In this week’s edition of CIOInfluence, we’re diving into the latest IT trends and innovations that are setting the stage for 2025 and beyond. Between November 18th and 22nd, several significant developments emerged that are reshaping the tech landscape, and we’ve got the highlights you need to know.
Cloud computing continues its rapid evolution, as businesses turn to more scalable, flexible, and efficient solutions to meet their infrastructure demands. In the world of data management, AI-driven advancements are automating tasks, optimizing workflows, and delivering deeper insights that fuel better decision-making. Cybersecurity remains a central focus as organizations face increasingly complex threats and adapt with smarter, more proactive defense strategies. We’ll also preview the must-watch IT events of the upcoming year and unpack the key trends and buzzwords that will dominate the conversation in 2025.
Whether you’re a CIO, an IT professional, or simply interested in the latest tech developments, this roundup offers the insights you need to stay ahead. Let’s jump in!
Top CIO Insights & Trends: What to Watch This Week
Weekly IT Security Brief: Trends and Key Updates
Horizon3.ai Introduces NodeZero Insights to Close Security Gaps and Drive Measurable Improvements in Cyber Defense
Horizon3.ai, a global leader in autonomous security solutions, today announced the launch of NodeZero Insights™. Designed for security leaders, CIOs, CISOs and practitioners, this new solution delivers real-time dashboards to measure, track and strengthen an organization’s security posture over time. NodeZero Insights provides the clarity and proof that security leaders need to demonstrate tangible progress, align priorities and make informed decisions in an increasingly complex threat landscape.
Traditional pentesting often fails to keep pace with the rapidly changing environments organizations face. “A single pentest is merely a snapshot in time—quickly outdated as environments change. That’s why 82% of Horizon3.ai customers have shifted from annual to monthly pentesting, and 40% conduct at least weekly pentests,” says Stephen Gates, Principal Security SME at Horizon3.ai.
Guardz Appoints Esther Pinto as CISO to Drive AI-Powered Innovation and Strengthen Cybersecurity Leadership
Guardz, the cybersecurity company empowering Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and IT professionals to deliver comprehensive, AI-powered cyber protection for small businesses (SMBs), announced the appointment of Esther Pinto as Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). Esther will play a pivotal role in securing Guardz’s operations and will lead the company’s security strategy.
- Guardz offers a unified, AI-powered cybersecurity solution designed to empower MSPs to protect SMBs from rising cyber threats.
- The platform empowers MSPs to efficiently manage multiple clients’ cybersecurity needs from a single dashboard.
- The company’s AI-driven capabilities continuously monitor digital assets, providing real-time alerts, insights, and automated remediation.
- It also integrates cyber insurance readiness, allowing SMBs to secure coverage while MSPs benefit from additional revenue streams.
Exploring the Latest in Cloud Technology
Global, Cloud-Native Enterprise Architecture Leader Orbus Software Acquires Architecture Aolutions Provider Capsifi
Orbus Software, a leading global provider of enterprise transformation software, announced its acquisition of Capsifi, a leading provider of business architecture solutions. The transaction marks a strategic move to combine the experience and specialism of these two global SaaS leaders; to offer unparalleled capabilities for organizations trying to navigate transformation against a backdrop of increasing business and technology complexity.
News in short –
- Cloud-native players complement each other with unique innovations in a market constrained by legacy tool providers.
- Capsifi’s business architecture platform serves as a strategic ‘command center’ for efficient, data-driven transformation.
- Combination of Orbus and Capsifi lays a strong foundation for a Digital Twin of the Organization offering.
Gigamon Announces Power of 3 Offering with Cribl and Blackwood to Deliver Comprehensive Intelligence to Cloud, Security, and Observability Tools
Gigamon, a leading deep observability company, announced a new Power of 3 offering with partners Cribl and Blackwood. The Gigamon Power of 3 Cloud program, launched in June, uniquely brings together Gigamon, a Gigamon channel partner, and a leading networking, security, or observability technology alliance partner to provide mutual customers with access to technology integrations and support that will help them to more efficiently and effectively manage their hybrid cloud infrastructure.
“Visibility across increasingly complex hybrid cloud infrastructure is challenging CISOs and CIOs alike, and presents one of the greatest cybersecurity vulnerabilities today,” said Srinivas Chakravarty, vice president of Cloud Ecosystem at Gigamon.
What’s Shaping the Future of Data Management?
Vijilan Security Partners with Cribl to Modernize Data Management for MSPs and Enterprises
Vijilan Security, a leading provider of managed cybersecurity services, announced its partnership with Cribl, the Data Engine for IT and Security. This collaboration enhances Vijilan’s ThreatSensor platform, offering Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and enterprises a future-ready solution that enables sophisticated management and security for their complex and ever-growing volumes of data across private networks, public clouds, and hybrid environments.
Key Benefits for Vijilan Partners:
● Comprehensive Data Control: Full visibility and management of data from ingestion to storage, enabling clients to make data-driven decisions with confidence.
● Simplified Compliance: Enhanced capabilities for meeting regulatory requirements such as HIPAA, PCI-DSS, GDPR, and SOX, including data masking and secure routing.
● Flexible Data Routing: Seamlessly send data to preferred destinations—whether on-premises, in private data centers, or leaders cloud providers
● Cost Efficiency and Scalability: Handle increasing data volumes while minimizing unnecessary storage and processing costs, ensuring scalability for future growth.
Accelario Leads Innovation with AI-Powered Sensitive Data Detection
Accelario, a leading innovator in data provisioning and compliance solutions, announced the launch of its groundbreaking Automatic Recognition of Sensitive Data feature. This AI-driven solution eliminates the complexities of identifying sensitive information in large datasets, empowering technical and non-technical users to easily ensure data security and compliance.
“Our Automatic Recognition of Sensitive Data feature is a game-changer for organizations managing vast amounts of sensitive information,” said Michael Litner, Chief Architect, R&D Manager, and Co-Founder at Accelario.
Top Reads: Today’s Most Impactful Tech Trends
The Convergence of Development and Customer Support: Building Unified DevOps Pipelines
This article explores the growing integration between traditionally siloed teams—development and customer support—and how DevOps is facilitating this convergence. The main focus is on how organizations can create unified DevOps pipelines that embed customer feedback throughout the entire software development lifecycle (SDLC), enabling faster, more responsive, and user-focused software delivery.
What Readers Will Learn:
- The Role of DevOps in Bridging the Gap
- Building Unified DevOps Pipelines
- Best Practices for Collaboration
- Benefits of Unified Pipelines
What’s the Difference Between Authentication and Authorization?
This article clarifies the distinction between authentication and authorization, two essential processes in digital security. Authentication verifies a user’s identity (e.g., via passwords, biometrics, or MFA), while authorization determines what actions or resources the authenticated user can access.
The article delves into various authentication methods, including password-based, biometric, and passwordless options, highlighting how multi-factor authentication (MFA) enhances security. For authorization, it covers models like role-based (RBAC), attribute-based (ABAC), and relationship-based access control (ReBAC), which manage user permissions within systems.
By using a simple analogy, the article outlines how authentication grants access to a system, and authorization controls what users can do once inside. Together, these processes are key components of Identity and Access Management (IAM), ensuring secure and efficient system use.
Readers will gain a clear understanding of how these processes work together to safeguard systems, along with best practices for implementing them to combat modern cyber threats.
Voices of Innovation: Perspectives from Leading Thought Leaders
CIO Influence Interview with David Nuti, Head of Security Strategy, Extreme Networks
In the interview with David Nuti, Head of Security Strategy at Extreme Networks, he discusses how Extreme Networks is tackling the challenge of seamless security integration in cloud-driven environments. With their ExtremeCloud Universal ZTNA solution, they provide unified cloud network access control and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), enabling consistent security, visibility, and simplified management. This integrated solution enhances IT productivity by improving user experiences while ensuring secure access based on identity-level privileges.
David highlights the biggest cybersecurity threats facing enterprises today, particularly legacy systems and outdated technology that remain unpatched and poorly monitored. He stresses that organizations need better network visibility and unified security solutions to tackle evolving threats.
To shift from reactive to proactive threat management, David recommends embracing Zero Trust principles, where no user is trusted by default, and visibility is key. He also advocates for leveraging cloud management, AI, and automation to improve network monitoring and threat detection.
CIO Influence Interview with Richard Bird, Chief Security Officer of Traceable
In his interview with CIO Influence, Richard Bird, Chief Security Officer at Traceable, highlights the major challenges in API security, criticizing the continued reliance on outdated solutions like WAFs and API gateways, which fail to address modern threats such as bot attacks and API fraud. He stresses that organizations need to overhaul their security strategies, integrate Zero Trust, and give APIs the attention they deserve.
Richard emphasizes the need for organizations to catalog their networks, improve authentication, limit authorization, and maintain continuous monitoring to strengthen security. As CSO, he ensures Traceable’s security strategies align with emerging threats and help clients stay secure, especially as generative AI expands API risks.
He advises C-suite leaders to evaluate their API security posture, ensuring Zero Trust policies are comprehensive, and technologies like rate limiting and least privilege access are in place to prevent breaches.
Buzzwords in Tech: A Breakdown of What You Need to Know
Security Hygiene – Security hygiene, also known as cybersecurity hygiene, is a set of practices that protect systems, networks, and data from threats and unauthorized access.
User-Centered Design (UCD) – User-centered design (UCD) is a design process that focuses on the user’s needs and experiences at every stage of the design process.
Phygital Convergence – Phygital convergence is the merging of the physical and digital worlds, creating a seamless experience that blends the two.
Looking Ahead: The IT Events that Will Define 2025
NANOG 93
Date: Feb. 3-5, 2025
Location: Atlanta, GA
NANOG is, and always has been, dedicated to the people who make up our community. Meet with hundreds of individuals from network engineering, operations, and architecture, who gather in major cities across North America.
Customer Success Austin
Date: Feb. 11-12, 2025
Location: Austin, TX
Join leading CS experts in Austin as they showcase real-world case studies, essential strategies, and innovative tools. Dive deep into key trends and success stories that will help you refine your onboarding, crush churn, and increase adoption, loyalty & expansion.
Deep Learning & Advanced ML Summit
Date: Feb. 11-12, 2025
Location: San Jose, CA
Discover advances in deep learning algorithms and methods from the world’s leading innovators. Learn from industry experts in speech & pattern recognition, neural networks, image analysis and NLP. Explore how deep learning will impact healthcare, manufacturing, search & transportation.
