Aviatrix Blog 
May has been a pivotal month in cloud security, revealing how AI is dramatically reshaping both threats and defenses across networks. From social engineering tactics so sophisticated they impressed former NSA analysts to Google’s staggering new $17.2 billion infrastructure investment, we’ve entered a new era where both attackers and defenders are leveraging advanced technologies at unprecedented speeds—to borrow a term from Mary Meeker’s latest report.
These developments unfold against a backdrop where cloud strategies continue to diverge from operational realities, and traditional security perimeters are proving inadequate against modern infrastructure’s complex web of microservices and APIs. As tech giants compete to build AI infrastructure, security teams face sophisticated social engineering and failing defenses—forcing organizations to reimagine security strategies for an AI-accelerated threat landscape.
The Register
Ex-NSA bad-guy hunter listened to Scattered Spider’s fake help-desk calls: ‘Those guys are good’
Even ex-NSA analyst Jon DiMaggio and Mandiant’s CTO had to tip their hat to Scattered Spider’s convincing help desk scams this month. These cybercriminals did their homework, digging into detail from employee IDs to deep demographic info. For the security industry, this cyber gang serves as another reminder of just how outpaced they are by criminals flooding networks with alerts—and how one user’s compromise can spread like wildfire across an entire enterprise’s infrastructure. The larger lesson? Firewalls need to be reimagined for the cloud and this new era of attackers.
TechCrunch
It’s not your imagination: AI is speeding up the pace of change
Sneaking in at the end of the month, Mary Meeker released a new report focused on trends in AI. You may recognize Meeker as founder and general partner at VC firm Bond, or the artist FKA “Queen of the Internet” for her popular annual Internet Trends reports. To dramatically oversimplify her latest, a 340-page slideshow report, AI is causing “unprecedented” pace of change. What does that mean to us? Be on the lookout for a leap akin to the digital transformation and shadow IT era of early cloud adoption. “Evolve or die” leadership mandates around AI—and AI agents in particular—are spinning up new connections and blind spots that have are bringing about a new era of risk and “shadow AI.”
Cloud Computing Insider
Public Cloud Providers Overstated Benefits
It may not feel shocking that cloud providers can occasionally exaggerate their capabilities. What is interesting in this video from renowned industry expert David Linthicum is what cloud migration disasters can look like with a “lift-and-shift everything” approach to public cloud. Smart cloud adoption requires looking beyond the marketing promises to develop evidence-based strategies that accurately weigh both benefits and limitations of public cloud services.
Cloud Native Now
Securing The Digital Supply Chain: Network Security Best Practices for Cloud-Native Logistics
The rush to cloud-native infrastructure has created a perfect storm of security challenges, where traditional perimeter defenses fail against the complex web of microservices, APIs, and third-party integrations. Sound familiar? This article offers practical defensive strategies centered around zero trust architecture, robust API security, container protection, and third-party risk management. Although it’s framed around the supply chain, the recommendations translate well across industries.
Cybersecurity Dive
Google pours billions into AI, cyber and infrastructure expansion
Google’s cloud division is absolutely crushing it right now, with profits more than doubling year-over-year while it pours a staggering $17.2 billion into infrastructure—primarily to handle the AI tsunami that’s driving customer demand beyond their current capacity. The hyperscaler is betting big on the future with plans to boost capital expenditures to $75 billion this year (up 40% from 2024), including that massive $32 billion Wiz acquisition that leans in on tackling multicloud security challenges. Beyond just throwing money at servers and data centers, they’ve unveiled their seventh-gen TPU called Ironwood specifically designed for inference workloads, clearly showing they’re all-in on the AI infrastructure arms race against AWS and Microsoft while trying to make themselves indispensable to enterprise cloud security strategies.
If you’re in cloud, networking, and security, your plate is already full with keeping your organizations’ infrastructure running effectively. However, in today’s technology climate, which is changing at the pace of AI, staying informed is not just an advantage — it’s a necessity.
Our monthly cloud network security must-reads are curated to deliver critical insights, emerging trends, and pivotal developments that every cloud, networking, and security professional needs to know. By distilling the month’s most significant stories into a concise, digestible format, we aim to empower technology leaders and practitioners with the knowledge that can transform potential challenges and vulnerabilities into strategic opportunities.
Whether you’re a chief information security officer, network architect, cloud engineer, or security analyst, these insights will help you stay ahead of emerging risks, optimize your infrastructure, and make more informed technological decisions that protect and propel your organization forward.