protect an expanding attack surface. Combined with effective protection that blocks threats, they play a critical role in stopping cyberattacks before damage is done. The challenge is that many security tools add complexity and cost that most mid-market businesses can't absorb. With limited budgets and lean IT and security teams, organizations often focus on detection and response.
Security in 2026 is defined by convergence, complexity, and scale. Enterprise organizations are navigating a world where cyber incidents are causing physical shutdowns, and physical breaches are creating digital vulnerabilities, all while cloud-dependent systems are becoming the backbone of operations, and AI is being used as a tool by both defenders and attackers. Incidents in 2025, especially the AWS outage, have painfully exposed just how interdependent modern security environments have become.