BetaNews Staff

Dissecting the latest DNS-based attack trends -- What we're seeing and how to get ahead

DNS

As the foundational component of the internet, DNS has been around for over 40 years and yet, it remains a major vector for bad actors even today. You might think that DNS wouldn’t be such a big security concern today given how much time we’ve had to come up with a better way to secure it, but lo and behold, it’s still at least partially responsible for a large percentage of cyber-attacks.

DNS-based attacks can include everything from malware to phishing, to domain theft and DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks, among others. And these can have major consequences for the organizations hit by them. While there are countless examples, some of the most recent and well-publicized ones have included takedowns of ChatGPT and Google Cloud, though almost every bit of modern malware leverages DNS in some way.

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How a curious, learning-oriented culture promotes innovation

Office staff

Technology companies are experiencing tremendous challenges on several fronts. On the one hand, emerging technologies like Generative AI (Gen AI) are opening up new possibilities for revenue and growth. On the other, a tight labor market in general and an even tighter IT labor market means companies can’t just “buy” talent -- they’ve got to “build” it as well.

Encouraging creativity can reap significant rewards for businesses. People can think more deeply and freely about problem-solving and develop creative solutions by sparking curiosity. Research has shown that greater creativity can result in fewer decision-making errors, more innovation, reduced group conflict, more open communication and sharing of information, and better team performance.

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Harnessing generative AI to create a new breed of supercharged lawyers and law firms

Traditionally the legal sector has lagged behind other industries when it comes to embracing new technologies. However, generative AI is proving to be the exception to the rule. Its potential to transform the profession, driving lawyers and firms to unlock new levels of productivity and efficiency, is too great to be ignored.

Growing numbers of law firms are putting their money where their mouths are, with global spending on legal AI software tools at already over $1 billion and projected to increase by almost 20 percent (CAGR) every year across the rest of the decade, reaching an estimated $37bn by the end of 2024. There’s a huge societal and industry shift underway; lawyers and law firms must act now, or risk being left behind.

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Priorities for data center OT security in the cloud era

The decentralized nature of the cloud provides great flexibility for users, but it also introduces great vulnerabilities for data center operators. As an abundant source of valuable data, the modern data center has become a prime target for cybercriminals, from small business facilities to the huge hyperscale colocation data centers run by Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.

Protecting these interconnected facilities and the hardware and software systems that they physically host provides a perpetual job for security teams. But it’s important to recognize the clear distinction between securing information technology (IT) inside a data center facility, versus securing the operational technology (OT), or what’s called “cyber-physical systems” needed to run the facility itself. IT and OT involve two complementary but distinct categories of security and risk.

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Cyber security and artificial intelligence -- business value and risk

Artificial Intelligence Bias

In the current era of digitalization, cybersecurity has become a topmost priority for businesses, regardless of their size and nature. With the growing dependence on digital infrastructure and data, safeguarding against cyber threats has become crucial to ensure uninterrupted business operations. However, the evolving nature of cyberattacks poses significant challenges for traditional security measures.

This is where Artificial Intelligence (AI) emerges as a game-changer, offering substantial benefits and inherent risks in cybersecurity.

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Balancing the rewards and risks of AI tools

AI’s promise of time and money saved has captivated employees and business leaders alike. But the real question is… is it too good to be true? As enticing as these rewards may be, the risks of this new technology must also be seriously considered.

Balancing the risks and rewards of AI is causing pause for many organizations as they grapple with the right way to adopt AI. Every deployment in every organization is going to look different -- meaning that the balance of risk and reward is also going to look different depending on the scenario. Here, we’ll talk through the promised rewards and the potential pitfalls of adopting generative AI technologies, as well as some guiding questions to help determine if it’s the right move for your business.

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Navigating the surge of digital nomadism

Digital nomads are location-independent professionals who leverage technology to perform their jobs remotely while travelling the globe. What was once a niche lifestyle has now transformed into a formidable movement, with estimates suggesting that the digital nomad population increased by 131 percent between 2019 and 2022.

Today, 16 percent of companies globally permit their employees to work entirely remotely, a testament to the profound impact of this paradigm shift. Consequently, it is estimated that at least 40 million individuals across the world now identify as digital nomads, a figure that is poised to soar in the coming years.

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The crypto nexus: The next compliance challenge

Cryptocurrency coins

Cryptocurrency has been increasingly professionalized in recent years, offering millions of transactions to a global base of everyday users. However, this trend of mainstream investment has happened in tandem with recent high-profile prosecutions of former crypto leaders.

The decentralized nature of cryptocurrency still presents opportunities for bad actors to exploit, particularly for laundering money. Approximately $72 billion a year of illicit transactions is being paid for with crypto, a large portion of which is cleaning dirty money, according to a recent Europol report.

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How RAG completes the generative AI puzzle

Generative AI entered the global consciousness with a bang at the close of 2022 (cue: ChatGPT), but making it work in the enterprise has amounted to little more than a series of stumbles. Shadow AI use in the enterprise is sky high as employees are making day-to-day task companions out of AI chat tools. But for the knowledge-intensive workflows that are core to an organization’s mission, generative AI has yet to deliver on its lofty promise to transform the way we work.

Don’t bet on this trough of disillusionment to last very long, however. A process called retrieval augmented generation (RAG) is unlocking the kinds of enterprise generative AI use cases that previously were not viable. Companies such as Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, OpenAI and a number of AI startups have been aggressively rolling out enterprise-focused RAG-based solutions.

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Walking the AI tightrope in IAM: finding the right balance for your organization

Identity and access management (IAM) is the foundation for control and productivity in today’s digital business environments. Ensuring the right people have the right level of access to the resources they need whenever they need them -- and that the wrong people don’t -- is a core responsibility for administrators and security teams. In a typical hybrid, distributed, multi-cloud environment, with thousands of identities to manage dynamically as the business evolves, the scale of the challenge is considerable. Enter Artificial Intelligence (AI), the seductive solution to all large-scale data-intensive challenges. AI has enormous potential for streamlining the many workloads associated with IAM and lifting the burden on stretched administrative and security teams.

We are undoubtedly experiencing an AI gold rush, but there are tensions in this brave new world. Our recent SME IT Trends report reflects this reality; while 87 percent of UK IT administrator respondents plan to implement AI initiatives in the next two years and 70 percent believe that their organization should be investing in AI, a significant minority (15 percent) say their organization is moving too fast on AI. They are in conflict with the 22 percent who think their business is moving too slowly. That amounts to well over a third of SME IT administrators who are uncomfortable with their company’s AI adoption rate.

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Google Rankings dropped after Google's core update: What should you do?

The goal of Google Search's Core Updates is to enhance user experience and optimize its algorithms; nonetheless, many sites may face major changes in search ranks as a result. Any website owner must be aware of these adjustments as they have a direct impact on their capacity to preserve or improve their search engine rankings. Today, we'll explore the reasons for these rankings dropping, how to identify the changes, and practical actions you can take in this situation.

A Google Core Update refers to broad changes made to the overall ranking algorithms and systems that affect how websites are evaluated and ranked in search results. These updates aim to enhance the quality of search results by better assessing page content and its relevance to user queries. While Google continuously updates its algorithms, core updates are less frequent and more impactful, typically announced publicly by Google due to their significant effects on the search landscape.

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Avoid a migration mess -- top tips for cloud migration

Storage

Cloud adoption is increasing at a rapid rate across all industries, and for good reason. It has been proven as a business enabler, and it presents many advantages over traditional architecture. Hardware starts to age, data center operations are costly, and IT personnel spend more time managing old infrastructure than advancing the business. Migrating existing workloads to the cloud can help address all these issues.

However, IT architecture can be extremely complicated, even for professionals with many years of experience, and even though the cloud has been around for over 20 years, cloud migration challenges continue to be a source of anxiety for organizations wishing to take advantage of everything cloud computing can offer. So, what are some of the points to bear in mind when planning and executing a cloud migration strategy?

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When it comes to identity governance, how do you know what’s best for your business? Weighing the pros and cons of best-in-breed vs. platform

When it comes to identity management security tools today, there are two main camps: best-of-breed and platform. When choosing between best-of-breed solutions and integrated platform solutions it's important to weigh their respective advantages and disadvantages. In order to perform a thorough analysis, it’s recommended to have a firm grasp of your organization’s objectives, maturity, priorities and capabilities -- for example, whether your organization can effectively manage multiple vendors, or whether your organization would benefit from a platform approach that may be too broad for your complex needs.

You could think of it in terms of buying a car. Having a high-end car may seem attractive, but it comes with additional challenges and responsibilities. You can only choose what's best for your organization once you've taken a realistic and accurate look at your organization, its skills and its needs.

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A practical solution to the AI challenge: Why it matters that the AI Safety Institute has embraced open source

To be a world leader in AI, the UK must leverage its position as Europe’s number one in open source software. As the PM said on Friday, open source “creates start-ups” and “communities”. The UK’s open source community has flourished under the UK tech sector radar in recent years. OpenUK’s 2023 report showed 27 percent of UK Tech Sector Gross Value Add was attributable to the business of open source from the UK.

On the back of the AI Safety Summit last November, the UK has not taken the European Union’s route to a legislative solution. We will soon see the outcome of the EU’s gamble in being the first in the world to legislate. The very prescriptive legislation will likely be out of date before it is in use and this may engender regulatory capture in AI innovation in the EU. Few beyond big tech will be able to manage the compliance program necessary to meet the regulation. The risk is obvious and real.

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The key technologies fueling chatbot evolution

Most of us are familiar with chatbots on customer service portals, government departments, and through services like Google Bard and OpenAI. They are convenient, easy to use, and always available, leading to their growing use for a diverse range of applications across the web.

Unfortunately, most current chatbots are limited due to their reliance on static training data. Data outputted by these systems can be obsolete, limiting our ability to gain real-time information for our queries. They also struggle with contextual understanding, inaccuracies, handling complex queries, and limited adaptability to our evolving needs.

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