Lumen Technologies has expanded its enterprise networking portfolio with a Multi-Cloud Gateway (MCGW) and enhanced metro datacentre connectivity across major US markets.

Through its expansion, Lumen claimed to be simplifying connectivity, removing the complexity from how data moves across hybrid environments by bringing centralised multicloud routing and high-capacity private metro connectivity. The result is a more consistent, controllable networking foundation for artificial intelligence (AI) and other modern workloads.

Commenting on the state of the modern workplace and the effect AI is having, Courtney Munroe, vice-president of worldwide telecommunications research at analyst firm IDC, noted that AI was reshaping network design, pushing enterprises to move from experimentation to execution with architectures that reduce latency, cost variability and operational complexity.

“As workloads become more distributed and performance sensitive, organisations are rethinking how they connect edge sites, datacentres and multiple clouds, and Lumen’s network fabric shows how programmable networks can deliver more consistent data movement,” he commented.

Lumen believes its enhanced products and services can improve business agility by accelerating data movement across cloud and enterprise environments, so analytics keep pace with changing demand.

The Multi-Cloud Gateway is the core element of the shift to cloud-based telecoms, built as a software-defined, self-service routing layer on Lumen’s global fibre network. It is said to provide private, high-capacity connectivity among enterprises, hyperscalers and emerging cloud platforms, turning traditional telecoms interconnection into a programmable cloud fabric.

By unifying connectivity, routing and policy, Lumen is confident that MCGW can reduce operational complexity, speed time to service and lower the total cost of ownership. That is, it can allow customers to connect dynamically cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-enterprise environments, optimise traffic for performance and cost, and support advanced use cases such as AI workload distribution and real-time data exchange.

Alongside this, it has built Metro Ethernet and IP Services to offer expanded high-capacity, dedicated connectivity across 16 US markets, delivering up to 100Gbps between regional datacentres, campuses and edge locations, and up to 400Gbps at key cloud datacentres in those markets. Lumen said this would deliver fast, secure movement of massive datasets for AI training, analytics, replication and disaster recovery.

Recently upgraded markets include Northern Virginia, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York City and Seattle.

Explaining why the enhancements and launches matter for enterprises, Lumen said networks shift from constraint to enabler, so organisations can move faster, scale with confidence and unlock greater innovation. It added that the business impact is immediate and practical for industries scaling their AI ambitions, citing use in financial services, retail, healthcare and manufacturing.

In finance, it said firms can keep risk, payments and fraud workloads synchronised across multiple clouds, with centralised policy control for lower latency and more predictable performance. Retailers, it said, can now improve business agility by accelerating data movement across cloud and enterprise environments, so analytics keep pace with changing demand.

Healthcare use cases are now seen as being able to maintain data separation, support telehealth services, imaging and analytics, disaster recovery, and manage research workloads across institutions and resource centres. Manufacturers are said to be able to connect regional facilities and cloud environments to enable real-time analytics and predictive maintenance.

“Moving data across hybrid environments is a lot like managing air traffic – you need clear routes, predictable timing and the ability to adjust when conditions change. Most legacy networks weren’t built for that level of coordination,” remarked Lumen chief technology and product officer Jim Fowler.

“With our expanded network fabric, [we aim to give] enterprises a way to move data securely, effortlessly and consistently across clouds, datacentres and edge locations, designed to reduce the complexity that holds AI-driven operations back.”

Every day, people log in to an online forum for current and former Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) officers to share their thoughts on the news of the day and complain about their colleagues in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“ERO is too busy dressing up as Black Ops Commandos with Tactical body armor, drop down thigh rigs, balaclavas, multiple M4 magazines, and Punisher patches, to do an Admin arrest of a non criminal, non-violent EWI that weighs 90 pounds and is 5 foot 2, inside a secure Federal building where everyone has been screened for weapons,” wrote one user in July 2025. (ERO stands for Enforcement and Removal Operations; along with HSI, it’s one of the two major divisions of ICE and is responsible for detaining and deporting immigrants.)

The forum describes itself as a space for current and prospective HSI agents, “designed for the seasoned HSI Special Agent as well as applicants for entry level Special Agent positions.” HSI is the division within ICE whose agents are normally responsible for investigating crimes like drug smuggling, terrorism, and human trafficking.

In the forum, users discuss their discomfort with the US’s mass deportation efforts, debate the way federal agents have interacted with protesters and the public, and complain about the state of their working conditions. Members have also had heated discussions about the shooting of two protesters in Minneapolis, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and the ways immigration enforcement has taken place around the US.

The forum is one of several related forums where people working in different parts of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) share experiences and discuss specific details of their work. WIRED previously reported on a forum where current and former deportation officers from ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) similarly complained about their jobs and discussed the way the agency was conducting immigration raids. The HSI forum appears to be linked, even including some of the same members.

People do not need to show proof of their employment to join these forums, and the platform does not appear to be heavily moderated. WIRED has not confirmed the individual identities of these posters, though they share details that likely would be known only to people intimately familiar with the job. There are more than 2,000 members with posts going back to at least 2004.

DHS and ICE did not respond to requests for comment.

Following the killings of both Good and Pretti, the forum’s members were heavily divided. In a January 12 thread, five days after Good was shot by ICE agent Jonathan Ross, a poster who has been a part of the forum since 2016 wrote, “IMHO, the situation with ICE Operations have gotten to an unprecedented level of violence from both the Suspects and the General Public. I hope the AG is looking at the temporary suspension of Civil Liberties, (during and in the geographic locales where ICE Operations are being conducted).”

A user who joined the forum in 2018 and identifies as a recently retired agent responded, “This is an excellent idea and well warranted. These are organized, well financed civil disturbances, dare I say an INSURRECTION?!?”

In a January 16 post titled “The Shooting,” some posters took a more nuanced view. “I get that it is a good shoot legally and all that, but all he had to do was step aside, he nearly shot one of his partners for Gods sake!” wrote a poster who first joined the forum in March 2022. “A USC woman non-crim shot in the head on TV for what? Just doesn’t sit well with me … A seasoned SRT guy who was able to execute someone while holding a phone seems to me he could have simply got out of the way.” SRT refers to ICE’s elite special response team, who undergo special training to operate in high-risk situations. USC refers to US citizens.

The global cyber threat landscape was defined by fragmentation in 2025, driven in no small part by widening geopolitical fractures that threatened the 80-year-old rules-based international order that has kept the peace – at least in the global north – since the end of the Second World War, according to a report.

In a cyber threat report published last week, Recorded Future’s Insikt Group explored how the conduct of powerful nations – aptly demonstrated by the possibility of a unilateral US takeover of Greenland, threatening the integrity of the Nato alliance – is causing knock-on effects in the cyber world as long-standing security frameworks appear increasingly precarious.

Indeed, in some circumstances, legal ambiguity around US actions, particularly those taking place in the Caribbean and Venezuela, has in fact caused some of America’s core allies, including the UK, to restrict intelligence sharing. Recorded Future said that strained transatlantic relations were limiting coordinated responses to wider crises such as Russia’s four-year war on Ukraine, and that these geopolitical dynamics are directly shaping state behaviour in cyberspace.

Meanwhile, sustained law enforcement pressure led to some big wins last year in the form of disruptions and takedowns of cyber criminal infrastructure, along with arrests, but this is now resulting in a more decentralised, modular criminal ecosystem that, unfortunately, is also more resilient.

And on the technological front, this fragmentation was demonstrated by the growing split between China and the US as the two great powers vie for AI dominance.

“In 2025, Insikt Group tracked how cyber activity shifted from a primary focus on espionage toward increased use of cyber capabilities for signalling, coercion and disruption in both kinetic conflicts and grey-zone scenarios,” said the report’s authors.

“Securing access to identity systems, cloud environments and edge infrastructure emerged as a central feature of interstate competition, reflecting the growing strategic value of persistent digital access and pre-positioning.

“Disruption was equally visible in the information environment. Insikt Group observed hacktivist groups, patriotic volunteers and influence networks playing a growing role in conflicts involving Israel-Iran, India-Pakistan, Thailand-Cambodia, and Russia-Ukraine.

“These actors operated with varying degrees of state alignment, but consistently contributed to a threat landscape in which genuine intrusions, exaggerated claims and disinformation reinforced one another,” they said.

Speaking at the report’s launch at the annual Munich Security Conference in Germany, Recorded Future chief security and intelligence officer Levi Gundert said: “Uncertainty is no longer episodic – it’s the operating environment.

“As geopolitical norms weaken, state objectives, criminal capability and private-sector technology are increasingly reinforcing one another, compressing warning timelines and expanding plausible deniability. AI is accelerating that dynamic, not through autonomous attacks, but by scaling deception and eroding trust inside decision-making processes.

“In 2026, cyber risk will be defined less by singular events and more by persistent, fragmented pressure that reshapes competition, escalation, and stability over time.”