How conversational AI is shaping customer service [Q&A]
Conversational AI has seen great advances and a massive increase in adoption in the last year or so such that it’s increasingly finding its way into our everyday lives.
We spoke to voice AI industry expert PolyAI's co-founder and CEO, Nikola Mrkšić, to discuss how the technology is shaping customer service and reducing costs, as well as where generative AI tools fit into the picture.
Hybrid work drives demand for secure networking technologies
According to a new study, 81 percent of IT professionals say hybrid work is driving demand for technologies like SASE and zero-trust networking.
The report from Aryaka surveyed over 200 IT, security and network professionals and finds SASE and SD-WAN are no longer seen as niche solutions. 84 percent of respondents believe SASE is either 'mature' or 'somewhat mature', with an even higher number (91 percent) saying the same about SD-WAN.
Malwarebytes adds AI to its business security offering
Malwarebytes is adding an AI feature to its Security Advisor, part of the ThreatDown tool aimed at helping IT teams make better use of their resources.
Using generative AI technology, the new capabilities transform Security Advisor into a dynamic experience that allows customers to use simple natural language requests to search for information about their environment, ask for recommendations on how to optimize their security posture, automatically implement updates, and more.
Businesses still not ready for new DMARC rules
Despite them being widely publicized, Google and Yahoo's new email rules still risk catching out many businesses.
New research from EasyDMARC finds that, despite the email providers warning customers that failure to implement the DMARC security standard could lead to diminishing email deliverability, only 37 percent of IT decision-makers have rolled out the security measure.
Half of consumers experience AI bias
Although 75 percent of people think chatbots are getting better at managing toxic or inaccurate responses, 50 percent have still experienced bias and 38 percent have seen inaccuracies, according to a new report.
The survey of over 6,300 global consumers, software developers and digital quality testing professionals, carried out for testing and digital quality company Applause, finds 91 percent of respondents have used chatbots to conduct research, and 33 percent of those use them for research daily.
More than 17 billion records compromised in 2023
Last year saw a 34.5 percent year-on-year increase in reported data breach incidents, with over 17 billion records compromised according to a new report from Flashpoint.
This trend looks set to continue as the first two months of 2024 alone saw a massive 429 percent spike in stolen or leaked personal data compared to the same period in the previous year.
More than half of organizations fall victim to cyberattacks
The latest Cybersecurity Readiness Index from Cisco shows that 53 percent of the respondents report falling victim to a cyber incident this past year, and many leaders (73 percent) believe that they will be a victim of a cybersecurity incident in the next 12-24 months.
The report shows that the level of readiness is down on a year ago too. Only three percent of organizations around the globe have a mature enough security posture to protect against today’s threats (down 12 percent compared to last year).
Enterprise cybersecurity's lateral movement 'blind spot' [Q&A]
A lot of time, attention, and investment is spent on creating strong perimeters and endpoint defenses to prevent malicious actors from gaining access to corporate networks.
While this is important, organizations also need a network security strategy -- because if attackers do infiltrate a network, the race is on to uncover the malicious activity and quickly resolve the incident.
Generation Z is becoming generation fraud
Members of generation Z -- those born in the mid to late 1990s -- are more susceptible to fraud than other age groups and are also committing it at a higher rate.
The latest Digital Trust and Safety Index, released today by Sift, shows that 33 percent of Gen Z survey respondents know someone who has, or have personally, participated in payment fraud, compared to only 10 percent of Baby Boomers.
61 percent of breaches involve infostealer malware
A rise in identity-based attacks can be laid at the door of a rapid increase in malware, according to a new report. Analysis by SpyCloud finds that 61 percent of data breaches in 2023, involving over 343 million stolen credentials, were infostealer malware-related.
Researchers also report that the average identity had a one in five chance of already being the victim of an infostealer infection. Infostealer malware enables criminals to collect vast amounts of information about the user and the device, including a user's session cookies, API keys and webhooks, crypto wallet addresses, and more.
Syncing of cloud passwords opens businesses to cyberattacks
A new report reveals that 67 percent of businesses routinely synchronize most of their users’ passwords from their on-premises directories to their cloud counterparts. This poses substantial security risks by creating a gateway for attackers to hack these environments from on-prem settings.
The report from Silverfort shows that in the rush to the cloud security gaps stemming from legacy infrastructure, misconfigurations, and insecure built-in features create pathways for attackers to access the cloud, significantly weakening a company's resilience to identity threats.
IT leaders struggle to keep up with emerging threats
A new report shows that 95 percent of IT leaders say that cyberattacks are more sophisticated than ever and they are unprepared for this new wave of threat vectors.
The survey, of more than 800 IT and security leaders around the world, from Keeper Security reveals that firms are witnessing AI-powered attacks (51 percent), deepfake technology and supply chain attacks (both 36 percent), cloud jacking (35 percent), Internet of Things (IoT) attacks and 5G network exploits (both 34 percent), and fileless attacks (24 percent).
Preparing for a post-quantum security landscape [Q&A]
As widely available quantum computing draws closer, organizations need to consider the extent to which their supply chain presents risks and start building in post quantum readiness to their risk assessments.
To do this, it's critical for businesses to understand the origin and authenticity of all the components that are in the supply chain (both hardware and software). This is especially true for IoT devices, which rely on systems and subsystems created by multiple partners and vendors bringing their solutions together to make a fully functioning connected product/system.
Which comes first? The pentest or the bug bounty program? [Q&A]
Bug bounty and penetration testing programs are often grouped as interchangeable, but they perform distinct functions.
To determine whether both deserve a place within a cybersecurity strategy, it is important to understand their specific qualities and how they have matured over recent years. We spoke to Chris Campbell, lead solutions engineer at HackerOne, to learn more.
Microsoft means business with new Surface devices
Whilst Microsoft's Surface devices have been around for a few years and have many features that make them attractive for business users, there's never been a version aimed specifically at businesses… Until now.
With the launch of Surface Pro 10 for Business and Surface Laptop 6 for Business the company is targeting the business market with features including improved performance and battery life, more ports, better security and custom, durable anti-reflective displays.
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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