Access-driven vulnerabilities have become a silent threat to businesses. To highlight such dangers, ExtraMile by SecureITWorld brings an exclusive Q&A session to help you secure your organization with advanced practices and strategies. For this purpose, we have Rajiv Pimplaskar, CEO of Dispersive, with us in today’s conversation.
Dispersive is a pioneer in stealth and quantum-resilient networks that secure enterprise communication across critical systems, AI workloads, and distributed operations. The company offers cutting-edge Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) solutions for secure connectivity across the latest apps, users, and data. It prioritizes eliminating attack surfaces through invisible and resilient connections spanning remote ecosystems, cloud, and edge.
As a cybersecurity expert with over two decades of experience, Rajiv Pimplaskar is a key contributor to Dispersive’s growth and innovation. He has also led in diverse areas for other firms, including product, go-to-market, sales, corporate development, and others. In the conversation, Rajiv will look back on his professional journey, alongside sharing key insights about quantum-resistant technology. He will additionally talk about strengthening Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) and the security challenges of integrating AI into a network.
Accompany us and learn strategies to establish an impactful security framework for your organization.
Welcome, Rajiv; it’s a pleasure to host you today!
1. You have contributed remarkably to the growth of companies like Veridium, Cloudmark (acquired by Proofpoint), and Verizon Business. What habits have you sustained throughout your journey that have helped you significantly?
Rajiv. I have been fortunate to have worked with some very impressive companies and very capable colleagues. As a former sales guy, one of the most valuable habits an executive can form is to constantly be in touch with the field. It is essential to be in front of customers and prospects to understand (in their own words) the company’s unique goals and challenges in order to best help achieve and solve them.
One of the primary keys to success, which is not a habit, but it’s something I strive for at every company I’ve been at – is to build teams around clarity and accountability. I empower my teams and encourage them to level up individually as the context changes around us. Our business is constantly changing, and we must rise to meet the moment. We often have to lean into things that are both challenging and uncomfortable, which can be difficult but necessary.
I am always learning, always curious, and always meeting with people. This keeps me on my toes and keeps me striving. Also – I don’t sleep a lot.
2. We hear a lot about quantum-resistant tech. Is this a legitimate immediate threat for the average enterprise, or are we just selling fear to the C-suite?
Rajiv. It’s a legitimate threat. “Q-Day” is the point in time when quantum computers are assumed to be capable of breaking the most advanced encryption standards. Google recently shared that they moved their internal quantum-safe encryption timeline up by six years – as early as 2029.
We don’t need to panic, but we need to prepare. I’m not in the business of selling fear. I’m more focused on helping to provide effective defense to organizations, and one of those defenses is to architect quantum resilience into foundational infrastructure. At Dispersive, we assume the network can’t be trusted, which is why we built in quantum resilient protections by design. Our Stealth Networking already encrypts, scatters, and obfuscates data‑in‑motion across multiple channels and paths, which makes interception and reconstruction infeasible even with future compute.
People in the business of highly sensitive data are already well on their way with this preparation, but now it is incumbent upon the C-suite at organizations of every size and function to start incorporating measures that address quantum capabilities, much as they’ve had to grapple with the last few years’ of AI capabilities.
3. Do you believe that standard networking has a crucial flaw because it uses a single path? If single-path networking is so broken, why is the world still clinging to it in 2026?
Rajiv. Short answer: yes, single path networking is absolutely a crucial flaw for the simple reason that it is easily identified, intercepted and/or inferenced. Most organizations assume that the network itself is secure if they have authorized access and ZTNA solutions, which is a false assumption.
As for why is the world still clinging to it? One of the conundrums of cybersecurity is that it is heavily stacked with upwards of twenty, thirty – even forty security tools, depending on the organization. Think of it like a Jenga game – you can’t just pull out blocks willy nilly, or you risk impacting your entire infrastructure. Change can be difficult, risky, and time-consuming. I posit that the risk of doing nothing far outweighs the need for change, but sometimes organizations are trapped in years’ worth of infrastructure that they don’t dare touch – to their own detriment.
Based on our experience with our clients, there are many organizations who have realized that the cybersecurity game has changed entirely, and they moved quickly to implement solutions that leverage Automated Moving Target Defense (AMTD) technology, and other proactive rather than reactive tools. They understand that when you architect resilience into the infrastructure itself, you level the playing field.
4. Every company claims to prioritize zero-trust. In your opinion, what is the most common way zero trust is faked in the industry today, and how do we strengthen Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA)?
Rajiv. Faked is a strong word. The industry, as a whole, has checked the right boxes for Zero Trust. The problem is that if you look at the defenses of an organization like the plumbing in a house, many of the pipes work as they should. However, many important pipes are deeply embedded inside the walls, and when they are leaky or damaged, there’s no way to know until it’s too late.
With ZTNA, for example, you can have identity and access management and say it’s Zero Trust. The problem lies in the gaps. This model only authenticates the user at login and “stamps” them, so to speak, as trusted. If the user can then move freely through the environment, the assumption is not only that the session is trustworthy, and by default, so is the network. This is incorrect. If you can authenticate once and then move freely inside the environment, move laterally, or discover services, you do not have Zero Trust. It’s a perfect example of a leaky pipe causing damage, unbeknownst to the organization.
Strengthening ZTNA needs to happen at the architectural level. A stealth-first approach secures organizations by fragmenting, dispersing, and encrypting network traffic, making it nearly impossible for adversaries to intercept, analyze, or exploit vulnerabilities. This extends Zero Trust to the network itself, ensuring that even if an attacker gains access, they can’t move laterally or extract data. Combining preemptive cyber defense, Automated Moving Target Defense (AMTD) technology, and Zero Trust principles will create a proactive and resilient security posture.
5. Are companies ready to securely manage AI workloads? According to you, what security challenges can arise while integrating AI into a network?
Rajiv. AI is something that’s hit all of us like a ton of bricks. On one hand, it is doing some amazing things. But from a cybersecurity and defense point of view, it’s a wrecking ball. Companies using AI need to be able to create isolated and micro-segmented environments for AI models and data to prevent lateral movement and unauthorized network access to services, data science systems, workloads, and other network assets. This is easier said than done.
The challenge to securely manage AI workloads is that AI traffic is high-volume, bursty, latency‑sensitive, and often distributed across ephemeral endpoints. Legacy secure networking is not designed for that. Additionally, AI workloads move massive amounts of sensitive data across the network. If that transport layer isn’t resilient, encrypted, and obfuscated, it becomes a prime interception point.
As a rule of thumb, if a network relies on fixed tunnels, degrades under latency or loss, needs manual configuration, cannot scale automatically, or assumes implicit trust, it is not AI-ready. To convert to AI-ready infrastructure, an organization needs to adopt new transport architectures built for stealth, resilience, and performance.
6. Does Continuous Authorization kill the idea of a trusted session without killing user experience? How do we stop security from becoming a friction point?
Rajiv. Continuous Authorization actually elevates the idea of the trusted session. The old model assumed that once a user is authenticated, the network stayed safe. However, this assumption is false. We cannot assume a network is secured, which is one of Dispersive’s “core truths,” so to speak.
We worked with CrowdStrike to create our Dispersive Continuous Trust Authorization Network for CrowdStrike Falcon® integration. Falcon gives us real‑time device and identity risk, and we extend that into the network layer using our adaptive, identity-aware Stealth Networking. So now you have device, identity, and network intelligence working together to make decisions in real-time, which provides continuous authorization, Patient Zero isolation, and instant containment before anything can spread. The user experience remains untouched and unaffected. They simply login as usual and just go about their work, and the integration ensures adaptive, identity-aware networking that just runs in the background.
7. As remote and hybrid work become the norm, what emerging security threats must organizations prepare for? What is the most effective strategy to secure remote operations in 2026?
Rajiv. Remote and hybrid work has expanded the attack surface across networks the enterprise never owned or controlled. When users, workloads, and data are constantly moving across these networks, then the network itself becomes the most exposed dependency. That’s where the threat landscape is evolving fastest.
Three emerging threats stand out: transport layer surveillance, endpoint‑adjacent compromise, and AI‑accelerated reconnaissance. (*can cut bullet points for brevity)
Transport layer surveillance: Intercepting and fingerprinting traffic at the network level, mapping enterprise communication patterns before any payload is ever inspected.
Endpoint adjacent compromise: Targeting devices and access points surrounding managed endpoints, such as home routers, shared networks, and personal devices, to establish footholds without touching corporate infrastructure directly.
AI-accelerated reconnaissance: Attackers scan, correlate, and profile network behavior at machine speed, compressing the window between exposure and exploitation.
Each of these threats shares a common dependency: they require the attacker to find something first, be it a pattern, a path, or a predictable surface. The most effective countermeasure isn't better detection after the fact; it's eliminating that visibility entirely.
To that end, the most effective strategy for securing remote operations in 2026 is to stop assuming the network can be trusted and to architect security at the transport layer. This will ensure that your communications and data in motion will be invisible by design.
When your traffic can’t be found or fingerprinted, your remote operations stay resilient and protected. To do this, the enterprise must make an architectural shift to secure how data moves so that it remains hidden no matter the network it travels – even hostile ones. By dispersing traffic across multiple ephemeral paths, you eliminate single points of visibility and remove predictable patterns. Organizations can then operate remotely without exposing their users or workloads to reconnaissance.
8. Most companies focus on building bigger walls, but Dispersive focuses on making the house invisible. Is the future of cybersecurity about better defense, or just becoming a smaller target?
Rajiv. Bigger walls were all the rage for some time, and a castle wall and moat always have a place in cybersecurity. At this point though, it is clear that perimeter defenses are just one of many tactics to be deployed. At Dispersive, we have been focused on cloaking the network itself. Once an attacker can see you, fingerprint your traffic, and map your communication patterns, the clock starts. Detection and response buys you time, but we’d rather eliminate the need for response.
That's why we architect at the transport layer, dispersing traffic across multiple ephemeral paths so there's no persistent surface to profile, no predictable pattern to exploit, and no single point of visibility to compromise. Your communications don't just become harder to crack; they become harder to find in the first place.
The future of cybersecurity must assume unrelenting attacks that are multidirectional and increasingly impossible to predict. Is the solution better defense or a smaller target? Both. Because the best defense is to not be found in the first place. The enterprises that will be most resilient in the next five years won't be the ones with the fastest incident response. They'll be the ones attackers couldn't find.
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