DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Dept. of Homeland Security embraces AI and other federal agencies are likely to follow
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-17 | by ( Bob Violino | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas speaks during the third annual Axios What's Next Summit at the Planet Word Museum on March 19, 2024 in Washington, DC. When the White House issued an executive order last October to promote safe and responsible development and use of artificial intelligence in the federal government, one of the first agencies to say it was on board the AI train was the Department of Homeland Security. In one pilot, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) will test AI to help in investigative processes focused on detecting fentanyl and combatting child exploitation. The unprecedented speed and potential of AI's development and adoption presents both opportunities and risks, according to Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security. What DHS learns from the pilot projects will be beneficial in shaping how it can effectively and responsibly use AI across homeland security moving forward, he said.

Persons: Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden, Mayorkas, — Organizations: Word, White House, Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations, Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, United, United States Citizenship, Immigration Services, Homeland Security, DHS, Mayorkas, Republican Locations: Washington ,, United States

☆ How to drive bias out of AI without making mistakes of Google Gemini
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-27 | by ( Bob Violino | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

In this photo illustration, a Gemini logo is seen displayed on a smartphone with a Google logo in the background. "However, depending on the data that Gen AI is trained on, the model learns and reflects that in its outputs," he said. Crucial to managing issues of potential bias in AI is to have clear processes in place and prioritize responsible AI from the beginning, said Joe Atkinson, chief products and technology officer at consulting firm PwC. "For example, a healthcare chatbot powered by generative AI can provide explanations for its diagnoses and treatment recommendations, helping patients understand the underlying factors and mitigating potential biases in medical advice." Diversity in AI development teams, dataCompanies also need to create diverse and inclusive development teams.

Persons: Siva Ganesan, Joe Atkinson, Atkinson, Ritu Jyoti, Jyoti, Ganesan Organizations: Google, Cloud, Tata Consultancy Services, International Data Corp

☆ 'Machine customers' are already among us, and they number in the billions
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-21 | by ( Bob Violino | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

Gartner forecasts that number will rise to 15 billion by 2028, and the firm's research shows that CEOs estimate 15% to 20% of their revenue will come from machine customers by 2030. Machine customers can receive messages such as advertising, offers, email and information from the surrounding environment, Scheibenreif said. And Italy-based iProd has a platform that can accommodate the requests of machine customers located in a manufacturing environment. How to get ready for machine customersIT executives should put in place a game plan for supporting machine customers now, if they haven't already. CIOs and other technology leaders need to determine how machine customers might change their companies' go-to-market approach.

Persons: They're, Don Scheibenreif, Scheibenreif, iProd, Vishal Gupta, Gupta, Lexmark Organizations: Gartner, Machine, Amazon, Walmart, IT Locations: Italy, Lexmark

☆ AI tools such as ChatGPT are generating a mammoth increase in malicious phishing emails
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-28 | by ( Bob Violino | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

"It is not a coincidence that the launch of ChatGPT at the end of last year coincides with the timeframe in which we saw exponential growth of malicious phishing emails," Harr said. On average, 31,000 phishing attacks were sent on a daily basis, according to the research. Since the fourth quarter of 2022, there's been a 1,265% increase in malicious phishing emails , and a 967% rise in credential phishing in particular, according to a new report by cybersecurity firm SlashNext. Another reason for such a high increase in phishing attacks is because they are working, Harr said. Another good practice is to implement email filtering tools that use machine learning and AI to detect and block phishing emails.

Persons: Harr, Patrick Harr, there's, Chris Steffen, Prince of, Steffen Organizations: BEC, Enterprise Management Associates Locations: Brooklyn, New York, American, Prince of Nigeria

☆ How AI and better pay can address the ongoing cyber talent shortage
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-27 | by ( Bob Violino | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Nearly all of them said the cybersecurity skills shortage and its associated impacts have not improved over the past few years and 54% said it has gotten worse. The cybersecurity skills shortage has been going on for years, and it's getting worse, with a rising number of firms citing the issue. Artificial intelligence, particularly generative AI, might play a growing role in easing the skills shortage. Let's say an organization has an inexperienced member of its cyber team, which is a common scenario, Shockey said. In other words, you can treat generative AI as a virtual member of the cyber team."

Persons: Jon Oltsik, ESG, Oltsik, Candy Alexander, ISSA, Alexander, Jason Shockey, Shockey, there's Organizations: IT, Enterprise Strategy, Information Systems Security Association, ISSA International, NeuEon LLC, West

☆ Much of the tech world's climate impact is still being overlooked, and it's accelerating
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-09 | by ( Bob Violino | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

The environmental impact of IT has been largely overlooked, said Matt Warburton, principal consultant and sustainability lead at IT advisory firm ISG. "IT's environmental impact, as a proportion of the overall business impact, is increasing," Warburton said. "More than half of executives use spreadsheets for some ESG data," Moyer said. "They are generally among the most 'sustainably-savvy' organizations, with ambitious commitments for their own operations and deep expertise in minimizing IT's environmental impact," Warburton said. "If an enterprise has a net zero goal, IT should also have its own net zero goal.

Persons: Matt Warburton, Warburton, Kristin Moyer, Moyer, it's, ESG, It's Organizations: Gartner, Enterprises, Technology, Companies, Fortune

☆ A critical cybersecurity backup plan that too many companies are ignoring
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-24 | by ( Bob Violino | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

Approximately 41% of companies do not have a succession plan for their CISO, according to a report from executive recruiting firm Heidrick & Struggles. "We consider not having a CISO succession plan to be a serious material risk that companies can easily mitigate," said Matt Aiello, partner and global cybersecurity practice leader at Heidrick & Struggles. "The lack of a successor could disrupt business-as-usual cybersecurity operations, resulting in delays, gaps in critical cyber risk management activities, and hindered cyber incident response and decision-making," Soo said. "Lack of proper succession planning could result in disruption throughout an organization," he said. CISO succession planning should also involve anticipating future security requirements by considering the evolving nature of the business and technology landscape.

Persons: CISOs, Matt Aiello, Aiello, " Aiello, Daniel Soo, Soo Organizations: Istock, Getty, Companies, Deloitte

☆ Cybersecurity experts have become targets for board seats
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-03 | by ( Bob Violino | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

The research also showed that 90% of public companies lack even one qualified cyber expert, showing a significant cyber board supply-demand gap. A recently released report on CISO board readiness conducted by IANS Research in collaboration with Artico Search and The CAP Group, found that less than half of the CISOs stand out as board candidates. So, what skills do CISOs need — aside from cybersecurity expertise — to be considered credible board members? CISOs also need to understand risk to speak to a board. In addition, CISOs must understand business risk.

Persons: Kakolowski, Nick Kakolowski, Steffen, Chris Steffen, Larry Whiteside, CISO, Ember, Whiteside, CISOs Organizations: IANS Research, CAP Group, Enterprise Management Associates, Cloud Security Alliance, University of South Locations: RegScale, University of South Florida

☆ A.I. is helping hackers make better phishing emails
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Bob Violino | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

"Historically, phishing emails have been somewhat easy to spot thanks to sloppy drafting," Finch said. "In particular, phishing emails created by a hacker unfamiliar with a certain language [have] tended to be easy to spot due to poor grammar, illogical vocabulary, and bad spelling." But AI allows many more people — regardless of their language skills — to quickly and cheaply generate convincing text for use in phishing emails, Finch said. Here are three steps cybersecurity leaders can take to strengthen their organizations' cybersecurity programs in the age of AI. The framework should include risk indicators, the AI ecosystem and regulations, and should "address the unique security considerations associated with AI within their organizations, and reducing their AI security risk," he said.

Persons: Chino, —, Brian Finch, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, Finch, Kyle Kappel, Kappel, CISOs Organizations: KPMG

☆ How self-service data analytics can deliver better business insights more quickly
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( Bob Violino | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

That's exactly what self-service analytics is designed to do. Self-service analytics tools allow business users who are not trained in analytics or data science to perform queries and generate reports on their own, with minimal or no need of support from the IT department. Unfortunately, even with all the advances in products, analytics has not penetrated enterprises as much as it could, Menninger said. Two technical advances are helping improve self-service analytics, Menninger said. "With self-service analytics, we can consume and analyze multiple years of data, compared to previous spreadsheet-based data-wrangling methods that were limited to just 90 days of data."

☆ How cybersecurity executives make the case for continued tech investments in a tough economy
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( Bob Violino | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Cybersecurity executives have enjoyed a nice run of receiving the financial resources they need to keep their organizations protected against attacks. But given the current economic uncertainty, many will likely need to rethink their approach to investments in tools and services. "Cybersecurity is not immune to economic pressures and uncertainty," said Daniel Soo, risk and financial advisory principal in cyber and strategic risk at Deloitte. When prioritizing security investments, security leaders should continue to invest in security controls and solutions that protect the organization's customer-facing and revenue-generating workloads, Maxim said. They should continue to defend any investments that support the organization's modernization efforts with cloud and its evolution to zero trust security, he said.

☆ Digital twins are set for rapid adoption in 2023
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-21 | by ( Bob Violino | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

This avatar is a personalised, hyper-realistic, 3D, #seriezero digital twin that they can use to interact on digital platforms and in the metaverse. In life sciences, digital twins are being used to create twins of human organs, enabling new approaches to medical research and care, Diana said. "We are going to see digital twins adopted rapidly in 2023, in many different industries," Diana said. Digital twins are gaining momentum in adoption and sophistication as more organizations see positive outcomes from the early adopters, Barrington said. "As more twins of critical assets and processes come online, leaders will leverage digital twins to not only model and simulate their supply chain, but to optimize and automate a dynamic and intelligent supply chain model — all orchestrated by digital twins," Barrington said.

☆ Phishing attacks are increasing and getting more sophisticated. Here's how to avoid them
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-07 | by ( Bob Violino | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

That's a 61% increase in the rate of phishing attacks compared with 2021. Criminals using phishing attacks based on tax season, shopping dealsOne of the iterations of phishing that people need to be aware of is spearphishing, a more targeted form of phishing that often uses topical lures. Phishing themes can also be generic, such as an email that appears to be from a technology vendor about resetting an account, McNamara said. What people should do to ward off phishing attemptsIndividuals can take steps to better defend themselves against phishing attacks. Another good practice is to use anti-phishing software and other cyber security tools as protection against potential attacks and to keep personal and work data safe.

☆ ESG will be a heavy focus for tech leaders in 2023
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-04 | by ( Bob Violino | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Reducing the carbon footprint of IT operationsThere are a number of drivers moving ESG forward. One area of focus will be the need for reporting on ESG progress, as required by regulations. Nearly half of the respondents said their organization could not accurately report its carbon footprint. Efforts appear to be underway to enhance ESG reporting strategies. By 2024, IDC said, 75% of large enterprises will implement ESG data management and reporting software as a response to emerging legislation and increased stakeholder expectations.

☆ Data privacy rules are sweeping across the globe, and getting stricter
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-22 | by ( Bob Violino | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Businesses, especially those in highly regulated sectors such as financial services, health care and government — and those that operate in multiple countries — are faced with a growing number of data privacy regulations. "Our research counts about 100 countries around the world that have some form of data privacy or security rules in place," Iannopollo said. The most prominent regulation now, the American Data Privacy and Protection Act, has the attention of most of the privacy world but is looking less likely to pass Congress, O'Leary said. "Organizations must identify the data that falls within the scope of the rules," Iannopollo said. Along with the focus on data minimization, organizations should enhance their abilities in data discovery and mapping, O'Leary said.

☆ The technology challenges CEOs view as opportunity and threat in a post-Covid economy
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Bob Violino | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

One challenge CEOs see is that emerging and disruptive technology is both an opportunity and a threat. CEOs said their organizations need to be quicker to shift investments to digital opportunities and divest in those areas where their organizations face digital obsolescence. Addressing employee burnoutAnother issue CEOs said their organizations need to address is pandemic-related employee burnout from accelerated digital transformation over the past two years. "I think that there is some truth to the state of fatigue brought on by the need to quickly adopt remote work-related technology," Clark said. Rather than focus on the "right technology," organizations should aim to deploy the right mix of technology, Carande said.

☆ LinkedIn has a fake account problem it's trying to fix. Real users are part of the solution
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-10 | by ( Bob Violino | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

While 95.3% of those fake accounts were stopped at registration by automated defenses, according to the company, there was a nearly 28% increase in fake accounts caught compared to the previous six-month period. For these reasons it can serve the purposes of bad actors to have fake LinkedIn profiles, Khan said. "Bad actors are trying to craft fake identities and make them look real by leaving a plausible-looking digital footprint across different platforms," Khan said. The challenge for LinkedIn users is that profiles on social media platforms are easy to create and are typically not verified in any way. The model helps increase the effectiveness of LinkedIn's automated anti-abuse defenses to help detect and remove fake accounts before they can reach members.

☆ For CIOs, it’s a critical time to deliver value on IT investments
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-10 | by ( Bob Violino | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

The pressure on IT leaders to make the right decisions on technology investments is significant and is only going to intensify in the years to come. Chief information officers are expected to deliver digital dividends, and CEOs and boards--anticipating that investments in digital assets, channels, and digital business capabilities will accelerate growth--want to see these digital-driven improvements reflected in company financials. A report released last month by research firm Gartner underscored that CIOs and other IT leaders must figure out how to leverage top- and bottom-line growth from their many digital investments. An analysis of the survey data revealed four ways in which CIOs can deliver digital dividends and demonstrate the financial impact of technology investments. At Principal, she said the company has prioritized digital investments that will deliver the most value to customers and create growth opportunities and efficiencies.

☆ How using analytics and AI can help companies manage the semiconductor supply chain
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-19 | by ( Bob Violino | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

One potential nearer-term solution for companies that rely on semiconductors: advanced data analytics and artificial intelligence tools to help manage supply issues. "The semiconductor supply chain is still constrained," said Brandon Kulik, semiconductor industry leader and principal at Deloitte Consulting. "Organizations can leverage data analytics tools for deeper insights across the supply chain," Tandon said. Rand Technology, an independent semiconductor distributor, is using data analytics to solve customer challenges related to supply. Rand also uses advanced data analytics to identify trends and patterns that enable it to guide customers strategically through perilous market conditions.

☆ Rising premiums, more restricted cyber insurance coverage poses big risk for companies
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-11 | by ( Bob Violino | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

Luke MacGregor | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesAmong the many consequences of the rising number of costly data breaches, ransomware, and other security attacks are pricier premiums for cyber security insurance. The high demand for cyber coverage is in part fueled by greater awareness among companies of the threat cyber risk poses for businesses of all sizes, it said. The study said the cost of cyber insurance is based in part on the frequency, severity, and cost of cyber attacks, "all of which have been increasing. "But now, carriers are becoming less likely to include it, and are instead offering cyber coverage separately. "Also, companies that go bare on cyber liability may see an impact on revenue, as customers and suppliers increasingly make cyber coverage a requirement of doing business."

Search resuls for: "Bob Violino"

20 mentions found