Expert Analysis – Help Net Security

The modern security operations center faces a crisis of scale that human effort cannot fix. With alert volumes exponentially growing and threat actors automating their attacks, organizations must pivot to autonomous SOC strategies. This shift to AI-driven defense is the only way to survive the operational realities of 2026. The mathematical impossibility of legacy defense We need to be honest about the state of the traditional SOC. It is failing. It is not failing because … More → The post Why SOCs are moving toward autonomous security operations in 2026 appeared first on Help Net Security.

Cybersecurity teams are overwhelmed with data and short on clarity, while adversaries use AI to move faster and operate at unprecedented scale. Most organizations collect enormous volumes of findings: vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, penetration test results, detection gaps, threat intelligence, and control assessments. Individually, these data points may be accurate, but they don’t always reflect the big picture. As attackers increasingly leverage AI to rapidly identify weaknesses and chain exploits, defenders must keep pace by leveraging AI … More → The post How AI is reshaping attack path analysis appeared first on Help Net Security.

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and Microsoft has been giving us a lot of love with a non-stop supply of patches starting with January 2026 Patch Tuesday. The January releases addressed 92 vulnerabilities in Windows 11 and Server2025, as well as 79 vulnerabilities for Windows 10 and its associated servers. We also saw updates for legacy 2016 versions of Microsoft Office and even a SQL Server update. But these patches came with some … More → The post February 2026 Patch Tuesday forecast: Lots of OOB love this month appeared first on Help Net Security.

AI has come a long way in the pentesting world. We are now seeing open-source tools that can genuinely mimic how a human tester works, not just fire off scans. I dug into three of them, BugTrace-AI, Shannon, and CAI, the Cybersecurity AI framework, and put them up against real-world targets in a lab environment. The results were better than I expected. Below is a breakdown of what each tool did well, where they fell … More → The post Open-source AI pentesting tools are getting uncomfortably good appeared first on Help Net Security.

Penetration testing has evolved significantly over the past several years. While uncovering exploitable vulnerabilities remains the core goal, the real differentiator today is how findings are handled after the testing concludes. The method of reporting, delivery, and remediation tracking play a critical role in determining how effective a pentest is at actually reducing risk. Security leaders increasingly expect penetration testing to integrate seamlessly into their broader security operations. Static reports no longer meet the needs … More → The post The 2026 State of Pentesting: Why delivery and follow-through matter more than ever appeared first on Help Net Security.

Welcome to a new year of my Patch Tuesday forecast blog where I provide a summary of Microsoft and other vendor’s security patch activity (and reported issues) for the month, talk about some of the latest trends, processes, and evolution of patch management, and finally yes, provide a forecast of what security patches are expected to release next week on Patch Tuesday. Microsoft reported several issues you should be aware of with respect to the … More → The post January 2026 Patch Tuesday forecast: And so it continues appeared first on Help Net Security.

AppSec teams have spent the last decade hardening externally facing applications, API security, software supply chain risk, CI/CD controls, and cloud-native attack paths. But a growing class of security threats is emerging from a largely underestimated and undefended source: internally built no-code assets. What started out as a few business user created no-code apps is evolving into thousands of automations and AI agents operating across enterprise systems. They pull external data, call internal APIs, reason … More → The post How AI agents are turning security inside-out appeared first on Help Net Security.

Between June 2024 and December 2025, Fortra analysts tracked a persistent business email compromise (BEC) operation that we have now classified as Scripted Sparrow. The group carries out well-crafted highly targeted phishing campaigns that masquerade as professional services firms to mislead finance teams into transferring money to fraudsters’ accounts. However, unlike conventional BEC actors, Scripted Sparrow uses a structured, consistent, and disciplined approach. Each campaign shows how they have conducted research, used consistent language with … More → The post Clipping Scripted Sparrow’s wings: Tracking a global phishing ring appeared first on Help Net Security.

It’s hard to believe that we’re in December of 2025 already and the end of the year is fast approaching. Looking back on the year, there are two major items that really stand out in my mind. First, there is the large number of Microsoft products that have come to EOL/EOS near the end of this year. It seemed there was always a reason their products would get official extended support at the last minute, … More → The post December 2025 Patch Tuesday forecast: And it’s a wrap appeared first on Help Net Security.

Your inbox is probably drowning in Black Friday emails right now. Another “limited time offer” that’ll reappear next month, countdown timer creating artificial urgency. You’re right to be skeptical — most of it is noise. But buried beneath the marketing chaos, Black Friday can represent genuine opportunities to save significantly. The cybersecurity industry projects 4.8 million open positions globally in 2025, according to ISC2, with the market expected to reach $377 billion by 2028. Yet … More → The post Black Friday 2025 for InfoSec: How to spot real value and avoid the noise appeared first on Help Net Security.