An incident-response firm like ProCircular can’t always do the second part of its job—respond!—on its own. These companies, which usually provide cybersecurity consulting services and guide clients through breaches, have traditionally called upon federal agents and government cybersecurity initiatives to help accomplish their mission.

In the past, FBI agents provided ProCircular CEO Aaron Warner’s team with insights and adversary profiles, while CISA offers an essential security layer for small firms, according to Aaron Warner.

“Frankly, that support has eroded quite a bit,” Warner told IT Brew.

Warner noted recent and concerning reductions in federal agencies’ cybersecurity impact:

• CISA faces a 17% reduction in funding this fiscal year—from almost $2.9 billion for FY 2025 to just under $2.4 billion budgeted in FY 2026.
• FBI agents focused on cybersecurity are being reassigned, leaving private industry without reliable data-breach support.
• The Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC), which initially provided no-cost cybersecurity resources for state and local governments, transitioned to a paid membership model in October 2025.

Warner see the cuts impacting small businesses.—BH

When it comes to cybersecurity during the Olympics, silver or bronze won’t do—you have to go for gold.

Unit 42, a cybersecurity consultancy that’s part of Palo Alto Networks, has aimed to assist organizations in managing cybersecurity risks and executing their threat intelligence along with other missions since 2014. The group recently released a report outlining the different threats to the Olympic Winter Games in Italy. “There is a lot at stake,” it noted, pointing to the three billion people expected to watch.

Kristopher Russo, principal threat researcher at Unit 42, told IT Brew in multiple interviews that the Olympics spin up the dark web and cyber threat actors because of the publicity and size of the games. He offers some insight into how cyberattackers behave at these large-scale events.

Stick the security landing.—CN

Emails chock full of bullets and emojis, “delving” and “pivotal” galore—you’re not imagining it—your coworker has hit you with “workslop.”

Stanford professor Jeff Hancock and BetterUp Chief Scientist Kate Niederhoffer were on a team that coined the evocative term in fall 2025, just before Merriam-Webster chose “slop” as the dictionary’s word of the year.

And don’t expect orderly inboxes or chat windows any time soon, they said.

“We’re going to see, potentially, a worsening, because it takes a long time to change these organizations,” Niederhoffer told Morning Brew.

AI is everywhere in the office now, and it’s brought with it a rambling lexical flatness that can vex your coworkers when inserted into emails, memos, and reports. The technology has already begun to reshape in-office communication and information flows, experts said.

And with enterprise software companies pitching AI agents not just as workplace tools but as fellow nodes on the org chart, HR leaders are going to have to rethink the norms of how workers communicate with each other—and with bot intermediaries—to avoid a workslop overload.

Let’s chat.—PK