Published to Whisper Club: Sepetember 28, 2026 ID: TBW2237
Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli
Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli
ABSTRACT
“This Whisper Report investigates What’s killing dealer margin? Drawing on insights from telecommunications professionals attending All Wireless & Prepaid Expo 2026 in Las Vegas, it examines the competitive and operational pressures reducing profitability for wireless dealers. The discussion highlights pricing pressure, carrier practices, and the need for differentiation in an increasingly crowded marketplace. Cited experts: Omar Khan Supersonic Mobile ISPWN, Adam Wolf NWIDA, Rob Link Tech Care Association, Stuart Chowning Telgoo5.”
Published to Whisper Club: September 21, 2026 ID: TBW2126
Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli
Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli
ABSTRACT
“This Whisper Report investigates what retrofit risk will stall EV adoption in 2026. Filmed across AAPEX & SEMA 2025 in Las Vegas, it explores how infrastructure limitations, cost realities, and regulatory challenges are shaping EV adoption. Experts examine where these constraints could slow progress despite continued innovation. Cited experts: Lance Losinski Midtronics, Josh Pinion Greentec, Andrew Yokiel Lynnco.”
Published to Whisper Club: September 7, 2026 ID:TBW2232
Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli
Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli
ABSTRACT “This Whisper Report investigates What cyber myth needs to die in 2026? Drawing on expert insights from Black Hat USA 2026 in Las Vegas, it examines persistent misconceptions about security tools, artificial intelligence, and foundational cybersecurity education. The discussion highlights why technology, no matter how advanced, still depends on sound practices, skilled practitioners, and realistic expectations. Cited experts: Aaron Beardslee Securonix, Dan Petrillo BlueVoyant, John Strand Black Hills Information Security.”
Published to Whisper Club: August 31, 2026 ID: TBW2217
Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli
Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli
ABSTRACT
“This Whisper Report investigates What’s the biggest gap between AI demos and AI in production? Drawing on expert insights from Ai4 2026 in Las Vegas, it explores why successful demonstrations often struggle when exposed to real enterprise environments, legacy technology estates, and production-scale uncertainty. The discussion highlights challenges that remain hidden until deployment. Cited experts: Eran Carmel Rubrik, Ankur Trivedi Digital AI, Mudit Sinha Lineaje.”
Published to Whisper Club: August 24, 2026 ID: TBW2134
Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli
Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli
ABSTRACT
“This Whisper Report investigates which spatial computing use case will scale fastest as explored at CES 2025 in Las Vegas. Experts highlight competing forces including developer accessibility, immersive interaction, and enterprise value creation, each signaling different adoption paths. The outcome may depend on where usability, demand, and measurable impact converge first. Cited experts: Wayne Liu Perfect Corp., Paul Stanford Haply, Joe Cassar dSPACE, Hagay Rozenfeld Israel Railways.”
“The All Wireless & Prepaid Expo brought together wireless dealers, carriers, MVNOs, distributors, repair providers, and telecom suppliers as Las Vegas hosted conversations around channel economics, customer acquisition, fraud prevention, eSIM adoption, dealer enablement, wireless retail operations, and the evolving business models supporting growth across the wireless ecosystem.”
The Conference
A community of the wireless retail ecosystem including dealers, carriers, MVNOs, distributors, and service providers
67% of attendees are retail-focused spanning dealers, repair shops and electronic merchants.
Cautions
Friendly reminder: this research provides examples of what was shared with us at the event, not an evaluation, validation, or recommendation of the given technology.
Have you ever thought, I would like to start my own wireless network service and become an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator). MVNO doesn’t have to worry about the spectrum, as the physical network infrastructure and spectrum is procured from a MNO (Mobile Network Operator) – like Verizon. If you are thinking of creating one based on Verizon’s physical infrastructure and spectrum, Supersonic Mobile was in expo hall ready to help you. Supersonic Mobile is what’s referred to as an MVNE – E for enabler. They provide technical and operational support to MVNOs such as sim card set ups, billing and customer relationship management, and regulatory compliance and legal reporting. Supersonic Mobile’s customers can access their services via API or a platform.
With over 20-years in telecom by their own account and a relationship with multiple MNOs, Telgoo5 is focused on growing your business. To them, you are more than a number, you are a partner. They understand a MVNE must provide support from the beginning all the way until the solution is live in the field and thriving. BeQuick was on site. They are not a full MVNE but instead focus on best of breed business and operational support systems (BSS/OSS). BeQuick is 100% software based and the solution is a software platform that is carrier agnostic with guaranteed four 9’s uptime. Within the BSS/OSS stack is a requirement to manage customer fraud risk and charge backs. Vesta was in expo hall to not only satisfy that requirement but to remove some of the risk for operators. Vesta manages digital payments and assumes the risk of fraud and charge back liability for carriers and MVNOs alike.
Moving to the customer side of wireless solutions, there are Master Agents also called Master Sales Agents. Unlike the network stack, Master Agents handle things like sales volumes, commissions, training and support downstream. Agents focus on dealers to distribute MNOs and MVNOs networks. Perfect Vision is a Master Agent that provides marketing experts, sales agents and client experts to protect your business. A Master Agents specializing in Verizon, Wireless Masters would like to help you open your very own phone shop! Dreaming bigger? Maybe you want a store to offer wireless and Fiber? Unwired was on site offering access to AT&T, Ultra Mobile, Cricket, Joi and MobileX plus the ability to resell fiber!
In addition to network operators, enablers, agents, the event also featured many accessory providers as well as support functions such as marketing, CRM (Customer Relationship Management), and human resources which we cover in their individual domain events. In addition, organizations to support those attending. NWIDA or the National Wireless Independent Dealers Association was on hand. Described as the AAA for wireless dealers, on average they help dealers save about $25,000 a year. This savings comes through 10-20% off of credit card processing, payroll processing, accessories, devices, business and health insurance. For those who specialize in phone repair, Tech Care Association was there for you! Their resources include a where to repair list for all its members as a public service to those needing repairs. They provide training, shop tools, and evaluate web pages ensuring your repair business has what it needs to succeed.
Conference Vibe
An energized gathered of wireless dealers, repair-shop owners, electronic retailers, MVNOs, carriers, distributors, and telecom suppliers gathered at Caesars Palace in the Julius Ballrooms for the All Wireless & Prepaid Expo. Registration was fairly efficient with an expedited line for exhibitors. Enjoy the walkabout to and through expo hall. You’ll notice a lot of accessory providers and vendors for general support were also on site. General support vendors include those for marketing, managing customers and human resources. We once again live streamed from on site to share the experience. Be sure to catch coverage on my syndicated segment on the nationally broadcast edition of Computer Talk Radio.
It may be helpful to understand some of the acronyms used in the room like MNO’s (Mobile Network Operators eg. AT&T and Verizon) own the network infrastructure. MVNO’s (Mobile Virtual Network Operators) offer wireless despite not owning any spectrum or tower/network infrastructure. In addition, MVNE (Mobile Virtual Network Enablers) provide technical and operational support to MVNOs such as sim card set ups, billing and customer relationship management, and regulatory compliance and legal reporting. Master agents aggregate sales volume, handle commissions, provide training and support, and take an override on what their downstream sells.
We conducted research for six additional forthcoming Whisper Reports. The playlists are unlisted but available with the video version to be distributed via YouTube Whisper Club upper tier membership area on our YouTube Channel.
Readers and viewers wishing to experience the entire event are encouraged to view the Conference Whispers: All Wireless & Prepaid Expo Playlist in its entirety. The playlist will be cited in the end screen, description, and as a pinned comment of the video edition. The video edition will conclude with gratitude towards those that contributed and a montage of responses to Bonus Question, “What’s the best part about attending the All Wireless & Prepaid live in Las Vegas?”.
Next Year’s Conference
The dates for next years’ All Wireless & Prepaid Expo have not been announced a time of press.
*When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.
Corporate Headquarters
2884 Grand Helios Way
Henderson, NV 89052
Downloading, re-uploading, or redistributing this file is not permitted under any license.
Published to Whisper Club: August 17, 2026 ID: TBW2100
Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli
Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli
ABSTRACT
“This Whisper Report investigates what HR tech trend will disrupt engineering hiring next. Filmed at HRTECH2025 in Las Vegas, it explores how emerging technologies are reshaping how organizations evaluate, select, and develop engineering talent. Experts examine shifts that may redefine both hiring processes and workforce composition. Cited experts: Michael Dunn Eightfold AI, Nikos Livada HireRoad, Josh Adams RChilli, Sabashan Ragavan HeyMilo, Patrick Leddin FranklinCovey Leadership, Jeff Williams Aptia, Drew Lawrence Gem, Eli Kameron Darwinbox, David Pothier FitFirst.”
Published to Whisper Club: August 10, 2026ID: TBW2096
Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli
Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli
This Whisper Report investigates what the most underrated UAV use case in industry. Filmed at Commercial UAV Expo 2025 in Las Vegas, it examines how drone applications are expanding in ways many organizations are overlooking. Experts explore where these capabilities are delivering unexpected value across industries. Cited experts: Dustin Brewer Zepher, Josh Woodruf AirData UAV, Kaitlyn Albertoli Buzz Solutions, Robb Monkman Teal.io, Antonio Ruan Starling, Ross Davis blueflite, Kevin Teen Aloft, Vic Moss DSPA, Bill Reynolds Central UAS Technologies, Thad King Multicopter Warehouse, Sara Abdi Parallel Flight Technologies, Federico di Napoli FlyingBasket.
Black Hat USA 2026 brought 20,000 cybersecurity professionals to Las Vegas, where researchers, vendors, and practitioners examined the evolving risks introduced by agents, AI, and increasingly complex digital environments. The event held over 100 briefings, 125 tool demonstrations and 120 sponsored sessions. Discussions across sessions and exhibits touched on agent security, threat hunting, governance, infrastructure resilience, device vulnerabilities, fraud prevention, and professional development.
The Conference
A community of 20,000 verified cybersecurity professionals gathered at Black Hat USA. Over 100 briefings, 115 tool demonstrations, 120 sponsored sessions and 425+ Exhibits and vendors gathered across the 6 days.
Cautions
Friendly reminder: this research provides examples of what was shared with us at the event, not an evaluation, validation, or recommendation of the given technology.
We were given an advance preview of the talk, “Promptward EOD: Skillful Agent Detonation” by Zenity’s CTO and Co-Founder Michael Bargury. Just by visiting the wrong website you could be compromised. They specifically demonstrate how an agent can jump from viewing a web site to gaining control of your bank account. Now that is scary.
We were also provided an exclusive summary to the session, “Obscurize: Malware for Defense and Counter Offense”. As a response to recent malware, Aaron Beardslee, Manager of Threat Research at Securonix created Obscurize. Sitting above the EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response), it acts as an additional layer. Leveraging the malware’s own fingerprint, its psychology is studied and learned. This tool then makes a sandbox look like a bare metal system or a bare metal system look like a sandbox. This enables the hunter to trick the malware to kill itself or to run thinking it found the goods. The best part? Obscurize is free and publicly available for your to use during your threat hunting!
Fast track adoption of agents has organizations trying to keep up and stay safe. Sometimes in the chaos, the best laid plans go astray. Sometimes, guardrails are not enough. We have all read the horror stories of agents gone wild! Meet PointGuard AI the ultimate kill switch for agents. Avepoint aims to be your unifying trust layer for AI. Their focus is cloud security, safe data governance, and resiliency challenges across the AI stack.
If you are Fortune 2000 and concerned about tracking agents, Zenity was looking to meet you! Softbank and other clients leverage Zenity to understand what data is being touched by agents and what that intent of those agents are. Not only that it will steer agents into the correct direction to help keep them on track.
Mission critical infrastructure for sovereign AI that is private to you. Cogl provides a knowledge graph and enables threat hunting and investigation in a transparent and secure manner. As you might expect, this technology is leveraged in environments ranging from the Department of Defence to banking.
Focusing on the Security Operations Center, BlueVoyant brings what they like to call ‘holistic protections’. Their approach combines internal monitoring and ecosystem oversight. Traditional operating challenges are now assisted by AI driven agentic capabilities. The four risks they aim to mitigate include: data security and leakage, identity vulnerabilities, supply chain and vendor risks, and operational inefficiencies.
Threat hunting is the ultimate game of cat and mouse in cybersecurity. Securonix was on site to share their tool with fellow threat hunters. Whether you want your sandbox to trap the threat or to let it run to so you may study it’s behavior, Securonix provides both options. They even have their own threat hunting team that regularly leverages the tool as they assist the clients security their own environments.
One of our favorite areas is at the edge, connected devices and the Internet of Things – IoT. These devices span from connected vehicles to the simple fire alarms in your home. These devices often bring vulnerabilities. Due to the difficulty in updating their firmware, connected device firmware vulnerabilities become your environment’s weakest point and the point of failure. Finite State focuses on assisting companies reduce the noise as they test their products before shipping. This noise reduction enables their clients to find their vulnerabilities before they ship products to their customers.
Today, a wire money transfer is frequently still sent in plain text. Thus, it is not surprising it is a huge target of fraud. Introducing InoQlate! A Canadian non-profit providing a solution to your wire transfer security issues. Close that door to fraud and stop sending wire transfer information over plain text communication lines!
Seeking a boutique penetration firm? Meet the white hats from Black Hills Information Security. They beg you to make their lives harder! They don’t want to succeed when they try to break into your infrastructure! Providing penetration testing, SOC operations, IR (incident response), and training. Perhaps the most unique thing coming out of Black Hills Information Security is their well known communication medium: Comics! Their security comic series titled, “The Future is ***” available at 750 comic book stores. Not only that, their wisdom is available via a game to make training even more approachable. The game Back Doors & Breaches boasts over 150,000 sales to date.
Finally, the ultimate organization for security professionals, ISC2 was in expo hall. Known as the largest professional organization for cyber security professionals, there is likely a chapter near you! Providing certifications, community and advice with the goal to the make the world a safer place.
Cybersecurity specialists gathered on the Las Vegas Strip for Black Hat 2026 and it did not disappoint. Over 20,000 verified attendees gathered for over 100 briefings, 115 tool demonstrations, 120 sponsored session and over 425 exhibits and vendors. The only expected thing we didn’t hear much of is organizations preparing for the quantum impact to cybersecurity. You may recall last year we were the first ones given permission to video expo hall at Black Hat USA. This year, enjoy a first ever live Black Hat USA walkabout while expo hall its open. We once again live streamed from on site to share the experience. Be sure to catch coverage on my syndicated segment on the nationally broadcast edition of Computer Talk Radio.
While at Black Hat, we conducted research for 9 additional forthcoming Whisper Reports. The playlists are unlisted but available with the video version to be distributed via YouTube Whisper Club upper tier membership area on our YouTube Channel first.
Readers and viewers wishing to experience the entire event are encouraged to view the Conference Whispers: Black Hat USA 2026 Playlist in its entirety. The playlist will be cited in the end screen, description, and as a pinned comment of the video edition.
The video edition will conclude with gratitude towards those that contributed and a montage of responses to Bonus Question, “What’s the best part about attending Black Hat USA live in Las Vegas?”.
The Black Hat USA will once again return to Las Vegas and will be held at the Mandalay Bay on August 3-8, 2027.
*When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.
Corporate Headquarters
2884 Grand Helios Way
Henderson, NV 89052
Downloading, re-uploading, or redistributing this file is not permitted under any license.
“This Whisper Report investigates what the next SolarWinds-level breach waiting to happen may be. Filmed at Black Hat USA 2025 in Las Vegas, it examines how rapidly evolving technologies are introducing new risks that organizations may not yet fully understand. Experts explore where these emerging vulnerabilities could surface at scale. Cited experts: Jonathan Rende Checkmarx, James Spiteri Elastic Security, Alex Lanstein StrikeReady, Brian Mehlman Cyber Innovate, Thomas Roccia Microsoft, Ariful Huq Exaforce, David DellaPelle Dune Security, Saket Bajoria Safe Security.”
Target Audience Titles:
Chief Information Security Officer, Chief Technology Officer, Chief Digital Officer, Chief Information Officer
Chief Product Officer, Chief Experience Officer
IAM engineers, Security Architects, DevSecOps Engineers, IT Ops Managers, Application Security Architects, AI security specialists, Cyber Risk analysis
Key Takeaways
AI protocols are being deployed faster than they’re secured.
Cloud and AI supply chains are high-risk blind spots.
Poorly trained AI systems can reflect dangerous human biases.
Autonomous agents may soon breach systems independently.
Developer practices like vibe coding introduce new vulnerabilities.
Attackers are exploiting encrypted communication platforms.
Resilience—not just prevention—is essential for breach readiness.
We took the most frequently asked and most urgent technology questions straight to the Cybersecurity professionals gathering at Black Hat USA 2025 held in Las Vegas. This Whisper Report addresses the question regarding what’s the next SolarWinds-level breach waiting to happen? Figure 1 contains an image representing the seven possible cybersecurity disasters on the scale of SolarWinds waiting to happen.
Our first area of concern comes to us from Checkmarx’s Jonathan Rende, “It will be something related to AI.” Elastic Security’s James Spiteri further expanded. “ the next big attack is going to be against some of these new AI protocols that we’re seeing. Uh they’re being adopted really quickly without actually taking a step back to understand what we’re actually implementing. So things like the model context protocol, which is amazing at what it allows people to do, but if you don’t do it right, if you don’t implement it right, that can have catastrophic results. like it doesn’t do verification today. The authentication mechanisms are not to where it needs to be yet. But we’re still seeing really wide deployments of it. And that is a really uh easy attack vector for something like uh another big attack to happen.” AI Protocols penetrating systems and getting penetration before their identity and access control mechanisms are fully mature – that does sound concerning.
The more foundational a technology, the more disruptive it becomes if it is breached. StrikeReady’s Alex Lanstein has his eye on the public clouds. “a breach of a major cloud provider. It could be a cloud software provider, could be a cloud hardware provider. But if I were to look at what is the most difficult for enterprises to detect, which part of what made Solar Wind so effective and made Fire Eye the only company to detect it, even though it affected over 10,000 organizations, I think a breach of your cloud provider where you don’t have instrumentation and logging and visibility and they might not play as nice with you as as you would like. I think that is the next Solar Winds bridge.” Cyber Innovate’s Brain Mehlman and his AI Agent Ralph ultimately agreed. “So the next big breach might not be a traditional software vulnerability. It could be a compromise in the AI supply chain or a cloud service that everyone trusts. So that’s what I’d keep an eye on.”
Our third potential risk also comes from Cyber Innovate’s Brian Mehlman and AI Agent Ralph. Once again, AI is on their mind. “one of the biggest risks is when you have these systems being trained or shaped without any human guidance or oversight. If someone who maybe isn’t fully equipped to handle that responsibility is the one doing the training, you can get systems that pick up on really problematic behaviors. They might learn biases. They might learn unstable patterns. And basically you end up with an AI that’s reflecting the cognitive quirks or even the struggles of the person who trained it. And you’re right, that’s a big deal.” AI is trained by humans. It can become the best of humanity or reflect the worse of humanity.
One scenario that many are afraid to speak about comes to us from Microsoft’s Thomas Roccia. “Future attack will be powered by AI system and agent and potentially an agent will be able to breach a system autonomously and give back the information to the attacker. That’s something that could be possible. There is already some work around that and some attackers are taking advantage of this technology. So we are still waiting to see what uh what the future will be.” Nothing like getting autonomously breached.
A lot of organizations have moved to leveraging AI to assist with writing their actual code for the product. Exaforce’s Ariful Huq extends some caution. “Vibe coding is going to be an important area for every enterprise to start looking at because what’s happening is you have developers essentially leveraging this type of coding using cloud and cursor and all these technologies that are out there. This code really needs to be vetted before it’s deployed in production because it could potentially have many attack vectors related to supply chain or potentially uh you know the way the code is written potentially getting exploited. So I think this is one of the most important threat vectors because you have thousands of developers actually probably more than thousands leveraging this kind of technology and it is sort of like uncharted territory right now.” Of course, we do depend on the human in the loop; however, the newest generation of coders may have never written code without AI’s help perhaps increasing the vulnerability.
One final possible area of concern, this time NOT dealing with AI involves our communication channels. Dune Security’s David DellaPelle extends this caution. “there’s a massive blind spot in today’s organizations and businesses. What’s happening now is attackers and APT groups (Advanced Persistent Threat) like Scattered Spider are not just going through email, right, to socially engineer users. They’re not just going through SMS and delivering, you know, smishing. They’re even going into personal and encrypted communication channels, things like Signal and WhatsApp and Telegram. These are highly effective and collaborative solutions for people to communicate with each other across borders instantaneously and encrypted fashions. But unfortunately the attackers are now using those types of of channels at scale using AI to you know again the quantity and the quality of attacks using these types of channels to solicit users to extort users or to just manipulate and socially engineer users in in other ways.” Any and every channel being leveraging for corporate communications and corporate information exchange must be protected.
While we may not know when or how an attack will occur, there is still something organizations can do. As Safe Security’s Saket Bajoria reminded us all, “it’s a matter of when not if, right? So it it is going to happen no matter what you do. Right now the only way to defend that is resiliency. If you have built resiliency of recovering fast, if you have thought about you know I’m ready for a ransomware, I’m ready for a data excfiltration. I’m ready for a DOS. I’m ready for system outage. When you’re already ready for these big events, you already you can reduce your recovery time. Some people who are just in denial.” Something that cannot be emphasized enough, do what you can to prevent but also make sure you organization is prepared for WHEN it occurs.
