Network Break
The Network Break podcast keeps you informed with fast, focused analysis of IT news, products, tech trends & business outcomes. Published weekly.
Packet Pushers
Show overview
Network Break has been publishing since 2021, and across the 5 years since has built a catalogue of 256 episodes. That works out to roughly 190 hours of audio in total. Releases follow a weekly cadence.
Episodes typically run thirty-five to sixty minutes — most land between 37 min and 52 min — and the run-time is fairly consistent across the catalogue. None of the episodes are flagged explicit by the publisher. It is catalogued as a EN-language Technology show.
The show is actively publishing — the most recent episode landed 4 days ago, with 18 episodes already out so far this year. Published by Packet Pushers.
From the publisher
Network Break keeps you informed with fast, focused analysis of IT news, products, tech trends, and business outcomes. Blending sharp commentary with a touch of humor, hosts Drew Conry-Murray & Johna Till Johnson sift through the weekly landslide of press announcements, product launches, financial reports, and marketing decks to find the stories worth talking about. You come away with the information and context to make smart decisions in your organization and career … all in the span of a (longish) coffee break.
Latest Episodes
View all 256 episodesNB574: Extreme’s New AI Agent Nudges You; Cloudflare Evaporates 20% of Employees
NB573: Cisco Open-Sources OpenClaw Protection; T-Mobile Taps Starlink for Broadband Redundancy
NB572: Quantum Switches and Flying Cars
NB571: Linux Loads 7.0 with Network Upgrades; NetGear Routes Around FCC Ban, But How?
NB570: Project Glasswing’s FUD and Thunder; Au Revoir Windows, Bonjour Linux
NB569: Adding Drones to Your DR Plan; Collision Avoidance (Orbital, not Wi-Fi)
Ep 568NB568: Arm Reaches for More AI Revenue with In-House CPU; Debating the FCC Router Ban
Take a Network Break! Mozilla is our Red Alert topic, with critical vulnerabilities in Firefox and Thunderbird. On the news front, we cover a string of security announcements from Palo Alto Networks, including a new certificate management service to help organizations keep up with shrinking cert lifetimes. Cisco announces new protections for AI agents and... Read more »
Ep 567NB567: CISA Says Harden Endpoint Managers; NVIDIA Launches GPUs for Orbital Workloads
Take a Network Break! We sound a red alert about a swarm of critical D-Link vulnerabilities. In this week’s news, CISA warns organizations to harden endpoint management systems in the wake of a cyberattack that used the target’s own Microsoft Intune system to wipe thousands of devices, Cisco rolls an NVIDIA ASIC into an N9100... Read more »
Ep 566NB566: Google Spins Out Fiber Business; HPE Networking Revenue Soars in Q1
Take a Network Break! We begin with listener follow-up on Cisco SD-WAN vulnerabilities and a report that Nvidia is investing billions to develop open-source AI models. In our Red Alert section we warn of multiple vulnerabilities in Veeam’s backup software for Windows and a couple of Chrome zero-days. We cover new features in Fortinet’s FortiOS... Read more »
Ep 565NB565: New Algorithm Claims Quicker Quantum Decryption; NVIDIA Revenue Rockets Higher
Take a Network Break! Guest commentator Tom Hollingsworth joins Drew for today’s episode. We start with a double Red Alert from Cisco for its Secure FMC software. On the news front, Cato Networks adds adaptive threat prevention to its SASE offering that looks for seemingly innocuous signals that could add up to an attack, Google... Read more »
Ep 564NB564: New Juniper Routers Pump Up AI and Cloud-Scale Traffic; Anthropic Vs. DoD
Take a Network Break! We start with follow-up on the proper pronunciation of the US state of Nevada, and then sound the alarm about new research that gets around WiFi client isolation and could enable man-in-the-middle attacks. On the news front, AMD and Meta strike a massive deal in which AMD will sell its stock... Read more »
Ep 563NB563: Palo Alto Networks Nets Koi for AI Security; Quantum Networking Notches Research Wins
Take a Network Break! We start with follow-ups on secure browsers and data centers in space, and then sound the red alert about an RCE vulnerability in NLTK. On the news front, Palo Alto Networks acquires a startup that monitors endpoints for malicious packages, browser extensions, scripts, and other threats, Lumen debuts a multi-cloud gateway... Read more »
Ep 562NB562: Cisco Challenges Broadcom With 102.4Tb ASIC; Arista Reaches Record Revenues
Take a Network Break! We start with listener follow-up on data centers in space, and sound the Red Alert about a sandbox failure in Claude Code and a rash of Microsoft zero-days. On the news front, Cisco announces a 102.4Tbps switch ASIC in its Silicon One line of homegrown chips, and adds AI agent monitoring... Read more »
Ep 561NB561: Kubernetes Retires Ingress NGINX; Are Data Centers Headed for Orbit?
Take a Network Break! We start with a trio of follow-ups, including a correction regarding Mplify certifications, Cisco proposing new OSI layers, and free-space optics. Our Red Alert sounds off about a remote code execution vulnerability in the Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile agent. On the news front, Broadcom announces new silicon for wireless APs for... Read more »
Ep 560NB560: Microsoft Doubles Down on Custom AI Chip; CrowdStrike Brandishes Big Bucks for Browser Security
Take a Network Break! We’ve got Red Alerts for HPE Juniper Session Smart Routers and SolarWinds. In this week’s news, Microsoft debuts its second-generation AI inferencing chip, Mplify rolls out a new Carrier Ethernet certification for supporting AI workloads, and AWS upgrades its network firewall to spot GenAI application traffic and filter Web categories. Google... Read more »
Ep 559NB559: Cisco Builds Nexus Switch for Intel AI Chips; TeraWave Promises 6Tbps from Space
Take a Network Break! We start with a Red Alert in Oracle’s WebLogic Server Proxy Plugin for Apache or IIS, which has a severity score of 10. In the news, Fortinet warns that attackers have found a new exploit path against previously-patched vulnerabilities, Microsoft 365 services suffered an outage, and ServiceNow inks a deal with... Read more »
Ep 558NB558: Microsoft Buys Indulgences for Carbon Sins; Starlink Cleared for 7,500 More Satellites
Take a Network Break! This week we start with follow-up from a perhaps not-so-red Red Alert, and then cover two very-red Red Alerts. On the news front, Ruckus Wireless gets a new parent company, and sources say Extreme Networks may be interested in bringing Ruckus into its fold. AT&T rolls out an IoT management offering,... Read more »
Ep 557NB557: Meta Goes Nuclear; Arista Taps EVPN VXLAN for Massive Mobility Domains
Take a Network Break! The virtual donut factory is back from hiatus, and we’ve got a fresh batch to pass around as we discuss the week’s tech news. We start with an emergency patch for Cisco ISE, then dig into a set of new product announcements from Arista including a new ability to deploy wireless... Read more »
Ep 556NB556: 2025 Wrap: Insatiable AI, the Worst Top 5, Space Networking Surges, and More
Take a Network Break! We close out 2025 with a look back at some of the stories and trends that captured our attention this year. We start with the top five vendors with the worst track records in 2025 for zero-days in critical enterprise infrastructure. On the news front, we discuss the insanity of the... Read more »
Ep 555NB555: AI and APIs Drive HPE’s Dual-Platform WLAN Strategy; Dell, HPE Dangle VMware Alternatives
Take a Network Break! Our Red Alert calls out a dangerous vulnerability in the popular open-source React library. On the news front, HPE decides on a “both and” strategy for its two wireless portfolios and rolls out an option to let customers pick and choose among cross-platform features in Mist and Aruba Networking Central through... Read more »