Six ways your government agency can establish a safer agile ecosystem
Part 2: An organization’s agility is synonymous with its resilience in the face of change. Agility allows enterprises to face industry-spanning challenges without experiencing catastrophic disruption in their operations, and agile software development makes this concept a reality. Beyond that, it ensures organizations can service external and internal stakeholders rapidly and reliably -- and for government agencies, it ensures continuity of mission services.
But in agile organizations, there are unique security risks -- outlined in part one of this series -- such as compromising security processes in the name of speed and differing security practices across cross-functional teams. To safeguard these projects, professionals must create a cybersecurity architecture as unique as the agile environments they’re protecting.
What's the best option for businesses -- open-source or commercial AI services?
In the past year, Generative AI (GenAI) availability for businesses has swept the market, offering significant boosts in productivity. To successfully seize this opportunity, however, businesses will need to ensure they invest in the right solutions.
Faced with options like commercial AI services and customizable open-source Large Language Models (LLMs), business leaders must navigate a complex landscape of risks and benefits. This choice, influenced by factors like speed to market and data security, is crucial for companies looking to strategically invest in GenAI.
AI's challenge to internet freedom
In October 2020, observing International Internet Day, I spoke about the threats to Internet freedom. A lot has happened in less than four years, and a lot has changed. But the threats did not go away. On the contrary, Internet users and their freedoms are in more danger now than ever.
In February 2024, as we observe Safer Internet Day, it is necessary to reiterate that there is no safety without freedom, online or offline. Especially as the enemies of both are now equipped with the most powerful tool for cyber oppression yet -- Artificial Intelligence (AI).
4 types of outages to avoid in 2024 (with cautionary tales from 2023)
Throughout 2023, the tech world witnessed several high-profile outages. Collectively, these incidents cost millions of dollars, and affected tens of millions of end users. Luckily, these negative impacts were not all in vain -- outages like these serve as cautionary tales for organizations as they face the ongoing challenge of maintaining seamless operations in increasingly complex, interdependent environments.
Reflecting on these incidents helps us see how we can safeguard against similar disruptions happening in the future. In this article, we’ll delve into four major types of outages, with lessons to help companies enhance their resilience in 2024 and beyond.
From complexity to clarity: Managing IT landscapes in a hybrid cloud world
IT plays a key role in achieving sustained business success against a backdrop of constantly changing industry and economic challenges. Today’s IT systems not only underpin business operations but enable the projects and initiatives that deliver on every aspect of a company’s business strategy.
Over the last five years, there has been a significant transformation in the business systems and IT landscapes that IT teams are required to manage. The COVID 19 pandemic played a large role in this shift, with businesses having to rapidly incorporate new capabilities to facilitate remote work and maintain daily operations. Over time, these ‘temporary solutions’, plus others that have been implemented since, have become embedded in many organizations.
CIOs: Don't let the cost of cloud migration hold you back
In 2024, one fact is clear: The cloud aids business success. Cloud migration isn't just an operational upgrade but a highly strategic financial strategy capable of unlocking up to $1 trillion in business value. Cloud benefits extend from reduced operating costs -- including infrastructure, labor and energy expenses -- to enhanced scalability and operational efficiency.
Most organizations have caught on to these benefits. Today, more than half of all corporate data exists in the cloud, up from 30 percent in 2015. This dramatic shift illustrates the cloud's crucial role in modern data management and sets the stage for a long-overdue discussion of the cloud's financial implications.
The Deep Tech revolution -- Part 4: Tutorials and demos
How do you explain something completely disruptive and possibly complex to someone? How do you make them understand that this new paradigm or groundbreaking technology that they have never heard of is going to be a game changer for them or their company? That's often something difficult to communicate, especially for Deep Tech companies looking to disrupt entire industries with their work. Introducing new and improved ways of doing something people have grown familiar with, might be even harder to achieve if you have to change people's beliefs and long established habits.
Technology lives on continuous development and innovation, but sometimes announcing big changes to the public, even the core technical audience one would expect with Deep Tech companies, requires an ‘educational’ approach. That's easy to say, much harder to achieve.
The way AI is enhancing online security
In an era marked by the relentless expansion of digital connectivity, the assurance of robust online security stands as a critical imperative. Cyber threats, characterized by their growing sophistication and frequency, demand innovative solutions to safeguard sensitive data and preserve privacy.
Among these solutions, artificial intelligence emerges as a transformative force reshaping the landscape of online security. This article delves into the many ways in which AI is revolutionizing online security protocols, from proactive threat detection to dynamic risk assessment and adaptive response strategies.
Safeguards for using Artificial Intelligence in election administration
Election administration is an essential component of the democratic process, but is also very challenging. The number of voters involved, which can climb into the tens of millions, requires the use of systems that have been fine-tuned for maximum efficiency. Managing the complexity of those systems, which are often spread out over vast geographical areas, is daunting, especially considering the task often relies on a volunteer staff with high turnover rates. Looming over the entire enterprise is the requirement for unquestionable accuracy and crystal-clear transparency.
Artificial intelligence, which thrives at optimizing systems for maximum efficiency and accuracy, has the potential to provide valuable support for election administration. Leveraging it for that purpose, however, also requires that strong safeguards be put in place.
Quantum computing: The data security conundrum
One of the biggest challenges of digital technology today is around security systems and data. In response to this, sophisticated algorithms have been designed to encrypt data and protect it through frameworks known as symmetric cryptography. While this has proven successful, advancements in quantum computing -- which utilizes quantum mechanics to solve complex problems faster than conventional computers -- could potentially turn data security on its head.
IBM, Microsoft and Google have already turned their attention to quantum computing and, as a result, commercially viable quantum computers are not too far from becoming a reality. In fact the global quantum computing market size in terms of revenue was estimated to be USD 866 Million in 2023 and is poised to reach USD 4,375 Million by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 38.3 percent from 2023 to 2028. This is raising concerns that these computers might pose a threat to current public-key cryptography algorithms and potentially expose sensitive data. As such, data security needs to be a step ahead, with more advanced cryptographic algorithms that minimise potential risks and ensure the safeguarding of data in a quantum computing world.
Four reasons your agency's security infrastructure isn't agile enough
Part 1. In an ever-changing world, today’s organizations must have the technology in place to evolve along with it. In the government, agencies need to remain adaptive to achieve their missions in the face of policy changes, geopolitical conflict, and private sector advancements.
For years, enterprise teams have implemented agile software development methodologies to improve their ability to service their users rapidly and reliably; government agencies must follow suit. However, for organizations using or considering agile software development methodologies -- private or public sector -- the security architecture that protects their assets must be equally adaptable.
The EU Cyber-Resilience Act's approach to open source must be reconsidered
The draft EU Cyber-Resilience Act (CRA), backed by MEPs in July, is intended to reduce the risk of European citizens experiencing data breaches and malicious attacks on their devices. The CRA aims to achieve this by mandating security best practices across Europe’s tech industry. As part of this, it will enforce minimum security standards for end-user tech products sold across the EU, such as IoT devices, desktop computers, and smartphones.
To realise its goals, the CRA also needs to apply these standards to the software and hardware that make up the supply chains behind end-user products. However, along with commercial solutions within the software supply chain, the CRA is looking to apply these strict security standards to non-commercial open source projects and communities. This could place tens of thousands of volunteers at risk of legal action and do significant harm to the continent’s tech sector. The legislators behind the CRA need to urgently revisit how they treat open source software.
Who will protect us from AI-generated disinformation?
Generative AI has gone from zero to a hundred in under a year. While early, it’s shown its potential to transform business. That we can all agree on. Where we diverge is on how to contain the dangers it poses. To be clear, I am pro innovation, and far from a fearmonger. But the recent uptick in misinformation -- largely aimed at polarization around controversial issues of the moment -- has made it clear that, if left unchecked, gen AI could wreak havoc on societies.
We’ve seen this movie before with social media, but it took years and hard lessons for us to wake up to its flaws. We’ve (presumably) learned something. The question today is who will help stem the tide of reality distortion from gen AI, and how?
Enterprise search through terabytes: Why your findings will surprise you
You know that game where kids dive to the bottom of a pool to pick up toys? It is hard to see what the toys are when they are sitting there on the floor of the pool. It’s only when the kids fish them out of the water that it becomes clear what each toy really is.
It’s the same thing with data. It’s not humanly possible to read through terabytes of text in a few sittings. But let’s say you try. You can retrieve email after email in an email reader, "Office" file after "Office" file in each’s native application, and still miss something that enterprise search can reveal.
Amplify your audio data management capabilities
Make no mistake, the world of work is experiencing a boom in audio content. In addition to the widespread use of workplace video and audio conferencing and collaboration tools, the volume and range of audio assets that organizations now generate and distribute is expanding. As a consequence, audio is playing an increasingly central role in the business communications mix.
Today’s IT professionals now need to manage an expanding array of audio content; everything from corporate podcasts to AI-driven customer training and sales interactions that are delivered via apps or the web. To harness and gain maximum value from this increasingly valuable resource, IT leaders will need to master every aspect of the art of efficient audio data management. By optimizing the organization and storage of audio data, they’ll not only be able to boost its accessibility and discovery so that teams can quickly leverage the assets they need. They will also be able to initiate streamlined workflows that enhance productivity and uncover and unlock the inherent value contained within audio data. Let’s take a look at just some of the ways IT leaders can reinvent their audio data management capabilities.
© 1998-2024 BetaNews, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy - Cookie Policy.