Cybersecurity Roundup: Partnerships, Funding, and Emerging Threats – May 15, 2025 (Horizon3.ai, ENISA EUVD, Zack Kass, EdTech Security, Orca Security)

Every weekday, Cybersecurity Roundup delivers an in-depth, opinion-driven briefing on the deals, investments, and threat trends reshaping the cyber landscape. Today’s dispatch covers:

1. Horizon3.ai’s FedRAMP High Authorization – Strengthening public-sector cloud defenses

2. ENISA’s European Vulnerability Database (EUVD) – A continent-wide CVE hub under NIS2

3. Info-Tech LIVE 2025 Keynote Lineup – Zack Kass and peers spotlight AI and public-sector security

4. EdTech Leaders’ Expanding Security Role – Schools elevate CIOs to cybersecurity guardians

5. Orca Security’s Acquisition of Opus – From cloud-security monitoring to agentic AI remediation

Together, these stories illustrate four key industry themes: public-sector hardening, shared vulnerability intelligence, cross-industry security leadership, and the rise of autonomous cyber-defense. Read on for detailed analysis—and what each development means for your security strategy.

1. Horizon3.ai’s FedRAMP High Authorization: A Milestone for Public-Sector Cybersecurity

What Happened

On May 15, 2025, Horizon3.ai announced that its NodeZero platform achieved FedRAMP High Authorization, enabling federal agencies to deploy its penetration-testing and Attack Surface Management (ASM) tools at the highest compliance tier. This marks a major expansion for Horizon3.ai, which secured FedRAMP Moderate in late 2023 and has since refined its automated red-teaming capabilities to meet strict government security controls.
Source: Business Wire

Key Details

• Scope of Authorization: Includes continuous threat-simulation, risk detection, and verification for FISMA High systems, encompassing highly sensitive data and critical infrastructures.

• Dedicated Public-Sector Instance: Horizon3.ai has provisioned isolated, government-only environments with tamper-proof audit logs and encryption managed by federal key-management services.

• Automated Compliance Checks: The platform’s built-in compliance engine now maps red-team findings directly to NIST SP 800-53 controls, generating actionable remediation reports.

• Partnerships Accelerated: Horizon3.ai has already engaged pilot programs with U.S. Treasury bureaus, the Department of Energy, and NASA, positioning NodeZero as a turnkey alternative to legacy pen-test vendors.

Opinion & Implications

Horizon3.ai’s elevation to FedRAMP High signals a growing trust in automated red-teaming for mission-critical agencies. Traditionally, agencies relied on manual pen-tests once or twice per year—leaving extended windows of vulnerability. NodeZero’s continuous deployment model represents a paradigm shift: “shift left” not only in development but across the government’s entire threat lifecycle.

Moreover, mapping real-time findings to compliance frameworks reduces audit fatigue for CISOs who juggle dual mandates: solid security posture and tight regulatory adherence. Expect an uptick in federal RFPs specifying continuous, automated testing as a FedRAMP baseline. This may, in turn, push commercial cloud providers and integrators to embed similar capabilities, transforming red-team/blue-team exercises into oracles of proactive defense.

Finally, Horizon3.ai’s success story underscores a broader trend: security platforms that marry automation with deep technical expertise will win larger, longer public-sector contracts—forcing traditional cybersecurity services firms to adapt or cede ground.

2. ENISA’s European Vulnerability Database (EUVD): Toward a Unified CVE Repository

What Happened

On May 14, 2025, the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) officially launched the European Vulnerability Database (EUVD), mandated by the NIS2 Directive to centralize and harmonize vulnerability information across member states. The EUVD aggregates CVE feeds, National Vulnerability Database (NVD) entries, and private-sector advisories into a single, searchable portal.
Source: SecurityWeek

Key Details

• Mandate & Coverage: Under NIS2, EUVD must ingest vulnerability data from all EU-certified Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRTs), private-sector feeds, and open sources—offering machine-readable APIs and a user interface in 24 EU languages.

• Data Quality & Curation: ENISA has partnered with several national CERTs and security vendors to vet submissions for accuracy, classification consistency, and exploitability scoring.

• Integration Roadmap: Planned features include integration with the European Digital Identity Wallet, automated threat feeds to national CSIRT dashboards, and alignment with the Cybersecurity Act’s certification schemes.

• Governance & Sustainability: ENISA commits to quarterly stakeholder reviews and an open-source codebase on GitLab, but acknowledges the resource challenge of sustaining near real-time updates.

Opinion & Implications

The EUVD launch represents a critical leap from fragmented, siloed vulnerability disclosures to a federated yet unified system—bolstering Europe’s digital sovereignty. By controlling the supply chain of vulnerability intelligence, EUVD reduces reliance on U.S.-centric repositories and mitigates latency in cross-border information sharing.

However, ENISA’s success will hinge on operational sustainability. Maintaining high-quality, low-latency updates across dozens of sources demands significant funding, stakeholder buy-in, and robust automation. Should ENISA falter, the database risks becoming outdated, undermining confidence and forcing enterprises back to global alternatives.

For EU-based enterprises and CISOs, integrating EUVD into security-operation centers (SOCs) and patch-management workflows can streamline compliance with NIS2 requirements. Security vendors, meanwhile, face the challenge—and opportunity—of building EUVD-compatible products and services, from extended detection and response (XDR) to service-level agreements (SLAs) guaranteeing patch-vulnerability coverage benchmarks.

3. Info-Tech LIVE 2025: Zack Kass and Peers to Spotlight AI, Public-Sector, and Cybersecurity Leadership

What Happened

Info-Tech Research Group announced its headline speakers for Info-Tech LIVE 2025, scheduled June 10–12 at The Bellagio, Las Vegas. Leading the roster is Zack Kass, former Head of Go-to-Market at OpenAI, alongside public-sector CIOs and cybersecurity luminaries like Bob Leek (CIO, Clark County, Nevada) and David Tyburski (Chief Information Security Officer at a major federal agency).
Source: PR Newswire

Key Details

• Zack Kass on AI Strategy: Sessions covering AI’s impact on government services, secure deployment of LLMs, and public-sector procurement cycles.

• Cybersecurity Leadership Track: Case studies from Bob Leek on zero-trust rollout in county government and David Tyburski on securing interagency data-sharing platforms under FISMA.

• Hands-On Workshops: “Building a Government AI Roadmap,” “FedRAMP Accelerated Authorization,” and “Incident Response in the Cloud Age.”

• Networking & Media Access: Over 4,000 IT and security professionals expected; media passes available via Info-Tech’s Media Insiders program.

Opinion & Implications

Info-Tech LIVE has evolved from a generic IT conference into a critical convergence for security, AI, and public-sector modernization. Kass’s presence signals AI’s centrality in upcoming government procurements—from citizen-service chatbots to intelligence analytics platforms. His insights into OpenAI’s go-to-market strategies will be invaluable for CISOs crafting AI governance frameworks.

The emphasis on FedRAMP, zero trust, and interagency collaboration reflects enduring challenges in the public sector: legacy infrastructure, siloed governance, and burgeoning threat landscapes. Attendees who engage in these workshops will gain concrete playbooks for accelerating secure cloud migrations and AI pilots—imperatives as agencies race to deliver digital services with minimal risk.

For cybersecurity vendors targeting the public sector, Info-Tech LIVE offers a litmus test of buyer sentiment and roadmap priorities. Exhibitors should tailor demos to highlight compliance-by-design, continuous monitoring, and AI-driven threat hunting—areas top of mind for federal and state CIOs.

4. EdTech Leaders’ Expanding Security Role: Schools Embrace Cyber Defenses

What Happened

In a May 13, 2025 report, eSchool News surveyed IT leaders at K–12 institutions and found that 85% now include cybersecurity and data-privacy oversight in their portfolios—a sharp rise from just 42% in 2022. The survey highlights how school districts are elevating edtech directors to security-center of excellence roles amid remote-learning risks and student-data protection mandates.
Source: eSchool News

Key Details

• Role Expansion: 68% of respondents now negotiate vendor security terms, up from 29% in 2022; 74% oversee security-incident response plans; 59% manage network-segmentation initiatives.

• Budget Shifts: Districts increased cybersecurity spending by an average of 27% year-over-year, allocating funds to endpoint detection, multi-factor authentication (MFA), and security-awareness training.

• AI and Phishing Threats: 52% reported an uptick in AI-generated phishing attempts targeting staff and parents, prompting urgent rollouts of AI-phish simulators and threat-intelligence feeds.

• Workforce Challenges: 61% cite talent shortages as the top barrier to security readiness, with rural districts particularly struggling to recruit and retain skilled cybersecurity personnel.

Opinion & Implications

The rapid expansion of edtech leaders’ security remit underscores a new reality: schools are, effectively, small enterprises wrestling with the same threat vectors as Fortune 500 firms—but with far fewer resources. This democratization of cybersecurity responsibilities demands tailored solutions: lightweight, integrated security platforms that require minimal in-house expertise yet deliver enterprise-grade protections.

Vendors can address this need by offering bundled, education-specific security suites: cloud-native firewall as a service (FWaaS), AI-driven email protection with teacher-friendly dashboards, and turnkey compliance reporting aligned to FERPA and CIPA regulations. Professional associations—such as CoSN (Consortium for School Networking)—should ramp up shared services models to aggregate purchasing power and centralize managed security services for districts too small to go it alone.

Finally, the rise of AI-powered phishing in the education sector is a stark warning: bad actors will exploit the sector’s relative immaturity in security. Continuous training, phishing simulations, and zero-trust network access must become the standard. School boards and superintendents should treat cybersecurity not as an optional line item, but as a core pillar of student safety and institutional continuity.

5. Orca Security Acquires Opus: Ushering in Agentic AI for Cloud Remediation

What Happened

On May 13, 2025, Orca Security announced the acquisition of Opus, a startup specializing in agentic AI-powered automation for cloud-security remediation and prevention. The deal positions Orca to evolve from a Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) that observes and prioritizes risks, to one that autonomously fixes misconfigurations and vulnerabilities.
Source: Business Wire

Key Details

• Agentic AI Bots: Opus’s core product comprises software agents that can authenticate into cloud accounts, execute remediation playbooks, and validate fixes—all under human oversight via Orca’s platform.

• Deployment & Impact: Early pilots report an 80% reduction in mean-time-to-remediation (MTTR) for critical cloud faults and a 50% drop in alert fatigue for SecOps teams.

• Integration Path: Orca will embed Opus agents into its SideScanning™ technology, ensuring no additional agents are required; customers gain a unified dashboard for detection, prioritization, and automated response.

• Competitive Landscape: With legacy rivals like Palo Alto Networks Prisma Cloud and CrowdStrike Falcon spotlighting CNAPP features, Orca’s move into self-healing security could become a defining differentiator.

Opinion & Implications

Orca Security’s Opus acquisition heralds the age of autonomous cyber-defense, where detection without action is no longer acceptable. In highly dynamic cloud environments, manual remediation lags behind attacker speed—opening windows of vulnerability measured in minutes, not days. Agentic AI bots promise to close that gap, enabling security teams to scale effectively rather than hiring dozens of new engineers.

Yet, with great automation comes great responsibility. Organizations must implement rigorous policy-guardrails, approval workflows, and audit trails to ensure that AI bots cannot misstep—either by over-remediating (breaking production systems) or under-remediating (leaving critical gaps). Orca’s emphasis on human-in-the-loop controls is prudent, but customers will demand explainability and rollback mechanisms to trust autonomous fixes.

For the broader industry, Orca’s bold step will likely force peers to either build or partner for similar agentic capabilities, accelerating the shift from alerting platforms to self-managing security ecosystems. The winners will be those who can blend AI’s scale with rigorous governance, delivering automated defense that CIOs—and auditors—can trust.

Conclusion: Five Takeaways for Cybersecurity Leaders

1. Automation Is the New Baseline: From Horizon3.ai’s continuous red-teaming to Orca’s agentic remediation, automated security workflows are no longer optional—they’re mission-critical.

2. Shared Intelligence Fuels Resilience: ENISA’s EUVD underscores the power of unified, cross-border vulnerability data in bolstering collective defense and ensuring regulatory compliance under NIS2.

3. Cross-Industry Leadership Matters: Public-sector agencies and schools are elevating security roles; Info-Tech LIVE and eSchool News show that security leadership is everyone’s business.

4. AI Empowers—but Demands Governance: Whether autonomous code generation, agentic bots, or AI-driven phishing, artificial intelligence enhances capabilities—and magnifies risks if left unchecked.

5. Invest in Skills and Collaboration: Talent shortages in schools and federated EUVD maintenance challenges reveal that people and partnerships remain as vital as technology.

As the cybersecurity landscape accelerates, leaders must balance speed with control: embrace automation, but build in governance; share intelligence, but safeguard privacy; upskill constantly, but partner strategically. Tomorrow’s threats will outpace yesterday’s defenses—only by integrating these lessons can organizations stay one step ahead.