Daily Tech Digest - September 20, 2017

Cybercriminals Are Using Big Name Apps To Target Unwitting Consumers

When the victim runs an app that the malware is able to simulate (a banking app, for example), it overlays this with its own fake window to steal the bank card details of the victim. The Trojan has an identical interface, with the same colour schemes and logos, which creates an instant and completely invisible overlay. So victims of the scam may not even realise that they’ve been infected. The Trojan also steals all incoming SMS messages and sends them to the cybercriminals’ Command-and-Control servers, allowing them to get access to the one-time passcodes sent by some banks to verify online banking transactions, or other messages sent by taxi and ride-sharing services. Faketoken can also monitor the victim’s calls, record them, and transmit the data to the cybercriminals’ servers.


Blockchain technology could be even more disruptive than Amazon was 2 decades ago

The highly-respected JPMorgan Chase CEO was asked last week at a global financial services conference in New York to share his thoughts on bitcoin—which can be as polarizing as President Trump. Some people love the cryptocurrency, some people hate it. bAlthough he likes blockchain technology, which bitcoin is built on top of, he began by saying he would fire any JPMorgan trader who was caught trading bitcoin, which he went on to call “stupid,” “dangerous” and “a fraud.” Dimon, who’s decidedly in the latter camp, didn’t mince his words. “You can’t have a business where people can invent a currency out of thin air,” he said. With all due respect to Dimon, some might point out that “inventing a currency out of thin air” is how we got Federal Reserve Notes and other forms of paper money in the first place. Even he admits this:


Cloud Adoption Hindered by Legacy Network Architecture

“The survey revealed an incredible level of agreement by decision makers that their network infrastructures must change in order to have a successful cloud strategy and their pace of implementing next generation networking impacts their ability to realize the full benefits of digital transformation,” survey authors stated. Ninety percent of respondents agreed that legacy network infrastructure cannot keep up with the demands of modern network infrastructure. More healthcare organizations are considering and deploying cloud-based solutions for their infrastructure and many are met with networking roadblocks that can’t be resolved without upgrading the network. Adopting a cloud solution requires organizations to migrate data from their legacy solution.


The 5 Most Exciting University AI Projects

Artificial Intelligence is one of the most exciting fields of growing technology. There are incredible advancements in AI happening on a regular basis. Many of the top universities around the world are involving themselves in some very interesting and exciting AI projects. These projects cover a pretty wide range of subjects and objectives, but they all aim to make very interesting and exciting advancements in the field of artificial intelligence. Universities ranging from the University of Washington to Carnegie Mellon to Harvard and Oxford are putting their best and brightest minds towards some very intriguing AI projects. There are a great deal of exciting and interesting artificial intelligence projects happening at universities all over the world, and these are the 5 most exciting projects.


79% of AI leaders expect employees to work comfortably with robots by 2020

The top three barriers to AI adoption in the enterprise are information security concerns, lack of clarity about where to apply AI most effectively, and siloes within the organization, especially between IT and other areas, the report stated. Genpact found that AI leaders take several steps to foster a culture that embraces the technology that laggards do not. For example, 71% of leaders allocate resources and funding toward AI-related technologies, compared to just 9% of laggards. More than half of leaders allow a training and development culture to learn new skills, compared to 15% of laggards. And nearly 60% of leaders report that their middle managers "think out of the box" and encourage innovation, while only 14% of laggards said the same.


Only 3% of Companies’ Data Meets Basic Quality Standards

We often ask managers (both in these classes and in consulting engagements) how good their data needs to be. While a fine-grained answer depends on their uses of the data, how much an error costs them, and other company- and department-specific considerations, none has ever thought a score less than the “high nineties” acceptable. Less than 3% in our sample meet this standard. For the vast majority, the problem is severe. ... The cost of these findings is difficult to predict with much precision. Still, most find a good first approximation in the “rule of ten,” which states that “it costs ten times as much to complete a unit of work when the data are flawed in any way as it does when they are perfect.” For instance, suppose you have 100 things to do and each costs a $1 when the data are perfect.


Why Dropbox decided to drop AWS and build its own infrastructure and network

Williams says for Dropbox, building the network was a business decision and it has had a positive impact on the business overall. “I think it could be argued in fact that anyone who has built a decent-sized network like this has had some effect on the business in a positive way that is actually building trust for the user and getting more users to adopt the product or service based on the quality of the service” Williams explained. The new system has certainly had a positive impact on Dropbox’s reputation with enterprise IT too. Back in the day, Dropbox often had a bad rep with IT because of unauthorized usage inside large organizations. Today, the Dropbox Business line of products combined with this in-house infrastructure and network has created a level of trust they didn’t have before.


Three Things about Networks That Every CIO Should Have on their Agenda

Within the next five to ten years, business will be transformed by digital technology, on a much larger scale than seemingly possible at first glance. Everything will be part of a globally-interconnected IT infrastructure, the Internet of Things (IoT). The IoT provides a flood of sensory data to big data analytics and allows for real-time (or near real-time) interactivity. Whatever industry, the IT network will become the foundation of every business. For example, car manufacturers are preparing for a future when cars are not simply hardware that takes us from A to B, but interconnected software platforms that provide an individualized user experience to drivers. Forklift manufacturers will provide forklifts as a service with cloud-based management and fault monitoring. The list goes on and on.


Onboarding For The Digital Workplace: Get Employees To Productivity Faster

A key theme we focus on when working with clients is clarifying what business value they will derive from their efforts. One way to do that is to create use cases for different Digital Workplace scenarios. This is so critical that it led us to develop use case catalogs with two recent clients. Each use case highlights a business scenario or process, its business outcomes, steps to achieve it, and the related success story. This has become an important tool for socializing digital working across the organization, and is sometimes even a roadmap for a new team to follow until their own unique use cases become clear. The success of this approach got me thinking that it would be helpful to share a use case example so that anyone who’s looking to better understand the Digital Workplace can see the power behind it.


How the Financial Sector is Preparing for its AI-led Future

Not only is there no going back on AI, there’s a very clear imperative to go fast-forward. In less than a decade, a whole new Generation Z will join the Millennials as the most important customers of banks. These customers, beyond tech-savvy, will be tech-innate, juggling 5 screens at a time, communicating with images, and shunning text and touch interfaces in favor of the instantaneity of voice-based commands. Understanding and serving their needs will require more than the average human ability. It will require man and machine to work together more symbiotically so people can then prepare for roles and jobs that don’t yet exist – like product predictors, customer-trend readers, maybe even managers of digital currency portfolios. The possibilities are only just beginning to emerge.



Quote for the day:


"My failures have been errors in judgment, not of intent." -- Ulysses S. Grant


No comments:

Post a Comment