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What picture do you have in mind when you think of "smuggling"? Typically, it recalls images such as goods hidden in false bottoms or someone trying to slip past a checkpoint unnoticed🥷💰🧳. But that view is outdated. Today’s smuggling is structured, tech-enabled and relies on a growing set of coordinated tactics, such as: • Drones scouting patrol routes or dropping high‑value items in remote areas • Encrypted messaging apps used to coordinate cross-border movements in real time • Digital wallets transferring money anonymously across jurisdictions • GPS beacons guiding vehicles through hard-to-monitor terrain • Technologies aimed at staying hidden from patrols and sensors These evolving tactics and technologies challenge traditional border protection, requiring a predictive, proactive approach focused on detection beyond the border strip and intelligence-led decision-making, informed by holistic profiles of individuals of interest, suspected groups, objects, and patterns. This is where Cognyte’s unique border protection solution comes into play. It provides persistent coverage across the full spectrum, fuses diverse data sources, uncovers hidden connections, and helps agencies act faster with actionable insight into complex smuggling operations.
Dhaani Lorwaal Lorwal | Global Team Lead & Credit Controller, India ✨Sparks Program Volunteer "As part of the SPARKS program, I had the chance to volunteer and lead a session for students on topics like information security and artificial intelligence. I tried to make these subjects more approachable by using real-life examples and encouraging questions. It was a great opportunity to help students feel more confident navigating the digital world."
Alex Lozano, Professor of OSINT, EPSI – Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and CEO of Cibergy: “In 2025, open-source intelligence (OSINT) reached a clear inflection point, evolving from a niche investigative practice into a core, enterprise-grade intelligence discipline. Organizations across government and the private sector are increasingly embedding OSINT into security, fraud, compliance, supply chain, and geopolitical risk operations. This shift has been driven by an explosion of publicly available digital data, a heightened global risk environment, and regulatory expectations that now treat OSINT-backed due diligence as standard rather than optional. Technologically, 2025 was a breakout year. Multimodal AI and large language models became deeply integrated into OSINT workflows, enabling faster triage, cross-platform identity correlation, automated monitoring, and near real-time disinformation detection. These capabilities have begun to transform OSINT from a largely manual craft into a scalable, auditable intelligence function. Equally important, governance, data provenance, and ethical use frameworks have matured, reflecting growing concern over trust, verification, and privacy. By the end of 2025, OSINT is no longer an option; it has become a foundational component of modern risk and intelligence operations, setting the stage for its full institutionalization in 2026 and beyond”.
Free trade zones are often treated as engines of economic growth, but they also create openings that threat actors are quick to exploit. For The 2026 Security Outlook, Dr. Matthew Levitt explains how FTZs have become key hubs in terrorist financing networks. Click to read the full article>>>
Borders are becoming a central focus of security planning. Omer Frenkel, Director of Intelligence Solutions at Cognyte, explains why border protection is now a core pillar of national security and how intelligence-led approaches will shape what happens on the ground: “NATO is updating its defense spending playbook, with a sharper focus on what happens at its members’ borders. On top of bigger defense budgets, allies are being urged to put more weight on what happens at their borders – from physical barriers and sensors to smarter screening and cross-border intelligence sharing – within a wider 5% of GDP security target. The operational takeaway for any border protection agency is clear: borders are a core pillar of national security and must be treated as intelligence-rich environments, not just lines on a map. I predict that we will see a growing number of border protection agencies shifting to intelligence-led solutions: fixed and mobile sensors, drones, biometric screening, real-time data analysis and stronger human expertise and cross-border cooperation".
Not every attack starts with a bomb. For The 2026 Security Brief, LTC. (Res.) Dr. Uri Ben Yaakov, Chief Operations Officer & Senior Researcher at the International Institute for Counter Terrorism (ICT) at Reichman University, highlights AI-enabled influence operations as a core challenge for security and investigations in 2026 and explains why understanding this cognitive battleground early is key to staying ahead. Check out the full outlook>>>
Many agencies are rich in data, but poor in shared insight. For The 2026 Security Outlook, Gilad Ben-Ziv, Chief Evangelist at Cognyte, explores how intelligence conductivity and connectivity can turn fragmented insights into a living network⚡🤝: “What if your organization’s biggest weakness sits inside its own structure? Too many security and intelligence agencies still operate within silos that limit information flow and slow decision-making. Their adversaries benefit from the opposite reality: they operate through flexible, networked structures that move faster. Intelligence conductivity and connectivity are capabilities required to match an asymmetric, complex and borderless reality shaped by disruptive technologies. In the field, this comes to life when organizations can move insights seamlessly across their own units and levels, and when those insights also flow between different agencies, creating a broad, multi-dimensional continuum of intelligence. When these capabilities are combined with advanced technologies, agencies can maximize their operational resources, professional expertise, and technology platforms, turning fragmented efforts into coordinated action that better protects people and keeps societies safer”.
As we head into 2026, we invited experts from across the security community to highlight the developments they are watching most closely. “Security and intelligence organizations are entering a phase where AI and quantum computing are no longer experimental tools but are already becoming building blocks for their own future mission. These deep tech domains will reshape how threats are detected, modeled, and countered, and they will determine which organizations retain a technological edge. Keeping pace with this shift demands a clear strategy and long-term investment in research infrastructure: theoretical research, advanced hardware and laboratories, high-performance computing, and high-capacity data centers. Success depends on building an ecosystem in which academia leads theoretical research, the private sector develops innovative applications, and security organizations translate both into operational capabilities, guided by funding, governance, and regulation. Without strategy and coordination across this continuum, agencies will struggle to compete with adversaries and major powers that are already investing at scale. In a world where the boundaries between science, security, and the economy are rapidly blurring, the takeaway for any security organization is clear: treat AI and quantum computing as strategic infrastructure, not side projects".
🎄Warm wishes for a merry and safe holiday season to our trusted companions and to all those they protect💝!
📣Connecting to the Microsoft Marketplace: now with three LUMINAR integrations 🆕Excited to share a major milestone – LUMINAR now offers three powerful integrations across the Microsoft security stack: ✨ NEW: Microsoft Defender – enrich endpoint alerts with external threat intelligence for faster, more informed decisions ✨ NEW: Microsoft Entra ID – add identity-focused threat context to better protect accounts and reduce compromise risk 🔁 Existing: Microsoft Sentinel – streamline detection and response with enriched, high-fidelity intelligence Together, these integrations give customers unified visibility across identity, endpoints and external threats, making it easier than ever to operationalize LUMINAR within the tools you already trust. Stronger alignment. Deeper context. Faster action.
