EU urged to prepare for quantum cyberattacks with coordinated action plan
The narrow focus at the EU level on how to mitigate short-term quantum
cybersecurity challenges, especially harvest attacks and quantum attacks on
encryption, leaves member states as the frontline actors in the quantum
transition, Rodr?guez said. "As of 2023, only a few EU countries have made
public plans to counter emerging quantum cybersecurity threats, and fewer have
put in place strategies to mitigate them, as in the case of Germany." As quantum
computers develop, European action will be needed to prevent cybersecurity
loopholes that can be used as attack vectors and ensure that all member states
are equally resilient to quantum cyberattacks. "A Coordinated Action Plan on the
quantum transition is urgently needed that outlines clear goals and timeframes
and monitors the implementation of national migration plans to postquantum
encryption," Rodr?guez claimed. Such a plan would bridge the gap between the
far-looking objective of establishing a fully operational European Quantum
Communication Infrastructure (EuroQCI) network and the current needs of the
European cybersecurity landscape to respond to short-term quantum cybersecurity
threats.
What the CIO role will look like in 2026
“The CIO role in 2026 will be about influencing, leading, and governing, as
opposed to technology selector, integrator, configurator, and customizer. And
CIOs who are not on top of this before 2026 will find themselves having to
catch-up,” says Joseph Bruhin, CIO of Breakthru Beverage Group. In other
words, CIOs three years out will be even farther away from the technical chief
of yesteryear and closer to corporate strategist. “With every company being
digital, CIOs will take on the role of the architect of the company, not just
the architect of digital,” says Vipin Gupta, former chief information, strategy
and digital officer at Toyota Financial Services International and the 2021 MIT
Sloan CIO Leadership Award Winner. IT leaders describe the CIO of 2026 and
beyond as an “influencer,” “strategic thinker,” and “eloquence communicator and
leader.” They say the CIO will need to be flexible, innovative, and nimble. And
they stress the need for CIOs to be even more visionary than they are today,
because they’ll have a lead role in shaping the organization’s future, not just
support it.
Breach Roundup: IT Worker Sentenced for Impersonation
Assigned to the investigation, Liles, an IT staff member at Oxford Biomedica,
decided to manipulate the situation for personal gain. Instead of directing the
ransom payment to the genuine hackers, he secretly altered the original ransom
demand. Using the email account of an Oxford Biomedica board member, Liles
redirected the funds to a bitcoin wallet under his control. Consequently, if the
company chose to pay the ransom, the money would end up in Liles' hands rather
than with the actual attackers. Liles also created an email address
strikingly similar to that of the original hacker and began pressuring the
employer to pay a 300,000-pound ransom. Specialists from the South East Regional
Organized Crime Unit's Cyber Crime Unit became suspicious during their
investigation. They identified unauthorized access to the board member's email
and traced it back to Liles' home address. The charges brought against
Liles included blackmail and unauthorized access to a computer with intent to
commit other offenses. The court's decision is a reminder of the severe
consequences that individuals who exploit their positions for personal gain may
face.
Quantum Leaps: Interest and Investment in Quantum Computing
The era of quantum computing has only just begun. The pace of
innovation in this nascent, emerging space is simply remarkable, experts say,
especially as companies and governments around the world increase both their
interest and investment in the technology. While the people working in QC
(quantum computing) believe it will transform the future of computing, no one
knows for sure exactly how or when, because there is simply not enough known
about what today’s quantum computers can actually do. And despite its promise,
quantum currently has limited applications, and only a handful of these
applications are moving past research into real-life scenarios. However, with
all the investment and startup activity in the quantum space, it’s safe to
assume that it will reshape computing, and it may do so sooner than
expected. Alan Baratz, CEO of D-Wave, points to a study from
Hyperion Research, which found that more than 80% of responding companies plan
to increase quantum commitments in the next 2-3 years, and one-third of those
companies say they will spend more than $15 million annually on quantum
computing efforts.
The biggest barrier to AI productivity is people
Most people already struggle to find the information they need, which is what
led to Google’s massive search business. Within the enterprise, Roth says,
roughly one-third of respondents to the 2022 Gartner Digital Worker Survey
reported that they frequently struggle to find the information they need to do
their jobs well. Perhaps worse, 22% have missed important updates because of the
sheer volume of applications and information thrown at them. This is the state
of workers in the pre-GenAI world. “Now throw in more content being
produced at a quicker pace,” Roth says, “Emails that used to be short and to the
point may now be inflated to full, polite corporatespeak by the AI.” A bad
problem becomes dramatically worse as more people create more content of
middling quality, trusting the AI to get the facts correct. And it often won’t;
things like ChatGPT aren’t interested in truth—that’s not what they’re for or
how they’re engineered. The solution to this machine-generated problem is
to reinsert people into the mix. People are still needed to fact-check and do
quality control.
Unconventional Recruiting Methods That Can Help Fill The Tech Talent Gap
Partnering with local schools and nonprofit organizations can help build talent
pipelines. Providing learning opportunities for students of all ages—from
elementary school through college—by exposing them to various technology
disciplines can generate interest and encourage them to consider professions in
the field. Teaching and mentoring the next generation are crucial for employers
who want to grow future talent pools organically. Speaking at schools and
nonprofit organizations allows you to meet and handpick potential employees
rather than simply waiting for responses to job postings. ... Another solution
for expanding talent pools is creating entry-level “bench” or “evergreen”
positions that allow individuals to expand their strengths and work experience
by rotating through different IT disciplines. The positions are general and
designed to get talented individuals into an organization with the idea that
they’ll move into more permanent roles as the right fits become available.
Panic about overhyped AI risk could lead to the wrong kind of regulation
:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72422275/GettyImages_1255249339.0.jpg)
The demand for AI stories has created a perfect storm for misinformation, as
self-styled experts peddle exaggerations and fabrications that perpetuate sloppy
thinking and flawed metaphors. Tabloid-style reporting on AI only serves to fan
the flames of hysteria further. These types of common exaggerations ultimately
detract from effective policymaking aimed at addressing both immediate risks and
potential catastrophic threats posed by certain AI technologies. For instance,
one of us was able to trick ChatGPT into giving precise instructions on how to
build explosives made out of fertilizer and diesel fuel, as well as how to adapt
that combination into a dirty bomb using radiological materials. If machine
learning were merely an academic curiosity, we could shrug this off. But as its
potential applications extend into government, education, medicine, and national
defense, it’s vital that we all push back against hype-driven narratives and put
our weight behind sober scrutiny.
Want to make cybersecurity much stronger? Become a mentor
Those who have been around the world of cybersecurity for a while have long
realized the importance of the chief information security officer's (CISO) role
in leading teams charged with maintaining the security of corporate data and
much, much more. But both freshly minted and veteran CISOs can sometimes feel
they're stranded on a desert island for several reasons. They may be new to the
role and acclimating to the responsibility and, of course, the accountability
they are now shouldering. Others may find themselves having to rapidly garner
knowledge and perspective when a situation about which they lack familiarity
lands on their plate. This is where mentors and mentorship can be invaluable.
So, I set out to determine what that looks like today and how accessible CISOs
are to one another. ... "Mentorship in the cybersecurity field is an invaluable
tool in both an individual's and an organization's maturity. CISOs who have been
through the wringer have considerable wisdom to share about everything from
ransomware remediation to dealing with recalcitrant CFOs," shared Craig Burland,
CISO of Inversion6.
Tales from Production: How Real-World Coders Are Using AI
Some programmers on Hacker News were using AI tools for debugging — and even
“rubber duck” debugging, where describing a code’s function (and its bugs)
sometimes produces crucial insights into problems. “I’ve found rubber duck
debugging to be an exceptionally effective use case for ChatGPT,” one developer
posted. “Often it will surprise me by pinpointing the solution outright, but
I’ll always be making progress by clarifying my own thinking.” But just how good
is AI at debugging its own code? One commenter complained that at the end of the
day, “Sometimes it’d give completely wrong answers. It’s just not code I’d
commit or let pass a code review.” Another doubted AI’s ability to fix those
bugs. “They can approximate the syntax of things in their training corpus, but
logic? The lights are off and nobody’s home.” But another commenter believes in
AI’s potential. “I’ve already had the GPT3.5-Turbo model walkthrough and
step-by-step isolate and diagnose errors. They 100% can troubleshoot and correct
issues in the code..."
DevOps and Cloud InfoQ Trends Report – July 2023
In the accompanying cloud and DevOps trends podcast discussion, the participants
address the state of cloud innovation and DevOps. They agree that cloud
innovation has slowed down, moving from "revolution" to "evolution". While large
numbers of organizations have adopted cloud technologies, there are many
enterprises that want to migrate and re-architect workloads. As for DevOps, it
is still alive but has reached a stage of stagnancy in some organizations. The
concept of DevOps, which aims to provide access and autonomy to create business
value, is still alive, but the implementation has faced challenges. The
panelists mentioned their interest in Value Stream management to unlock DevOps’s
flow and value realization. The public cloud vendors have evolved from their
original goal of providing on-demand access to scalable resources to focus more
on offering managed services. This evolution has made cloud computing more
ubiquitous. However, technology is changing rapidly around existing services,
new business requirements are being discovered, and new challenges are
emerging.
Quote for the day:
"Leadership is a journey, not a
destination. It is a marathon, not a sprint. It is a process, not an outcome.
" -- John Donahoe
No comments:
Post a Comment