EMA Research Blog: Navigating IT and Security Horizons

Late last night, Mr. William Chalmers from Lloyds Banking Group in the United Kingdom sent me quite an unusual email. With the subject “Mutual Investment,” I absolutely expected yet another boring investment scam email which would promptly go into the spam bin. However, upon opening this email I was pleasantly surprised to see that this scammer had not sent me an “investment opportunity” (read that as investment scam) but accidentally emailed me his source code. Oops. I won’t include the full code here, but I will include some interesting snippets.

If 2025 was the year the industry aggressively deployed agentic AI to automate everything from code deployment to customer service, 2026 is shaping up to be the year we pay the security debt for that speed. We have effectively built an "AI-native" enterprise ecosystem, but in doing so, we have introduced a new class of insider threat that doesn't sleep, doesn't take breaks, and crucially doesn't think like a human.

As I sit here watching the very soggy Rose Parade, my thoughts drift to the cybersecurity topics and trends we will talk about in 2026 (yes, that is how much of a nerd I actually am).

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Welcome to the recap of the Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) Cybersecurity Awesomeness (CSA) Podcast. Hosted by Chris Steffen, vice president of research, and Ken Buckler, research director at EMA, the CSA Podcast covers a wide range of cybersecurity topics, from cyber workforce talent shortages to cyber threat intelligence, to current events in technology and security. This short, laid-back podcast is for listeners of all skill levels and backgrounds.

If you’ve tried to track the blizzard of OpenAI partnership announcements lately, you might feel like you’re watching the most ambitious infrastructure strategy ever conceived, or a Three Stooges-style routine where everyone keeps paying the same $20 back and forth…except now it’s $20 billion.

The recent news brings to light a topic that is top of mind in my research and studies lately: technology resiliency.

Cybersecurity Awesomeness Podcast – It’s 2025. Do You Know Where Your Data is?

Welcome to the recap of the Enterprise Management Associates (EMA™) Cybersecurity Awesomeness (CSA) Podcast. Hosted by Chris Steffen, vice president of research, and Ken Buckler, research director at EMA, the CSA Podcast covers a wide range of cybersecurity topics, from cyber workforce talent shortages to cyber threat intelligence, to current events in technology and security. This short, laidback podcast is for listeners of all skill levels and backgrounds.

The Nobel Committee has spoken, and for those of us living in the bright lights of the cybersecurity world, it is a day of celebration. The 2025 Physics Prize, awarded to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis for their work on "macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation," isn't just a headline; it is a validation of the potential of the Quantum Age.

The world of digital marketing thrives on data, and for years, Google Search Console (GSC) and third-party SEO tools have been our compass. But as an industry analyst, I can tell you that the past few weeks have felt like driving a car without windows! What initially appeared as inexplicable fluctuations in our SEO dashboards has coalesced into a clear, albeit unsettling, picture: Google quietly pulled the plug on a foundational data-gathering mechanism, unleashing a wave of disruption that impacts everyone from enterprise marketers to cybersecurity businesses.