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Chris Camacho shared thisLately, almost every conversation ends up in the same place. Budgets are tight. Headcount is frozen. Expectations keep growing. Somewhere along the way, “do more with less” quietly became “do more with fewer people.” At the same time, some of the most capable people I know are still looking for their next opportunity. It feels like we’re asking the people who remain to carry more while experienced people are still trying to find a seat.
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Chris Camacho shared thisA work trip to New York City turned into something I didn't see coming. My youngest, Lucas, asked to tag along this time. He's never asked before. I was glad to have him with me for the week. What I didn't know is what he was up to while I worked. Every day he walked into the Swatch store on Times Square. Sometimes more than once a day. He was hunting the AP Swatch collab. The limited one. The one that's nearly impossible to walk in and buy. Lucas knows his dad. Sneaker guy. Watch guy. He wanted to get it for me for Father's Day. I had no idea any of this was happening. The staff started recognizing him. A 15 year old showing up day after day. Persistent. Polite. Clearly not a reseller. On the last afternoon, they had one for him. He bought it himself. It's pink. Not my usual color. But here's what got me. Lucas called it the "Abstract pink." He'd just watched me pick up a pair of Nikes in pink. Lately, half my gear runs pink because of our Abstract branding. He connected the dots on his own and figured I'd love it. He was right. I'm wearing it proudly. It's going to events with me. Not because of the hype. Because it came from my son, who chased down a hard-to-find watch through pure persistence. For those of you who don't get the AP Swatch thing, totally fair. It's not for everybody. This one's for me.
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Chris Camacho shared thisComing off another week of travel with Colby and the team, I found these two photos taken almost ten years apart. The first was in Barcelona in November 2016. It made me think about how long this journey has really been. Long before we started Abstract, Colby and I spent years on opposite sides of the table. Back when I was at the World Bank Group, he was an SE supporting customers like us at ArcSight. Later, when I moved to Bank of America, I became one of his customers while he was at Anomali. When I joined Flashpoint, we became partners instead of customer and vendor. Through every stop along the way, we stayed in touch. Fast forward to today, and we’re co-founders building Abstract together. Looking back, that’s one of the things I appreciate most about this industry. The technology changes, companies come and go, but the relationships you build have a way of shaping your career in ways you never expect. Grateful our paths crossed back then. Even more grateful for what we’re building now.
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Chris Camacho posted thisAs we wrap up Internet Safety Month, I was excited to be included in VMblog’s roundup alongside a great group of cybersecurity leaders sharing ideas on how the conversation around internet safety continues to evolve. One thing I keep coming back to is that AI agents are changing the way we think about online risk. It’s no longer just about what people click. Increasingly, it’s about understanding what AI is doing on our behalf, what it can access, and whether we can see the decisions it’s making. There are a lot of thoughtful perspectives in this roundup, and it’s worth the read as we close out the month. Link in the comments.
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Chris Camacho posted thisMost of my conversations with security and IT leaders this year start with AI. Lately, they seem to end with budgets. I’ve heard some version of the same discussion at Gartner, customer meetings, executive dinners, and boardrooms over the last few months. The pressure was clear: move quickly, experiment, figure out where AI fits, and don’t be the company that gets left behind. So teams did exactly that. New tools showed up. Existing contracts expanded. Pilots became production projects. And now many organizations are reaching the point where the excitement is being measured against the actual cost. What makes this different from most technology shifts is that the spending often followed the urgency. Normally a budget comes first and then goes looking for a problem to solve. With AI, the problem felt obvious, the urgency was real, and the budget showed up later. That’s the part I find most interesting. The next phase probably won’t be defined by who adopted AI first. It will be defined by who can separate experimentation from value and build something sustainable around it. My guess is that the AI conversations we’re having a year from now will sound very different than the ones we’re having today. Less about moving fast. More about what it cost to move that fast, what actually delivered value, and what didn’t.
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Chris Camacho shared thisThe FIFA World Cup is in full swing. For most people, it’s about the matches. For me, it’s making me think about the last 14 years. I’ve spent a good part of my life on soccer sidelines watching Gavin play. Early morning practices, weekend tournaments, long drives, and more games than I could ever count. This fall he’ll head off to Penn State, and for the first time since he was 3 years old, soccer won’t be the center of the calendar. Watching the World Cup now feels a little different because of that. What I appreciate most isn’t the scoreline or the highlight reel. It’s the things most people never notice. The run that creates space. The pass before the assist. The players doing their job so someone else can have the moment. I’ve seen the same thing throughout my career. Whether it was working major incidents in financial services, helping organizations through difficult moments at Flashpoint, or supporting security teams today, the people doing some of the most important work were rarely the ones getting the attention. That’s probably why I’ve always loved the game. Proud of this kid and grateful for all the years the sport gave us. Looking forward to watching the rest of the tournament unfold.
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Chris Camacho shared thisReally enjoyed joining Andrew Monaghan on Cyber GTM Talk. One topic we discussed was something I’ve believed for a long time: Security teams don’t buy tools. They solve problems. Thanks for having me on, Andrew. Great conversation.Chris Camacho shared this"It's a great tool to add to your stack." If that's your pitch, Chris Camacho thinks you're probably already losing. Chris knows this because he was a cybersecurity buyer for many years at major financial institutions. He gets the pressure the security team is under because he has walked in their shoes. He's now co-founder and COO at Abstract. His point now is blunt. To get your slice of a security budget today, you have to do one of two things. 1) Reduce a spend they already have. Or 2) replace a vendor they already use. The era of "we built something brand new, add it to the toolbelt" is mostly over. The reason is that the budget conversation has moved over the last few years. He's hearing CISOs say it's almost like they need an MBA more than deep technical chops these days, because the questions coming at them are about headcount, budget, risk, and what they can cut to fund AI. The CFO and the board are driving it. So if you walk in adding cost, you're fighting the exact pressure they're under. Not impossible, depending on what you do, but very hard. But if you can walk in taking cost out, you're on their side of the table. So, for the founders and sellers: can you say, in one sentence, what your product lets a prospect stop paying for? What they can replace? If you can't, that might be something to work on this quarter. (New episode with Chris. All the usual podcast places.)
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Chris Camacho posted thisThe momentum around security data has been hard to ignore lately. I’ve spent the last few years building in this part of the market, and the conversations with security teams have changed. We used to spend most of our time talking about dashboards, alerts, and the tools analysts interacted with every day. More recently, the discussion has moved deeper into the stack. Where does the data live? How much should we keep? What gets filtered, enriched, or routed somewhere else? How quickly can we find what we need during an investigation? What does it actually cost to retain and search that data over time? Those questions aren’t as flashy as a product announcement, but they often end up being the most important decisions a team makes. Every detection, investigation, threat hunt, compliance review, and post-incident analysis depends on the data underneath it. Get the foundation wrong and everything built on top becomes harder. This is the bet we made when we started Abstract. We believed security teams would eventually need to think about pipelines, detections, storage, search, and analytics as part of the same strategy rather than a collection of separate projects. Today, that conversation is happening more often than ever. Security data is no longer just an input into security operations. It influences visibility, performance, cost, speed, and ultimately outcomes. If you run a SOC, here’s the question I keep coming back to: Is your data strategy a deliberate plan, or a collection of decisions that accumulated over time?
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Chris Camacho posted thisEvery year during Black Hat, one of my favorite traditions happens discreetly. CW-YE brings together a bunch of great community members in Vegas: no big marketing production, no giant booth energy, and no need to explain too much publicly. The people who know, know exactly why they attend and look forward to it annually. Over the years, we have done this in some very memorable places: mansions, hotel buyouts, bars, HyperX Arena at Luxor, and a few others. This year, Mila and I are back at it again with the planning, logistics, shirts, sponsors, and all the behind-the-scenes work that goes into keeping the tradition alive. Details stay where they belong, and invites will be going out soon. But I do want to thank the sponsors who have already stepped up to support the 2026 CW-YE Meetup: Abstract Ent AI TENEX.AI GreyNoise Intelligence detections.ai Truffle Security Co. PromptArmor DNSFilter Malware Patrol Overwatch Data RationalEdge Constellation Cyber Consultancy A lot of people have been part of this community over the years through the list, Slack, past events, and the smaller groups that have spun out of it. It is still great to see it active, and even better to see people continue to show up for it. We have room for a few more sponsors before we lock things down, especially as we finalize the shirts. DM me if your company wants to support the gathering this year. Still following the rules.
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Chris Camacho liked thisToday is a proud day for the RiskIQ alumni community. One of the things I will always cherish about my time at RiskIQ was the opportunity to be part of a team that helped create and define an entirely new category: External Attack Surface Management. At the time, the category didn't exist. We had to educate the market, challenge conventional thinking, and convince organizations that they needed visibility beyond their perimeter. Looking back, it's incredible to see how that vision transformed an industry. What makes me even more excited today is seeing outstanding leaders and builders like Lou Elias Manousos and Brandon Brandon Dixon embarking on their next journey. These are people who deeply understand the challenges facing cybersecurity teams and have spent years operating at the front lines of innovation. I genuinely believe they are taking aim at one of the most important problems in cybersecurity: shifting the industry from reacting to threats to preventing them altogether. The future of cybersecurity will not be won by finding incidents faster. It will be won by eliminating risk before incidents occur. That's why I am incredibly excited to see this announcement and to watch what this team builds next with Ent. Congratulations to Lou, Brandon, and the entire team. The combination of vision, experience, and execution behind this venture is exceptional, and I have no doubt they will build something category-defining once again. Wishing you all the success in the world. I cannot wait to see what comes next. Jon Sakoda Jenna Raby Hiten Sharma Eric Foster Jamil Mirza Ranell Gonzales Sarah Blanchard Kyle McNulty Jason Zann Dean Ćoza Matthew Hurewitz Clarence Cheuk Julia Pardee #CyberSecurity #Startup #Innovation #RiskIQ #Founders #SecurityLeadership #PreventionFirst #CyberDefenseChris Camacho liked thisSharing some news on what Brandon Dixon (CTO & Co-Founder) and I (CEO & Co-Founder) have been building at Ent. Ent is built to bring intent-aware prevention to the workspace layer, where work actually happens. We’ve assembled one of the strongest engineering teams I’ve worked with. Together we’ve built an enterprise-scale security platform from scratch, deployed it with Global 2000 customers, and proven that intent-aware intervention can stop threats before they become incidents. We’re excited to emerge from stealth with a $100M seed round led by Decibel Partners alongside Sequoia Capital, Crosspoint Capital Partners, Craft Ventures, Shield Capital, Felicis, and IQT. It is becoming increasingly clear that offense is going to be all AI. As that happens, attacks will move faster than people can react. It’s time to invest more in prevention and use AI for realtime defense. Learn more here: https://lnkd.in/dvcfVrR2
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Chris Camacho liked thisChris Camacho liked thisTime flies when you’re having fun, which is how I suddenly find myself at the end of my third week at Box! I’m excited and honored that Heather Ceylan has entrusted me to lead the Detection and Response teams, and getting to work with some old colleagues is just icing on the cake. Thank you Rachel Allen for guiding me through the recruiting process and Dan Schmidt, Matt Sallee, and Lillawalla F. for all the support these last few weeks. And while I already said my private thank yous and goodbyes, I would be remiss to not shout out the 4 years I spent at Oracle! I’m immensely thankful to the folks who I had the opportunity to work for and with. I learned SO much in that time that I know will make me a better security leader. Thank you Adam Russell, Forrest Rae, and Christopher "C.W." P. for the opportunity to join OCI OffSec and grow my technical chops and to Todd Thompson, Peter Hewson, and Maggie Whorf for giving me the chance to broaden my Oracle experience on the Detections side of the house. #LifeatBox
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Chris Camacho liked this💪💪Chris Camacho liked thisA celebration of everyone who has contributed to our 1000 Grands Prix 🧡
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Chris Camacho liked thisChris Camacho liked thisEarly in my career I worked in the SCADA system of Florida Power & Light — the controls that keep the grid from falling over. When you've watched how much effort goes into keeping the lights on, you read the whole AI-energy debate differently. Everyone's asking whether we'll have enough power for AI. I think that's the small question. The bigger one: thinking is getting cheap, and building things is not. Software scales for basically nothing. A transformer doesn't — there's a multi-year line just to get one right now. You can't download a bridge. So the real fight is over the next available megawatt. Put a data center and a new factory in front of the same interconnection, and the data center wins — deeper pockets, and it'll pay for speed. AI doesn't need most of the grid to reshape it. It just has to keep outbidding everything physical for the next unit of power. And that's the part I keep chewing on, it quietly flips the last thirty years. The digital era rewarded companies that owned almost nothing physical. The AI era looks like the opposite — the advantage goes to whoever controls the energy, the materials, the grid itself. The stuff you can't download. Intelligence is about to be everywhere. The things it runs on won't be. Curious whether the grid folks here see it the same way. #AI #Energy #CriticalInfrastructure #DataCenters.
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Chris Camacho liked thisChris Camacho liked this🚨 TAKEDOWN: Google, in coordination with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Lumen Technologies’ Black Lotus Labs, The Shadowserver Foundation, and other partners, has disrupted the massive #Netnut residential proxy botnet. Netnut secretly hijacked over 2 million home devices like smart TVs and routers, allowing attackers to hide behind innocent users' IP addresses. To put the scale of this threat into perspective, in a single week during June 2026, our team at GTIG observed 316 distinct threat clusters using suspected Netnut exit nodes, including cybercriminal and espionage groups. To combat this threat, we took the following actions: 🔒 Disabled C2 infrastructure violating our Terms of Service. 🛡️ Used Google Play Protect to disable apps carrying the malicious Netnut code. 🤝 Partnered with law enforcement and industry peers for ecosystem-wide impact. We believe our coordinated actions have caused significant degradation to Netnut’s proxy network and its business operations, reducing the available pool of devices for the proxy operator by millions. Be extremely wary of apps offering to "buy your unused bandwidth" and always ensure your connected home devices are from reputable manufacturers (check for official Android TV OS and Play Protect certification!). Find more details of the operation here: https://lnkd.in/gsE_RmDX
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Chris Camacho liked thisChris Camacho liked thisIt's definitely time to start observing CI runners, friends. 👀 And if you can't afford bringing yet another data source into your SIEM (or just want the easy button for collecting and detecting), it's time to book a call with Abstract.
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‘Christophe Foulon
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