AI-Powered Cloud Observability: A Deeper Look at Illumio Insights with CPO Mario Espinoza

Not long ago, cybersecurity was built on a single hope: keep attackers out. If you could lock down your perimeter enough to prevent breaches or detect them fast enough, you could stop the damage.  

But as breaches increasingly pummeled organizations, defenders started asking a different question: What happens after the breach?

Attackers move fast. And thanks to AI, they’re doing it faster, smarter, and more convincingly than ever.

In a recent webinar, Illumio’s Chief Product Officer Mario Espinoza makes the case that it’s time for defenders to update how they’re thinking about cybersecurity. He shares how Illumio Insights, powered by a real-time AI security graph, helps organizations move from chasing alerts to containing threats the moment they appear.

A new era in cybersecurity: moving from prevention to containment

In cybersecurity, each decade has brought a new focus:

• The 2000s were all about the perimeter. Security teams focused on keeping attackers out by locking down the network’s edge. ‍
• The 2010s shifted to detection. The goal was to find and stop attacks fast before they could spread and cause damage.  
• In the 2020s, AI has changed the game. Attackers are using it better than most defenders.

So what now?

“We’re entering the post-breach era,” Mario explained. “Cyberattacks are inevitable, but they don’t need to be a disaster. You can contain them.”

Illumio Insights was built for this exact reality: assume breach, reduce the blast radius, and stop lateral movement.

What is an AI security graph?

Attackers don’t think in lists of alerts. They think in graphs.  

Unlike traditional security methods that look at data points one by one, graph-based security connects the dots to find patterns and unusual activity.  

When combined with AI, it creates a strong, proactive defense that can spot and stop threats before they become bigger problems.

This works well against advanced attacks that can get past regular security systems. It helps build better ways to prevent attacks and connect risk evaluations across data, devices, apps, and user identities.

That’s why defenders need to think in graphs — and use security tools that do, too.

You might’ve heard about security graphs from other vendors. But in the webinar, Mario emphasized that not all graphs are created equal.

“A lot of other graphs map posture, like who has access to what,” Mario explained. “Illumio’s graph maps real-time flow data. The nodes are actual compute units: VMs, containers, PaaS services. The edges are real connections.”

That means you’re not just seeing theoretical risk. With Illumio’s security graph, you’re seeing real movement, actual communications, and live threats. And because it’s enriched with AI, it can tell you what’s running, where, and what to do next.

Illumio’s graph also integrates with other top security platforms. “We work with partners like Wiz and Check Point,” said Mario. “We use their data to enrich our graph and vice versa. We believe that more graphs mean more value.”

A lot of other graphs map posture, like who has access to what. But Illumio maps real-time flow data.

What is Illumio Insights?

Illumio Insights and Illumio Segmentation are integral components of Illumio’s breach containment platform, the first built on an AI security graph.

“Our customers asked us: ‘Help me prioritize. Show me where the hotspots are.’ That’s exactly what Insights does,” Mario said.

Illumio Insights helps organizations quickly identify risk, detect attacks, and contain threats with a single click. It empowers security teams to protect critical assets and respond instantly.

Instead of spending weeks or months identifying where to segment, Insights points you to the riskiest areas first — what’s compromised, what’s vulnerable, and where attackers are moving. You get a risk reduction multiplier for your existing segmentation strategy.

Insights and Segmentation work together to identify and mitigate risks, contain attacks, and improve your cyber resilience.

See the threats you’ve been missing

The magic of Insights isn’t just that it sees more. It also shows you exactly what matters.

“Insights can detect threats that would otherwise be invisible,” said Mario. “Because attackers hide in normal traffic, they move laterally in ways traditional tools just don’t catch.”

Insights classifies workloads automatically, geolocates malicious IPs, flags risky services like RDP or RustDesk, and maps all communication — across clouds, containers, and even unmanaged assets.

What you get is a live, AI-enhanced map of your environment, based on real-time information, not theoretical or historical data.

“One customer challenged us to find threats using just a portion of their data,” Mario said. “We found over 10 serious issues in a single day. Even when we pointed Insights at our own environment, it uncovered things we hadn’t seen.”

One-click containment: from alert to action

Detection is just one piece of the puzzle. The real value comes when you can act on it — instantly.

“With Illumio Insights, we provide one-click attack containment,” Mario shared. “You can quarantine a compromised resource in real time and stop the attack in its tracks.”

This isn’t just reactive security. It’s intelligent and surgical, using real network flows to isolate only what’s compromised while keeping everything else running smoothly.

Fast setup at massive scale

With Insights, you never have to worry about long deployment times. Insights gives your team quick wins in just a few minutes.

“We call it five minutes to wow,” Mario said with a grin. “If you’re an Azure customer, go to the Azure Marketplace, click on Illumio Insights, and you’re up and running in five minutes.”

There are no agents required and no heavy lift. Whether you’re a small business or a cloud-scale enterprise, Insights delivers real-time observability in hours, not days, even across petabytes of data.

Prioritize better and stress less with Illumio Insights

In today’s threat landscape, it’s not enough to try to prevent or detect every attack. You need to be prepared to contain them.

Illumio Insights gives you instant observability, intelligent detection, and surgical response, all powered by an AI security graph.  

Whether you’re a segmentation pro or just starting your Zero Trust journey, Insights helps you move faster and stay safer.

Want to try Illumio Insights? Join our private preview today.