UK government sets out plans to turbocharge AI use
Artificial intelligence will be unleashed across the UK to deliver a decade of national renewal under a new plan announced by the government.
The Prime Minister has agreed to take forward all 50 recommendations set out in the AI Opportunities Action Plan released last year, in a plan to make the UK ‘irresistible’ to AI firms looking to start, scale, or grow their business.
Why GraphQL is a serious alternative to the REST API [Q&A]
GraphQL -- in case you haven't heard of it -- is a rapidly rising query and manipulation language for APIs. It's designed to make APIs fast, flexible and developer-friendly, and it moves the complexity of data fetching from the client to the server side.
We spoke to Pete Crocker, director of solutions engineering at OpsMill, to learn why it's increasingly being employed as an alternative to the more established REST API.
The role of encryption in the cybersecurity landscape [Q&A]
Despite being an effective tool for safeguarding sensitive information, encryption remains underutilized by many organizations, leaving them vulnerable to cyber threats.
Many companies still rely on perimeter security measures, viewing encryption as optional rather than essential. Misconceptions about the complexity and cost of encryption further hinder its adoption, leading to a reactive approach that often waits for a data breach before taking action.
Over 195 million records breached in ransomware attacks last year
In 2024, ransomware groups claimed responsibility for 5,461 successful ransomware attacks on organizations worldwide. Of these 1,204 were confirmed by the targeted organizations, according to analysis by Comparitech.
Across the 1,204 confirmed attacks, 195.4 million records have been breached. These figures for 2024 are lower than those recorded in 2023 (1,474 attacks affecting 261.5 million records), though they are expected to rise as reports often come in months later.
Clever PayPal attack dodges phishing checks to take over accounts
Research by Fortinet has uncovered what it terms a 'phish-free' PayPal phishing attack that seeks to trick the unwary into giving up control of their account.
It starts with an email request for payment that appears to come from a valid email address. Click the link and you're taken to a PayPal login page showing a request for payment. This is where it gets clever because if you do login your account gets linked to the address the email was sent to -- not the one you received it on.
Delivering return on investment from GenAI [Q&A]
For many people AI has been seen as an answer to all their problems. But a recent Gartner report suggests we could be entering a 'trough of disillusionment' as the biggest challenge when adopting GenAI is estimating and proving the business value.
Getting that value needs creative thinking and integration of GenAI with other technologies that can benefit from its ability to analyze, summarize and create content.
Security platform adopts Open API standards
Exabeam's cloud-native, New-Scale Security Operations Platform has become the first security operations platform compatible with the Open-API Standard (OAS).
This gives SOC teams the power to quickly create automations and playbooks with their best-of-breed portfolios and ditch disjointed, monolithic systems that provide merely 'good enough' security.
94 percent of organizations now use GenAI apps
New research from Netskope Threat Labs has found that 94 percent of organizations are now using GenAI apps, but interestingly more than 99 percent have controls in place to mitigate the risks that they pose.
Organizational use of GenAI has grown from 81 percent of companies using the apps in 2023. ChatGPT continues to be the most popular genAI app, being used in 84 percent of organizations.
Almost half Gen Z and Millennials have had their social media passwords hacked
New research from hardware authentication security key provider Yubico shows nearly half of Gen Z (47 percent) and Millennials (46 percent) have had their social media account passwords hacked.
It's no surprise then that these generations are keen to adopt hardware security keys, reflecting a growing mistrust of traditional passwords and a shift toward more secure, physical authentication methods.
Interest in learning AI skills soars
Newly released usage data from the O'Reilly online learning platform reveals that interest in AI-related skills has surged dramatically, with the most pronounced usage increases seen in topics like prompt engineering (456 percent increase), AI principles (386 percent increase), and generative AI (289 percent increase).
Use of content about GitHub Copilot has seen a dramatic increase too, by an impressive 471 percent, reflecting developers’ enthusiasm for tools that enhance productivity.
The importance of modernizing cyber defenses [Q&A]
The state of high-profile cyber incidents in recent years has highlighted the fact that defenses need to be kept up to date to provide adequate protection.
AI and machine learning have the potential to transform security operations to enhance protection against emerging threats. We spoke to Gurucul CEO Saryu Nayyar to get her view on how protection technologies are evolving and why this is so crucial.
How AI assistants can make sales teams more effective [Q&A]
Most business areas are starting to feel the impact of artificial intelligence, enabling data to be used more effectively to deliver intelligence and outcomes.
Sales, though, has always been about people and building relationships over time, so can AI offer value here too? Nikhil Cheerla, co-founder of sales AI assistant company Nooks, thinks it can, and we talked to him to find out how.
AI agents and what they mean for the enterprise [Q&A]
Artificial intelligence is creeping into more and more areas of business and consequently we’re seeing it used for ever more complex work.
We spoke to Trey Doig, CTO and co-founder at Echo AI, to find out more about AI agents and how they can help solve problems and carry out tasks.
Understanding and taking control of your data ecosystem [Q&A]
Data comes in many forms, it may be structured, it may be unstructured, it could be sensitive or purely statistical. Whatever it looks like you can only benefit from it if you know what you have, where it can be found and how to access it.
We spoke to Brett Hurt, CEO and co-founder of data.world to discuss how enterprises can understand their data and derive the maximum value from it.
The top barriers to AI success and how to overcome them [Q&A]
With the intense interest in AI and its rapid pace of embrace, organizations are under pressure to swiftly evaluate their data architecture. AI architects urgently need solutions that harness AI to boost revenue streams and streamline operational efficiencies, all while navigating the potential barriers to their success.
David Flynn, co-founder and CEO of Hammerspace, a specialist in the use and preservation of unstructured data, recently shed light on the growing complexity IT teams face in managing data pipelines. This complexity is further compounded as organizations integrate LLMs into AI applications, underscoring the significant obstacles to successful AI adoption.
Ian's Bio
Ian spent almost 20 years working with computers before he discovered that writing about them was easier than fixing them. Since then he's written for a number of computer magazines and is a former editor of PC Utilities. Follow him on Mastodon
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