CISO checklist: Cybersecurity platform or marketing ploy? The cybersecurity market is booming with countless vendors claiming to offer unified platforms. Here's how to separate the real deal from empty marketing. More than 600 cybersecurity vendors crowded the RSAC 2026 Conference expo floor at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, along with their sales reps, event MCs, branded swag and multimedia displays. It amounted to an astounding commercial spectacle -- but also, somehow, a mere fraction of the current cybersecurity market, which Forrester estimates comprises around 4,000 vendors. Expect that number to grow, Forrester Analyst Jeff Pollard warned security leaders during a conference session down the street from the expo floor. "We have a real problem with vendor and tech sprawl in our environments," he said. "And this market is only going to get even bigger and more challenging for you to sort through on a day-in, day-out basis." Many security teams spend countless hours developing their own DIY point-tool integrations and contending with a plethora of logins, consoles, dashboards and alerts. Enter the single pane of glass, or SPOG. For years, various cybersecurity vendors have claimed to unify multiple point tools into a user-friendly SPOG that makes life easier for security teams. But what sounds too good to be true often is. "You've all been burned before, right?" said Forrester Analyst Jess Burns, who presented with Pollard. "It's relatively easy to market a platform with a SPOG, but it's hard to build one." The good news is, she added, some vendors have, in fact, cracked the code and now offer cybersecurity platforms that approach the SPOG ideal. The challenge for CISOs is differentiating between cybersecurity product packages -- groups of standalone tools cloaked in clever "platform" marketing -- and true, integrated platforms that justify the commitment and investment. According to