Showing posts with label data fabric. Show all posts
Showing posts with label data fabric. Show all posts

Daily Tech Digest - October 23, 2026

Quote for the Day
“A startup is not a smaller version of a large company.”
— Steve Blank
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Convergence of Cyber, Space and Electromagnetic Resilience

The article describes how critical infrastructure security is being reshaped by the convergence of cyber, space, and electromagnetic risks. It explains that satellites have evolved from simple communication tools into high‑value targets that carry mission‑critical enterprise data, making even short detection delays dangerous. The rapid growth of low‑cost launches and nanosatellites has crowded orbital paths, increasing collision risks and complicating tracking. At the same time, whoever controls the space‑layer communication channels gains a strategic advantage, especially when terrestrial links are disrupted. The piece argues that modern resilience requires a C5ISR‑style approach, where cybersecurity, space operations, and electromagnetic protection are treated as one integrated domain. This is because satellites, radio‑frequency systems, and digital networks are now tightly intertwined, and attacks often exploit the seams between them. Traditional ground‑based communication architectures are no longer sufficient for industries that operate across remote, maritime, or mobile environments. The article’s message is steady: resilience now depends on cross‑domain visibility, faster detection, and treating space assets as part of the enterprise security perimeter rather than a separate technical layer.

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Sovereignty vs. security: Microsoft’s Roger Halbheer says you’re asking the wrong question

In a recent interview, Roger Halbheer, Microsoft’s Customer Security Officer, argues that organizations fundamentally misunderstand digital sovereignty by treating it as a procurement issue rather than a security challenge. He notes that business leaders often demand complete independence from outside access, which is practically impossible, and end up simply buying a localized server location along with an assurance statement. Instead, Halbheer urges boards to make calculated risk decisions for each specific workload. He warns that moving operations entirely on-premises to achieve sovereignty drastically reduces the speed at which organizations can detect and respond to security threats, making them highly vulnerable in a landscape where attackers operate in mere hours. Maintaining such systems internally requires immense resources, money, and skilled personnel that most companies lack. Furthermore, he clarifies that merely storing data in Europe does not protect it from government access, as authorities in almost every jurisdiction have legal avenues to compel data providers. Ultimately, Halbheer stresses that a compromised system can never truly be sovereign, making robust security the ultimate foundation for data protection.

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Data Mesh vs. Data Fabric: Which Approach Is Right for Your Organization?

Data mesh and data fabric are distinct but complementary approaches to managing distributed enterprise data. Data mesh decentralizes data control, handing ownership directly to the business units that understand it best. By treating data as a product, it empowers individual teams to manage their own resources while adhering to shared, overarching rules. This model minimizes bottlenecks and speeds up independent decision-making but requires a shift in company culture to support decentralized ownership. Data fabric, on the other hand, creates a unified technology layer across an organization's various platforms and clouds. Relying heavily on active metadata, it automatically connects, discovers, and governs data, making it readily accessible without moving it from its original location. This centralized, top-down strategy simplifies data integration and strengthens readiness for artificial intelligence. Ultimately, organizations do not necessarily have to choose one over the other. The most effective data architectures often combine the domain-driven quality and autonomy of a data mesh with the automated integration and unified intelligence of a data fabric.

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Why AI Raises the Stakes on Process Ownership

The integration of artificial intelligence into enterprise operations is fundamentally changing how organizations approach process ownership, data management, and decision-making. According to John Steele, CIO at Komatsu Australia, AI allows companies to outsource aspects of thinking at scale, which brings both new opportunities and significant dependencies. Steele introduces the concept of "intellectual sovereignty," which involves three key areas: infrastructure, software, and knowledge. Organizations must decide where to run applications, manage vendor relationships, and determine which tasks to automate versus which to keep for employee development. When it comes to shared platforms, there is a constant tension between standardizing systems to lower costs and maintaining specialized tools that add unique value to specific departments. To navigate these trade-offs, businesses need mature, end-to-end process ownership that crosses divisional lines. This prevents fragmented, isolated optimization and ensures that technology choices actually benefit the enterprise as a whole. Ultimately, executive leaders do not need to make every technical decision, but they must agree on clear principles regarding acceptable risks, costs, and vendor dependencies to successfully guide AI adoption and transformation.

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How Do You Demonstrate Resilience?

Showing that your security program is resilient requires adjusting your message to fit your audience. While your technical teams need specific operational metrics like mean time to detect and recover or vulnerability patch speeds, the executive suite and the board require a fundamentally different language. They want to know the "so what." When communicating with leadership, you must translate technical gaps into tangible business impacts. Will a compromised credential shut down operations? Will an unpatched server lead to a complete system takeover? Rather than just listing out threats like ransomware, focus on providing a clear narrative of consequence that allows leadership to make informed decisions about resource allocation and risk acceptance. Ultimately, the C-suite evaluates resilience by looking at recovery time and how quickly revenue operations can resume after an incident. Effective communication proves to management that the security team is not merely fixing isolated issues but actively lowering the likelihood of material harm and keeping the organization capable of moving forward.

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The adversary economy: How threat actors are reacting to PHP2Shell

The recent disclosure of two critical, unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerabilities in PHP—collectively known as PHP2Shell—has triggered widespread panic across the cybercriminal underground. Because PHP powers a vast majority of the modern web, it is also the foundational infrastructure for dark web marketplaces, illicit forums, and communication platforms. Following the disclosure, major criminal sites like BreachForums rushed to take their servers offline to implement emergency patches and mitigate risks. These threat actors treat the vulnerabilities as severe existential threats because a successful exploit would expose sensitive member identities, stolen credentials, and internal communications to both rival hacking groups and global law enforcement agencies. This swift reaction mimics legitimate corporate incident response, highlighting that the adversary economy operates on the same risk management principles as standard businesses. Ultimately, the urgency displayed by these cybercriminals serves as a stark warning. Organizations still running unsupported versions of PHP must prioritize patching and migrating their systems immediately before automated exploit chains and malicious actors capitalize on this critical vulnerability.

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Enterprises don’t need artificial general intelligence. They need artificial specific intelligence

A significant majority of enterprise AI pilot programs fail to generate measurable profits, but the fault lies not with the models themselves or a lack of user skill. Instead, failure stems from a fundamental misalignment: large language models are built by labs aiming for artificial general intelligence, while businesses require highly specific solutions. Commercial models excel at reasoning and hold vast public knowledge, but they lack the undocumented domain expertise unique to individual enterprises. Because they remain static after training, these models cannot learn the nuances of a business as it operates. To overcome this specificity gap, organizations must redefine success based on their own goals rather than relying on generic benchmarks. They should select pilot projects that reflect real-world complexity, complete with messy data and unwritten rules. Furthermore, enterprises must supply models with precise context using dynamic evaluation loops, while integrating their most knowledgeable subject-matter experts directly into the pilot process to validate outputs and correct mistakes.

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Hacker Conversations: Corey Thuen and the Evil Bit

Corey Thuen is the founder and CEO of Gravwell, a data analytics company, and a hacker who values what he calls the "evil bit" in his team members. He describes this trait as an inherent, adversarial mindset that naturally looks for ways to exploit systems. However, Thuen stresses that this perspective does not equate to a lack of morals. Instead, it is a skill that can be channeled to improve security and build better defenses. Thuen's interest in computers began in his youth, driven by curiosity rather than malicious intent. His career path led him to the Idaho National Laboratory, where he specialized in the security of industrial control systems. Later, he co-founded Southfork Security, which unfortunately ended in a messy legal dispute with his former employer over open-source software. Despite the court temporarily stereotyping him as a malicious hacker, Thuen continued his work in offensive security before ultimately launching Gravwell. Today, he combines his natural hacker instincts with an entrepreneurial drive, building tools that challenge assumptions and strengthen system defenses.

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How Dependency Mocking Affects CI/CD Pipeline Reliability

The article explains that dependency mocking can quietly undermine the reliability of CI/CD pipelines because mocks often drift away from the real behavior of upstream services. A pipeline may appear healthy — tests pass consistently, runtimes are stable, and flakiness seems low — yet still provide misleading assurance because it is validating code against outdated assumptions. As upstream microservices evolve through frequent independent deployments, mocks remain frozen in time, creating a widening gap between test environments and production reality. This leads to “operational reliability” without “informational reliability,” where the pipeline runs smoothly but no longer predicts how the software will behave once deployed. The piece stresses that every upstream deployment is a potential accuracy event for mocks, and without automated refresh mechanisms, pipelines accumulate silent risk. It also notes that teams often misinterpret green builds as proof of correctness, even though the pipeline has no visibility into real service behavior during test execution. The article’s steady message is that meaningful reliability requires connecting mock maintenance to upstream changes and validating mocks against real traffic so test results continue to reflect production truth.

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The Great AI Regret: Why AI Fatigue Is a Leadership Problem, Not a Technology One

Despite the heavy investment in artificial intelligence, many employees feel increasingly anxious and disconnected from their work. Recent research shows a significant portion of knowledge workers are deeply nostalgic for how they worked before AI, and some would even prefer to remove these tools entirely. This growing fatigue and mistrust do not stem from the technology itself, but from poor leadership and implementation. Instead of freeing staff from tedious tasks, rushed rollouts often leave employees feeling surveilled, stripped of their creativity, and unfairly measured against machines. In many cases, people spend more time checking AI-generated output than they save by using it. To solve this problem, leaders must change their approach. Organizations should clearly communicate why these tools are being introduced and ensure they support meaningful work rather than just pushing for blind efficiency. By preserving human expertise and keeping people in control of important decisions, businesses can rebuild trust. When introduced thoughtfully, AI can be a helpful assistant rather than a source of frustration, leading to a much healthier workplace.

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Daily Tech Digest - June 17, 2026


Quote for the day:

"The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity." -- Amelia Earhart

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The Rise of Agentic Internet

The internet has reached a significant milestone where automated web traffic now exceeds human activity. According to recent data, bots currently account for over fifty percent of all internet traffic, crossing this threshold much earlier than industry experts had predicted. This shift is primarily driven by the rapid emergence of autonomous artificial intelligence agents. Unlike older, simple programs or connected devices that only follow rigid instructions, these new agents possess true autonomy. They interpret user intent, adapt to context, and make independent decisions without needing constant human guidance. As a result, autonomous software traffic has experienced exponential growth over the past year. A major area affected by this change is how we search for information. Traditional search engines that return simple lists of links are being replaced by conversational interfaces. When a person asks a complex question, the software dispatches numerous agents to visit hundreds of pages, synthesize the data, and return a complete answer. Because a single human request can generate thousands of automated web actions, we are entering a new era where machines discover information, evaluate options, and execute tasks on our behalf.


Building data centers in space is an intriguing idea on paper, but major engineering challenges must be solved

The proposal to establish data centers in space presents a captivating concept that aims to address the growing energy and cooling demands of our digital infrastructure. By positioning servers outside of Earth's atmosphere, we could theoretically harness constant solar energy and utilize the natural vacuum of space to simplify heat management. While this idea appears promising on paper, it faces significant engineering and logistical hurdles that currently make it impractical. A primary obstacle is the immense difficulty and cost associated with launching and maintaining complex hardware in orbit. Unlike terrestrial facilities, space-based data centers would require specialized, radiation-hardened equipment to withstand the harsh orbital environment, including extreme temperature fluctuations and debris impacts. Furthermore, servicing or upgrading these systems would be exceptionally difficult, requiring sophisticated robotic interventions or costly human missions. There is also the critical issue of signal latency; transmitting data between Earth and space-based servers introduces delays that could disrupt many time-sensitive applications. While the idea reflects creative thinking regarding future infrastructure needs, these formidable technological and economic constraints must be thoroughly addressed before such a project could realistically transition from an interesting theoretical model to a functional reality.


Firms pursue continuous identity in push to meet agentic paradigm shift

The cybersecurity industry is rapidly evolving to address the growing presence of artificial intelligence programs operating autonomously within corporate networks. As organizations increasingly rely on these automated tools, traditional security systems built exclusively for human users are no longer sufficient. To resolve this, major technology firms are developing continuous identity verification systems that monitor and secure both human and machine activities simultaneously. Recently, a new company called NewCore secured significant funding to launch a platform that maps and protects all active network identities from the ground up. Similarly, established companies are expanding their capabilities through acquisitions and updates. SailPoint plans to acquire Entro to improve its tracking of machine credentials, while CrowdStrike has introduced a system that constantly verifies automated actions rather than granting permanent access. Additionally, Akamai has established a structured framework to safely manage automated commerce and interactions, and Silverfort has integrated instant identity checks specifically for Microsoft Copilot Studio to prevent unauthorized actions before they occur. Together, these industry developments highlight a crucial transition from one time authentication to ongoing and instant security models that ensure automated tools operate safely and responsibly within modern enterprise environments.


Beyond the ERP system: The autonomous value chain

Traditional enterprise resource planning systems have reached a performance ceiling because they rely on people to manually move and approve data. This manual approach creates expensive delays and inefficiencies that minor adjustments can no longer fix. To move forward, organizations must abandon these outdated structures in favor of an autonomous value chain. In this modernized setup, intelligent algorithms handle routine daily procurement, production, and delivery coordination in real time. Instead of functioning as manual data processors, employees are freed to focus on high level strategic design and system oversight. Transitioning to this level of autonomy requires more than just installing new software; it demands a deep organizational shift. Companies need to establish centralized, reliable data sources and build automated processes governed by clear rules and boundaries. Equally important is fostering a supportive culture built on trust and psychological safety. Teams must feel secure collaborating with automated systems, knowing they have the authority to intervene without facing blame for machine errors. Ultimately, the goal is to stop managing slow, manual workflows and instead design a fully independent system that coordinates seamlessly. This shift delivers greater operational efficiency and frees human talent for more valuable work.


Four Ways To Develop Emotional Intelligence In The Workplace

While technical skills are often highlighted on resumes, emotional intelligence is the defining trait of an effective leader. It involves recognizing and managing your own emotions while understanding those of your team. Without it, organizations face turnover and burnout; with it, they build resilience and trust. Fortunately, you can develop emotional intelligence through four practical methods. First, practice self-awareness by taking time to reflect on your emotional state before entering important conversations or meetings. This prevents unexamined stress from guiding your behavior. Second, master the strategic pause. Instead of reacting immediately to frustration, give yourself time to process the situation, such as waiting a day before replying to a difficult email. Third, use active empathy to understand the motivations and pressures your team members face. Ask how you can support them rather than demanding explanations for setbacks. Finally, create an environment of psychological safety where employees feel comfortable taking risks and making mistakes without fear of punishment. When leaders openly admit their own errors, it encourages the rest of the team to work authentically. By investing in these areas, you can build a stronger, more resilient organization.


The AI Accountability Gap CIOs Can't Ignore

According to a recent IBM survey of 2,000 technology executives, chief information and technology officers are facing a significant accountability gap as artificial intelligence moves into everyday production. While eighty percent of these leaders are under direct pressure from chief executives to adopt AI quickly, two-thirds find themselves responsible for AI outcomes they do not fully control. By the year 2027, organizations expect to manage over sixteen hundred AI models, yet only eleven percent of technology leaders feel ready for this rapid growth. A primary challenge is the steady rise of untracked AI use. Seventy percent of executives report that internal business departments deploy AI tools much faster than their technical teams can monitor. This lack of oversight has clear consequences. Over the past year, organizations experienced an average of fifty-four AI-related incidents. These events led to notable problems, including data breaches for thirty-seven percent of respondents and widespread system failures for thirty-three percent. Consequently, AI adoption is currently moving faster than organizations can secure it. Seventy-seven percent of leaders admit their deployment speeds outpace internal governance, forcing many to pause expansion until they can establish proper visibility and control.


Do Software and Programmers Still Have a Future?

In their 2026 update, the team behind the software tool NocoBase reflects on how rapid advancements in artificial intelligence initially caused intense anxiety about the future of traditional programming. Despite these fears, their revenue doubled in the first half of the year. The small team realized that while artificial intelligence can generate code quickly, large businesses still require stable, secure, and standardized foundations to run their daily operations. Companies cannot rely on raw code generation alone; they need reliable systems with proper access rules, clear steps, and visual screens that humans can easily read and adjust. Rather than fighting these rapid market changes, NocoBase adapted its main focus. They shifted from basic visual programming to providing the essential structure that allows artificial intelligence to safely interact with complex business records. By integrating advanced models internally, the team also doubled their own productivity without hiring more staff. Their direct experience with major corporate clients in life sciences and renewable energy proves that actual businesses adapt much slower than internet technology trends. By acting as a practical bridge between new tools and older manual operations, programmers and thoughtful software projects still have a secure and valuable future.


Develop smarter AI agents with data fabrics

As organizations manage data scattered across numerous platforms, data fabrics offer a practical way to centralize access and enforce consistent policies. This centralized approach is especially relevant for teams developing artificial intelligence agents. AI agents require extensive, reliable information to function effectively, relying on both structured data and unstructured formats like documents or emails. Without a shared business context, these agents struggle to make accurate decisions and can even operate counter to one another in complex systems. A data fabric acts as a central system that connects AI models to diverse information sources. It provides agents with the current data and historical memory they need to act appropriately. Furthermore, this structure allows teams to resolve data quality issues before the information reaches the AI, ensuring the agents operate on accurate, compliant, and secure inputs. By consolidating data access, organizations can also establish stricter security controls and monitor exactly what information agents use. Moving forward, data fabrics are expected to improve how they handle multimedia files and complex documents. Ultimately, a carefully planned data fabric helps organizations deploy AI agents with a clear understanding of the rules, leading to more reliable outcomes.


AI and Cybersecurity – Everything You Wanted to Know, But Were Afraid to Ask

Artificial intelligence is changing cybersecurity, presenting both new defensive capabilities and complex security challenges. Based on insights from dozens of industry professionals, the current landscape of AI in security can be understood through five primary categories: generative AI, agentic AI, shadow AI, machine learning, and artificial general intelligence. Currently, generative AI serves as the foundation. While it offers practical benefits for security teams, such as summarizing incident logs, drafting response plans, and assisting with coding, it is not inherently trustworthy. Because these models predict statistically probable answers rather than relying on absolute facts, they can produce confident but incorrect responses. Therefore, AI should act as a supportive tool rather than a replacement for human judgment. Without proper governance, organizations risk unintentional misuse, where employees rely too heavily on unverified outputs or use external, unsecured AI tools. At the same time, malicious actors are actively exploiting these technologies. They move quickly to adopt AI for creating highly convincing phishing campaigns, writing evasive malware, and executing advanced social engineering attacks. Ultimately, understanding both the practical applications and the inherent risks of AI is essential for navigating the modern security environment.


The checklist problem behind critical infrastructure cyber safety

Recent research from George Mason University highlights a significant gap in how the United States approaches the safety of critical infrastructure. Currently, operators of industrial controls, medical devices, and transportation systems often rely on standard IT security compliance to prove their systems are safe. However, this approach is fundamentally flawed because data protection rules do not easily translate to the physical world. In fact, standard IT practices can sometimes introduce physical hazards. For instance, locking down a system to protect data might trap people during an emergency or disrupt safety controls that require real-time responses. The researchers note that current regulations rely too much on administrative checklists and generic technical standards, ignoring the specific engineering needs of physical machinery. When failures occur, regulations typically only require companies to report the incident rather than prove the equipment can naturally revert to a safe state. To fix this, the study suggests shifting the legal standard of care away from basic compliance. Instead, operators should be expected to provide concrete engineering evidence showing their systems are physically resilient. This includes implementing mechanical backups and hazard-specific safety measures, ensuring that if digital defenses fail, the physical equipment remains secure.

Daily Tech Digest - August 31, 2025


Quote for the day:

“Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.” -- Ralph Waldo Emerson



A Brief History of GPT Through Papers

The first neural network based language translation models operated in three steps (at a high level). An encoder would embed the “source statement” into a vector space, resulting in a “source vector”. Then, the source vector would be mapped to a “target vector” through a neural network and finally a decoder would map the resulting vector to the “target statement”. People quickly realized that the vector that was supposed to encode the source statement had too much responsibility. The source statement could be arbitrarily long. So, instead of a single vector for the entire statement, let’s convert each word into a vector and then have an intermediate element that would pick out the specific words that the decoder should focus more on. ... The mechanism by which the words were converted to vectors was based on recurrent neural networks (RNNs). Details of this can be obtained from the paper itself. These recurrent neural networks relied on hidden states to encode the past information of the sequence. While it’s convenient to have all that information encoded into a single vector, it’s not good for parallelizability since that vector becomes a bottleneck and must be computed before the rest of the sentence can be processed. ... The idea is to give the model demonstrative examples at inference time as opposed to using them to train its parameters. If no such examples are provided in-context, it is called “zero shot”. If one example is provided, “one shot” and if a few are provided, “few shot”.


8 Powerful Lessons from Robert Herjavec at Entrepreneur Level Up That Every Founder Needs to Hear

Entrepreneurs who remain curious — asking questions and seeking insights — often discover pathways others overlook. Instead of dismissing a "no" or a difficult response, Herjavec urged attendees to look for the opportunity behind it. Sometimes, the follow-up question or the willingness to listen more deeply is what transforms rejection into possibility. ... while breakthrough innovations capture headlines, the majority of sustainable businesses are built on incremental improvements, better execution and adapting existing ideas to new markets. For entrepreneurs, this means it's okay if your business doesn't feel revolutionary from day one. What matters is staying committed to evolving, improving and listening to the market. ... setbacks are inevitable in entrepreneurship. The real test isn't whether you'll face challenges, but how you respond to them. Entrepreneurs who can adapt — whether by shifting strategy, reinventing a product or rethinking how they serve customers — are the ones who endure. ... when leaders lose focus, passion or clarity, the organization inevitably follows. A founder's vision and energy cascade down into the culture, decision-making and execution. If leaders drift, so does the company. For entrepreneurs, this is a call to self-reflection. Protect your clarity of purpose. Revisit why you started. And remember that your team looks to you not just for direction, but for inspiration. 


The era of cheap AI coding assistants may be over

Developers have taken to social media platforms and GitHub to express their dissatisfaction over the pricing changes, especially across tools like Claude Code, Kiro, and Cursor, but vendors have not adjusted pricing or made any changes that significantly reduce credits consumption. Analysts don’t see any alternative to reducing the pricing of these tools. "There’s really no alternative until someone figures out the following: how to use cheaper but dumber models than Claude Sonnet 4 to achieve the same user experience and innovate on KVCache hit rate to reduce the effective price per dollar,” said Wei Zhou, head of AI utility research at SemiAnalysis. Considering the market conditions, CIOs and their enterprises need to start absorbing the cost and treat vibe coding tools as a productivity expense, according to Futurum’s Hinchcliffe. “CIOs should start allocating more budgets for vibe coding tools, just as they would do for SaaS, cloud storage, collaboration tools or any other line items,” Hinchcliffe said. “The case of ROI on these tools is still strong: faster shipping, fewer errors, and higher developer throughput. Additionally, a good developer costs six figures annually, while vibe coding tools are still priced in the low-to-mid thousands per seat,” Hinchcliffe added. ... “Configuring assistants to intervene only where value is highest and choosing smaller, faster models for common tasks and saving large-model calls for edge cases could bring down expenditure,” Hinchcliffe added.


AI agents need intent-based blockchain infrastructure

By integrating agents with intent-centric systems, however, we can ensure users fully control their data and assets. Intents are a type of building block for decentralized applications that give users complete control over the outcome of their transactions. Powered by a decentralized network of solvers, agentic nodes that compete to solve user transactions, these systems eliminate the complexity of the blockchain experience while maintaining user sovereignty and privacy throughout the process. ... Combining AI agents and intents will redefine the Web3 experience while keeping the space true to its core values. Intents bridge users and agents, ensuring the UX benefits users expect from AI while maintaining decentralization, sovereignty and verifiability. Intent-based systems will play a crucial role in the next phase of Web3’s evolution by ensuring agents act in users’ best interests. As AI adoption grows, so does the risk of replicating the problems of Web2 within Web3. Intent-centric infrastructure is the key to addressing both the challenges and opportunities that AI agents bring and is necessary to unlock their full potential. Intents will be an essential infrastructure component and a fundamental requirement for anyone integrating or considering integrating AI into DeFi. Intents are not merely a type of UX upgrade or optional enhancement. 


The future of software development: To what can AI replace human developers?

Rather than replacing developers, AI is transforming them into higher-level orchestrators of technology. The emerging model is one of human-AI collaboration, where machines handle the repetitive scaffolding and humans focus on design, strategy, and oversight. In this new world, developers must learn not just to write code, but to guide, prompt, and supervise AI systems. The skillset is expanding from syntax and logic to include abstraction, ethical reasoning, systems thinking, and interdisciplinary collaboration. In other words, AI is not making developers obsolete. It is making new demands on their expertise. ... This shift has significant implications for how we educate the next generation of software professionals. Beyond coding languages, students will need to understand how to evaluate AI- AI-generated output, how to embed ethical standards into automated systems, and how to lead hybrid teams made up of both humans and machines. It also affects how organisations hire and manage talent. Companies must rethink job descriptions, career paths, and performance metrics to account for the impact of AI-enabled development. Leaders must focus on AI literacy, not just technical competence. Professionals seeking to stay ahead of the curve can explore free programs, such as The Future of Software Engineering Led by Emerging Technologies, which introduces the evolving role of AI in modern software development.


Open Data Fabric: Rethinking Data Architecture for AI at Scale

The first principle, unified data access, ensures that agents have federated real-time access across all enterprise data sources without requiring pipelines, data movement, or duplication. Unlike human users who typically work within specific business domains, agents often need to correlate information across the entire enterprise to generate accurate insights. ... The second principle, unified contextual intelligence, involves providing agents with the business and technical understanding to interpret data correctly. This goes far beyond traditional metadata management to include business definitions, domain knowledge, usage patterns, and quality indicators from across the enterprise ecosystem. Effective contextual intelligence aggregates information from metadata, data catalogs, business glossaries, business intelligence tools, and tribal knowledge into a unified layer that agents can access in real-time.  ... Perhaps the most significant principle involves establishing collaborative self-service. This is a significant shift as it means moving from static dashboards and reports to dynamic, collaborative data products and insights that agents can generate and share with each other. The results are trusted “data answers,” or conversational, on-demand data products for the age of AI that include not just query results but also the business context, methodology, lineage, and reasoning that went into generating them.


A Simple Shift in Light Control Could Revolutionize Quantum Computing

A research collaboration led by Vikas Remesh of the Photonics Group at the Department of Experimental Physics, University of Innsbruck, together with partners from the University of Cambridge, Johannes Kepler University Linz, and other institutions, has now demonstrated a way to bypass these challenges. Their method relies on a fully optical process known as stimulated two-photon excitation. This technique allows quantum dots to emit streams of photons in distinct polarization states without the need for electronic switching hardware. In tests, the researchers successfully produced high-quality two-photon states while maintaining excellent single-photon characteristics. ... “The method works by first exciting the quantum dot with precisely timed laser pulses to create a biexciton state, followed by polarization-controlled stimulation pulses that deterministically trigger photon emission in the desired polarization,” explain Yusuf Karli and Iker Avila Arenas, the study’s first authors. ... “What makes this approach particularly elegant is that we have moved the complexity from expensive, loss-inducing electronic components after the single photon emission to the optical excitation stage, and it is a significant step forward in making quantum dot sources more practical for real-world applications,” notes Vikas Remesh, the study’s lead researcher.


AI and the New Rules of Observability

The gap between "monitoring" and true observability is both cultural and technological. Enterprises haven't matured beyond monitoring because old tools weren't built for modern systems, and organizational cultures have been slow to evolve toward proactive, shared ownership of reliability. ... One blind spot is model drift, which occurs when data shifts, rendering its assumptions invalid. In 2016, Microsoft's Tay chatbot was a notable failure due to its exposure to shifting user data distributions. Infrastructure monitoring showed uptime was fine; only semantic observability of outputs would have flagged the model's drift into toxic behavior. Hidden technical debt or unseen complexity in code can undermine observability. In machine learning, or ML, systems, pipelines often fail silently, while retraining processes, feature pipelines and feedback loops create fragile dependencies that traditional monitoring tools may overlook. Another issue is "opacity of predictions." ... AI models often learn from human-curated priorities. If ops teams historically emphasized CPU or network metrics, the AI may overweigh those signals while downplaying emerging, equally critical patterns - for example, memory leaks or service-to-service latency. This can occur as bias amplification, where the model becomes biased toward "legacy priorities" and blind to novel failure modes. Bias often mirrors reality.


Dynamic Integration for AI Agents – Part 1

An integration of components within AI differs from an integration between AI agents. The former relates to integration with known entities that form a deterministic model of information flow. The same relates to inter-application, inter-system and inter-service transactions required by a business process at large. It is based on mapping of business functionality and information (an architecture of the business in organisations) onto available IT systems, applications, and services. The latter shifts the integration paradigm since the very AI Agents decide that they need to integrate with something at runtime based on the overlapping of the statistical LLM and available information, which contains linguistic ties unknown even in the LLM training. That is, an AI Agent does not know what a counterpart — an application, another AI Agent or data source — it would need to cooperate with to solve the overall task given to it by its consumer/user. The AI Agent does not know even if the needed counterpart exists. ... Any AI Agent may have its individual owner and provider. These owners and providers may be unaware of each others and act independently when creating their AI Agents. No AI Agent can be self-sufficient due to its fundamental design — it depends on the prompts and real-world data at runtime. It seems that the approaches to integration and the integration solutions differ for the humanitarian and natural science spheres.


Counteracting Cyber Complacency: 6 Security Blind Spots for Credit Unions

Organizations that conduct only basic vendor vetting lack visibility into the cybersecurity practices of their vendors’ subcontractors. This creates gaps in oversight that attackers can exploit to gain access to an institution’s data. Third-party providers often have direct access to critical systems, making them an attractive target. When they’re compromised, the consequences quickly extend to the credit unions they serve. ... Cybercriminals continue to exploit employee behavior as a primary entry point into financial institutions. Social engineering tactics — such as phishing, vishing, and impersonation — bypass technical safeguards by manipulating people. These attacks rely on trust, familiarity, or urgency to provoke an action that grants the attacker access to credentials, systems, or internal data. ... Many credit unions deliver cybersecurity training on an annual schedule or only during onboarding. These programs often lack depth, fail to differentiate between job functions, and lose effectiveness over time. When training is overly broad or infrequent, staff and leadership alike may be unprepared to recognize or respond to threats. The risk is heightened when the threats are evolving faster than the curriculum. TruStage advises tailoring cyber education to the institution’s structure and risk profile. Frontline staff who manage member accounts face different risks than board members or vendors. 

Daily Tech Digest - June 17, 2025


Quote for the day:

"Next generation leaders are those who would rather challenge what needs to change and pay the price than remain silent and die on the inside." -- Andy Stanley



Understanding how data fabric enhances data security and governance

“The biggest challenge is fragmentation; most enterprises operate across multiple cloud environments, each with its own security model, making unified governance incredibly complex,” Dipankar Sengupta, CEO of Digital Engineering Services at Sutherland Global told InfoWorld. ... Shadow IT is also a persistent threat and challenge. According to Sengupta, some enterprises discover nearly 40% of their data exists outside governed environments. Proactively discovering and onboarding those data sources has become non-negotiable. ... A data fabric deepens organizations’ understanding and control of their data and consumption patterns. “With this deeper understanding, organizations can easily detect sensitive data and workloads in potential violation of GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA and similar regulations,” Calvesbert commented. “With deeper control, organizations can then apply the necessary data governance and security measures in near real time to remain compliant.” ... Data security and governance inside a data fabric shouldn’t just be about controlling access to data, it should also come with some form of data validation. The cliched saying “garbage-in, garbage-out” is all too true when it comes to data. After all, what’s the point of ensuring security and governance on data that isn’t valid in the first place?


AI isn’t taking your job; the big threat is a growing skills gap

While AI can boost productivity by handling routine tasks, it can’t replace the strategic roles filled by skilled professionals, Vianello said. To avoid those kinds of issues, agencies — just like companies — need to invest in adaptable, mission-ready teams with continuously updated skills in cloud, cyber, and AI. The technology, he said, should augment – not replace — human teams, automating repetitive tasks while enhancing strategic work. Success in high-demand tech careers starts with in-demand certifications, real-world experience, and soft skills. Ultimately, high-performing teams are built through agile, continuous training that evolves with the tech, Vianello said. “We train teams to use AI platforms like Copilot, Claude and ChatGPT to accelerate productivity,” Vianello said. “But we don’t stop at tools; we build ‘human-in-the-loop’ systems where AI augments decision-making and humans maintain oversight. That’s how you scale trust, performance, and ethics in parallel.” High-performing teams aren’t born with AI expertise; they’re built through continuous, role-specific, forward-looking education, he said, adding that preparing a workforce for AI is not about “chasing” the next hottest skill. “It’s about building a training engine that adapts as fast as technology evolves,” he said.


Got a new password manager? Don't leave your old logins exposed in the cloud - do this next

Those built-in utilities might have been good enough for an earlier era, but they aren't good enough for our complex, multi-platform world. For most people, the correct option is to switch to a third-party password manager and shut down all those built-in password features in the browsers and mobile devices you use. Why? Third-party password managers are built to work everywhere, with a full set of features that are the same (or nearly so) across every device. After you make that switch, the passwords you saved previously are left behind in a cloud service you no longer use. If you regularly switch between browsers (Chrome on your Mac or Windows PC, Safari on your iPhone), you might even have multiple sets of saved passwords scattered across multiple clouds. It's time to clean up that mess. If you're no longer using a password manager, it's prudent to track down those outdated saved passwords and delete them from the cloud. I've studied each of the four leading browsers: Google Chrome, Apple's Safari, Microsoft Edge, and Mozilla Firefox. Here's how to find the password management settings for each one, export any saved passwords to a safe place, and then turn off the feature. As a final step, I explain how to purge saved passwords and stop syncing.


AI and technical debt: A Computer Weekly Downtime Upload podcast

Given that GenAI technology hit the mainstream with GPT 4 two years ago, Reed says: “It was like nothing ever before.” And while the word “transformational” tends to be generously overused in technology he describes generative AI as “transformational with a capital T.” But transformations are not instant and businesses need to understand how to apply GenAI most effectively, and figure out where it does and does not work well. “Every time you hear anything with generative AI, you hear the word journey and we're no different,” he says. “We are trying to understand it. We're trying to understand its capabilities and understand our place with generative AI,” Reed adds. Early adopters are keen to understand how to use GenAI in day-to-day work, which, he says, can range from being an AI-based work assistant or a tool that changes the way people search for information to using AI as a gateway to the heavy lifting required in many organisations. He points out that bet365 is no different. “We have a sliding scale of ambition, but obviously like anything we do in an organisation of this size, it must be measured, it must be understood and we do need to be very, very clear what we're using generative AI for.” One of the very clear use cases for GenAI is in software development. 


Cloud Exodus: When to Know It's Time to Repatriate Your Workloads

Because of the inherent scalability of cloud resources, the cloud makes a lot of sense when the compute, storage, and other resources your business needs fluctuate constantly in volume. But if you find that your resource consumption is virtually unchanged from month to month or year to year, you may not need the cloud. You may be able to spend less and enjoy more control by deploying on-prem infrastructure. ... Cloud costs will naturally fluctuate over time due to changes in resource consumption levels. It's normal if cost increases correlate with usage increases. What's concerning, however, is a spike in cloud costs that you can't tie to consumption changes. It's likely in that case that you're spending more either because your cloud service provider raised its prices or your cloud environment is not optimized from a cost perspective. ... You can reduce latency (meaning the delay between when a user requests data on the network and when it arrives) on cloud platforms by choosing cloud regions that are geographically proximate to your end users. But that only works if your users are concentrated in certain areas, and if cloud data centers are available close to them. If this is not the case, you are likely to run into latency issues, which could dampen the user experience you deliver. 


The future of data center networking and processing

The optical-to-electrical conversion that is performed by the optical transceiver is still needed in a CPO system, but it moves from a pluggable module located at the faceplate of the switching equipment to a small chip (or chiplet) that is co-packaged very closely to the target ICs inside the box. Data center chipset heavyweights Broadcom and Nvidia have both announced CPO-based data center networking products operating at 51.2 and 102.4 Tb/s. ... Early generation CPO systems, such as those announced by Broadcom and Nvidia for Ethernet switching, make use of high channel count fiber array units (FAUs) that are designed to precisely align the fiber cores to their corresponding waveguides inside the PICs. These FAUs are challenging to make as they require high fiber counts, mixed single-mode (SM) and polarization maintaining (PM) fibers, integration of micro-optic components depending on the fiber-to-chip coupling mechanism, highly precise tolerance alignments, CPO-optimized fibers and multiple connector assemblies.  ... In addition to scale and cost benefits, extreme densities can be achieved at the edge of the PIC by bringing the waveguides very close together, down to about 30µm, which is far more than what can be achieved with even the thinnest fibers. Next generation fiber-to-chip coupling will enable GPU optics – which will require unprecedented levels of density and scale.


Align AI with Data, Analytics and Governance to Drive Intelligent, Adaptive Decisions and Actions Across the Organisation

Unlocking AI’s full business potential requires building executive AI literacy. They must be educated on AI opportunities, risks and costs to make effective, future-ready decisions on AI investments that accelerate organisational outcomes. Gartner recommends D&A leaders introduce experiential upskilling programs for executives, such as developing domain-specific prototypes to make AI tangible. This will lead to greater and more appropriate investment in AI capabilities. ... Using synthetic data to train AI models is now a critical strategy for enhancing privacy and generating diverse datasets. However, complexities arise from the need to ensure synthetic data accurately represents real-world scenarios, scales effectively to meet growing data demand and integrates seamlessly with existing data pipelines and systems. “To manage these risks, organisations need effective metadata management,” said Idoine. “Metadata provides the context, lineage and governance needed to track, verify and manage synthetic data responsibly, which is essential to maintaining AI accuracy and meeting compliance standards.” ... Building GenAI models in-house offers flexibility, control and long-term value that many packaged tools cannot match. As internal capabilities grow, Gartner recommends organisations adopt a clear framework for build versus buy decisions. 


Do microServices' Benefits Supersede Their caveats? A Conversation With Sam Newman

A microservice is one of those where it is independently deployable so I can make a change to it and I can roll out new versions of it without having to change any other part of my system. So things like avoiding shared databases are really about achieving that independent deployability. And it's a really simple idea that can be quite easy to implement if you know about it from the beginning. It can be difficult to implement if you're already in a tangled mess. And that idea of independent deployability has interesting benefits because the fact that something is independently deployable is obviously useful because it's low impact releases, but there's loads of other benefits that start to flow from that. ... The vast majority of people who tell me they've scaling issues often don't have them. They could solve their scaling issues with a monolith, no problem at all, and it would be a more straightforward solution. They're typically organizational scale issues. And so, for me, what the world needs from our IT's product-focused, outcome-oriented, and more autonomous teams. That's what we need, and microservices are an enabler for that. Having things like team topologies, which of course, although the DevOps topology stuff was happening around the time of my first edition of my book, that being kind of moved into the team topology space by Matthew and Manuel around the second edition again sort of helps kind of crystallize a lot of those concepts as well.


Why Businesses Must Upgrade to an AI-First Connected GRC System

Adopting a connected GRC solution enables organizations to move beyond siloed operations by bringing risk and compliance functions onto a single, integrated platform. It also creates a unified view of risks and controls across departments, bringing better workflows and encouraging collaboration. With centralized data and shared visibility, managing complex, interconnected risks becomes far more efficient and proactive. In fact, this shift toward integration reflects a broader trend that is seen in the India Regulatory Technology Business Report 2024–2029 findings, which highlight the growing adoption of compliance automation, AI, and machine learning in the Indian market. The report points to a future where GRC is driven by data, merging operations, technology, and control into a single, intelligent framework. ... An AI-first, connected GRC solution takes the heavy lifting out of compliance. Instead of juggling disconnected systems and endless updates, it brings everything together, from tracking regulations to automating actions to keeping teams aligned. For compliance teams, that means less manual work and more time to focus on what matters. ... A smart, integrated GRC solution brings everything into one place. It helps organizations run more smoothly by reducing errors and simplifying teamwork. It also means less time spent on admin and better use of people and resources where they are really needed.


The Importance of Information Sharing to Achieve Cybersecurity Resilience

Information sharing among different sectors predominantly revolves around threats related to phishing, vulnerabilities, ransomware, and data breaches. Each sector tailors its approach to cybersecurity information sharing based on regulatory and technological needs, carefully considering strategies that address specific risks and identify resolution requirements. However, for the mobile industry, information sharing relating to cyberattacks on the networks themselves and misuse of interconnection signalling are also the focus of significant sharing efforts. Industries learn from each other by adopting sector-specific frameworks and leveraging real-time data to enhance their cybersecurity posture. This includes real-time sharing of indicators of compromise (IoCs) and the techniques, tactics, and procedures (TTPs) associated with phishing campaigns. An example of this is the recently launched Stop Scams UK initiative, bringing together tech, telecoms and finance industry leaders, who are going to share real-time data on fraud indicators to enhance consumer protection and foster economic security. This is an important development, as without cross-industry information sharing, determining whether a cybersecurity attack campaign is sector-specific or indiscriminate becomes difficult. 

Daily Tech Digest - April 21, 2025


Quote for the day:

"In simplest terms, a leader is one who knows where he wants to go, and gets up, and goes." -- John Erksine



Two ways AI hype is worsening the cybersecurity skills crisis

Another critical factor in the AI-skills shortage discussion is that attackers are also leveraging AI, putting defenders at an even greater disadvantage. Cybercriminals are using AI to generate more convincing phishing emails, automate reconnaissance, and develop malware that can evade detection. Meanwhile, security teams are struggling just to keep up. “AI exacerbates what’s already going on at an accelerated pace,” says Rona Spiegel, cyber risk advisor at GroScale and former cloud governance leader at Wells Fargo and Cisco. “In cybersecurity, the defenders have to be right all the time, while attackers only have to be right once. AI is increasing the probability of attackers getting it right more often.” ... “CISOs will have to be more tactical in their approach,” she explains. “There’s so much pressure for them to automate, automate, automate. I think it would be best if they could partner cross-functionality and focus on things like policy and urge the unification and simplification of how polices are adapted… and make sure how we’re educating the entire environment, the entire workforce, not just the cybersecurity.” Appayanna echoes this sentiment, arguing that when used correctly, AI can ease talent shortages rather than exacerbate them. 


Data mesh vs. data fabric vs. data virtualization: There’s a difference

“Data mesh is a decentralized model for data, where domain experts like product engineers or LLM specialists control and manage their own data,” says Ahsan Farooqi, global head of data and analytics, Orion Innovation. While data mesh is tied to certain underlying technologies, it’s really a shift in thinking more than anything else. In an organization that has embraced data mesh architecture, domain-specific data is treated as a product owned by the teams relevant to those domains. ... As Matt Williams, field CTO at Cornelis Networks, puts it, “Data fabric is an architecture and set of data services that provides intelligent, real-time access to data — regardless of where it lives — across on-prem, cloud, hybrid, and edge environments. This is the architecture of choice for large data centers across multiple applications.” ... Data virtualization is the secret sauce that can make that happen. “Data virtualization is a technology layer that allows you to create a unified view of data across multiple systems and allows the user to access, query, and analyze data without physically moving or copying it,” says Williams. That means you don’ t have to worry about reconciling different data stores or working with data that’s outdated. Data fabric uses data virtualization to produce that single pane of glass: It allows the user to see data as a unified set, even if that’s not the underlying physical reality.


Biometrics adoption strategies benefit when government direction is clear

Part of the problem seems to be the collision of private and public sector interests in digital ID use cases like right-to-work checks. They would fall outside the original conception of Gov.uk as a system exclusively for public sector interaction, but the business benefit they provide is strictly one of compliance. The UK government’s Office for Digital Identities and Attributes (OfDIA), meanwhile, brought the register of digital identity and attribute services to the public beta stage earlier this month. The register lists services certified to the digital identity and attributes trust framework to perform such compliance checks, and the recent addition of Gov.uk One Login provided the spark for the current industry conflagration. Age checks for access to online pornography in France now require a “double-blind” architecture to protect user privacy. The additional complexity still leaves clear roles, however, which VerifyMy and IDxLAB have partnered to fill. Yoti has signed up a French pay site, but at least one big international player would rather fight the age assurance rules in court. Aviation and border management is one area where the enforcement of regulations has benefited from private sector innovation. Preparation for Digital Travel Credentials is underway with Amadeus pitching its “journey pass” as a way to use biometrics at each touchpoint as part of a reimagined traveller experience. 



Will AI replace software engineers? It depends on who you ask

Effective software development requires "deep collaboration with other stakeholders, including researchers, designers, and product managers, who are all giving input, often in real time," said Callery-Colyne. "Dialogues around nuanced product and user information will occur, and that context must be infused into creating better code, which is something AI simply cannot do." The area where AIs and agents have been successful so far, "is that they don't work with customers directly, but instead assist the most expensive part of any IT, the programmers and software engineers," Thurai pointed out. "While the accuracy has improved over the years, Gen AI is still not 100% accurate. But based on my conversations with many enterprise developers, the technology cuts down coding time tremendously. This is especially true for junior to mid-senior level developers." AI software agents may be most helpful "when developers are racing against time during a major incident, to roll out a fixed code quickly, and have the systems back up and running," Thurai added. "But if the code is deployed in production as is, then it adds to tech debt and could eventually make the situation worse over the years, many incidents later."


Protected NHIs: Key to Cyber Resilience

We live where cyber threats is continually evolving. Cyber attackers are getting smarter and more sophisticated with their techniques. Traditional security measures no longer suffice. NHIs can be the critical game-changer that organizations have been looking for. So, why is this the case? Well, cyber attackers, in the current times, are not just targeting humans but machines as well. Remember that your IT includes computing resources like servers, applications, and services that all represent potential points of attack. Non-Human Identities have bridged the gap between human identities and machine identities, providing an added layer of protection. NHIs security is of utmost importance as these identities can have overarching permissions. One single mishap with an NHI can lead to severe consequences. ... Businesses are significantly relying on cloud-based services for a wide range of purposes, from storage solutions to sophisticated applications. That said, the increasing dependency on the cloud has elucidated the pressing need for more robust and sophisticated security protocols. An NHI management strategy substantially supports this quest for fortified cloud security. By integrating with your cloud services, NHIs ensure secured access, moderated control, and streamlined data exchanges, all of which are instrumental in the prevention of unauthorized accesses and data violations.


Job seekers using genAI to fake skills and credentials

“We’re seeing this a lot with our tech hires, and a lot of the sentence structure and overuse of buzzwords is making it super obvious,” said Joel Wolfe, president of HiredSupport, a California-based business process outsourcing (BPO) company. HiredSupport has more than 100 corporate clients globally, including companies in the eCommerce, SaaS, healthcare, and fintech sectors. Wolfe, who weighed in on the topic on LinkedIn, said he’s seeing AI-enhanced resumes “across all roles and positions, but most obvious in overembellished developer roles.” ... In general, employers generally say they don’t have a problem with applicants using genAI tools to write a resume, as long as it accurately represents a candidate’s qualifications and experience. ZipRecruiter, an online employment marketplace, said 67% of 800 employers surveyed reported they are open to candidates using genAI to help write their resumes, cover letters, and applications, according to its Q4 2024 Employer Report. Companies, however, face a growing threat from fake job seekers using AI to forge IDs, resumes, and interview responses. By 2028, a quarter of job candidates could be fake, according to Gartner Research. Once hired, impostors can then steal data, money, or install ransomware. ... Another downside to the growing flood of AI deep fake applicants is that it affects “real” job applicants’ chances of being hired.


How Will the Role of Chief AI Officer Evolve in 2025?

For now, the role is less about exploring the possibilities of AI and more about delivering on its immediate, concrete value. “This year, the role of the chief AI officer will shift from piloting AI initiatives to operationalizing AI at scale across the organization,” says Agarwal. And as for those potential upheavals down the road? CAIO officers will no doubt have to be nimble, but Martell doesn’t see their fundamental responsibilities changing. “You still have to gather the data within your company to be able to use with that model and then you still have to evaluate whether or not that model that you built is delivering against your business goals. That has never changed,” says Martell. ... AI is at the inflection point between hype and strategic value. “I think there's going to be a ton of pressure to find the right use cases and deploy AI at scale to make sure that we're getting companies to value,” says Foss. CAIOs could feel that pressure keenly this year as boards and other executive leaders increasingly ask to see ROI on massive AI investments. “Companies who have set these roles up appropriately, and more importantly the underlying work correctly, will see the ROI measurements, and I don't think that chief AI officers [at those] organizations should feel any pressure,” says Mohindra.


Cybercriminals blend AI and social engineering to bypass detection

With improved attack strategies, bad actors have compressed the average time from initial access to full control of a domain environment to less than two hours. Similarly, while a couple of years ago it would take a few days for attackers to deploy ransomware, it’s now being detonated in under a day and even in as few as six hours. With such short timeframes between the attack and the exfiltration of data, companies are simply not prepared. Historically, attackers avoided breaching “sensitive” industries like healthcare, utilities, and critical infrastructures because of the direct impact to people’s lives.  ... Going forward, companies will have to reconcile the benefits of AI with its many risks. Implementing AI solutions expands a company’s attack surface and increases the risk of data getting leaked or stolen by attackers or third parties. Threat actors are using AI efficiently, to the point where any AI employee training you may have conducted is already outdated. AI has allowed attackers to bypass all the usual red flags you’re taught to look for, like grammatical errors, misspelled words, non-regional speech or writing, and a lack of context to your organization. Adversaries have refined their techniques, blending social engineering with AI and automation to evade detection. 


AI in Cybersecurity: Protecting Against Evolving Digital Threats

As much as AI bolsters cybersecurity defenses, it also enhances the tools available to attackers. AI-powered malware, for example, can adapt its behavior in real time to evade detection. Similarly, AI enables cybercriminals to craft phishing schemes that mimic legitimate communications with uncanny accuracy, increasing the likelihood of success. Another alarming trend is the use of AI to automate reconnaissance. Cybercriminals can scan networks and systems for vulnerabilities more efficiently than ever before, highlighting the necessity for cybersecurity teams to anticipate and counteract AI-enabled threats. ... The integration of AI into cybersecurity raises ethical questions that must be addressed. Privacy concerns are at the forefront, as AI systems often rely on extensive data collection. This creates potential risks for mishandling or misuse of sensitive information. Additionally, AI’s capabilities for surveillance can lead to overreach. Governments and corporations may deploy AI tools for monitoring activities under the guise of security, potentially infringing on individual rights. There is also the risk of malicious actors repurposing legitimate AI tools for nefarious purposes. Clear guidelines and robust governance are crucial to ensuring responsible AI deployment in cybersecurity.


AI workloads set to transform enterprise networks

As AI companies leapfrog each other in terms of capabilities, they will be able to handle even larger conversations — and agentic AI may increase the bandwidth requirements exponentially and in unpredictable ways. Any website or app could become an AI app, simply by adding an AI-powered chatbot to it, says F5’s MacVittie. When that happens, a well-defined, structured traffic pattern will suddenly start looking very different. “When you put the conversational interfaces in front, that changes how that flow actually happens,” she says. Another AI-related challenge that networking managers will need to address is that of multi-cloud complexity. ... AI brings in a whole host of potential security problems for enterprises. The technology is new and unproven, and attackers are quickly developing new techniques for attacking AI systems and their components. That’s on top of all the traditional attack vectors, says Rich Campagna, senior vice president of product management at Palo Alto Networks. At the edge, devices and networks are often distributed which leads to visibility blind spots,” he adds. That makes it harder to fix problems if something goes wrong. Palo Alto is developing its own AI applications, Campagna says, and has been for years. And so are its customers.