The first half of 2024 saw a significant rise in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, in both frequency and intensity, according to a new report from Radware.
Global political tensions were cited as a major driver of the increase, the report highlighted, with hacktivists groups claiming responsibility for 1000 to 1200 DDoS attacks a month in the first half of 2024.
Ukraine was the most targeted country by hacktivists during the first half of the year, followed by the US, Israel, India, and Moldova.
Pro-Russia hacktivist group NoName057 was the most active threat actor, a title maintained from the year prior.
Government websites were also the most targeted since January 2023, also mainly targeting Ukraine, but also Israel, India, Moldova, Poland, Senegal, and Spain.
Other notable targets besides government websites included X (formally Twitter), Twitch, Amazon, and Spotify.
Application-layer DDoS attacks also tripled between 2022 and 2023, and quadrupled between H1 2023 and H1 2024.
The number of malicious queries increased by 76% in just the first half of 2024 compared to the whole year in 2023.
Researchers also saw a surge in web DDoS attacks, with a 137% increase in Q1 2024 over Q4 2023, followed by an 85% increase in Q2 2024 over Q1.
A majority of those attacks targeted EMEA organisations, with researchers citing an influence by geopolitical conflicts and significant events like EU parliamentary elections, and the Olympic Games taking place in Paris.
Network-layer DDoS attacks also saw a rise, with financial organisations experiencing the highest network-layer attack activities (44%), followed by healthcare (17%), technology (10%), and government (7.2%).
Web application and API attacks increased by 22% in H1 2024, compared to H2 2023, with vulnerability exploitation as the leading attack category (33%), and North America as the most targeted region with 66% of the cyber-attacks.
The report also found that bad bot activity saw a significant rise – an increase of 61% compared to H1 2023.
The presence of web crawlers detected in the first half of 2024 was 5.8%, increase from below 4% in 2021 and nearly 7% in 2023.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has awarded contracts totalling £30 million to drive innovation and research into new techniques to deliver safe, sustainable, and cost-effective decommissioning.
The NDA is cleaning up the UK’s oldest nuclear sites which were designed without decommissioning in mind, posing challenges which require first of a kind engineering and technological solutions.
Research is an essential part of decommissioning programme and each year the NDA group invest £100m in research and development (R&D). The aim is to solve the challenging technical problems more effectively, more efficiently, and where possible, for less cost.
The NDA Research Portfolio (NRP) competition forms a key part of the NDA’s research programme and provides direct funding for research that which aims to support skills growth across the supply chain.
“We are delighted with the high quality of the submissions received, including from many new organisations alongside those established in the nuclear sector,” NDA head of R&D, Kate Canning, said.
“It’s an exciting time for the nuclear industry and we believe the range of organisations involved in the frameworks will provide a diverse range of experience and knowledge to deliver innovative research supporting the delivery of the NDA mission.”
The contracts will cover three areas, including university interactions, enabling decommissioning, waste management, and remediation, as well as spent fuels and nuclear material.
The seven successful consortia involve over 60 organisations in total including established nuclear companies, global cross-sector corporations, UK universities, national laboratories, plus small and medium sized enterprises.
The three new contracts run for four years and replace the previous Direct Research Portfolio (DRP) awarded in 2020.
Previous successes as a result of the NRP include the development of new treatment technologies for uranic materials and the development of a non-contract asbestos detection system utilising hyperspectral techniques to support our decommissioning mission.
The NRP supports the NDA’s University Research Strategy and will also address cross-industry R&D requirements identified by the Nuclear Waste and Decommissioning Research Forum (NWDRF), a group that aims to enhance coordination of R&D and technical programmes across UK’s site decommissioning and remediation and integrated waste management activities.
Businesses in Scotland are being urged to sign up to a free digital tool which monitors the threats from cyber-criminals.
Police CyberAlarm is being offered to help businesses better understand and monitor malicious cyber activity.
The scheme, funded by the Home Office, was first made available to all police forces and regions by the National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC) Cybercrime Programme in 2020, and since its launch has identified over a billion potential suspicious events resulting in reports and advice being given to members, enabling them to take action to prevent a successful attack.
Members of the scheme will receive regular reports showing suspicious and potentially malicious attack activity on their firewall and internet gateway.
The report also details how the business is being attacked and from where, providing businesses with insights necessary to improve their overall cyber resilience.
The Police CyberAlarm, deployed by Police Scotland, helps officers identify current threats and take enforcement action against cyber-criminals, and benefit any public and private sector business with a computer network, including SMEs, organisations, charities, education establishments and local government.
“People and businesses are spending more and more time online and it is almost impossible to trade without a computer network or website,” chief superintendent Conrad Trickett said.
“The threat from cybercriminals is now ever present and Police Scotland’s priority is to keep everyone safe, and that incudes in the digital world. This is even more important with criminals continuing to use any method at their disposal to exploit vulnerabilities.
“Cybersecurity should be a priority for every business. There has never been a more appropriate time to make use of any system that can make them more cyber resilient.
“I would urge businesses to take the opportunity to sign up to the Police CyberAlarm scheme.”
The platform has several offerings, including scanning businesses for vulnerabilities, as well as providing data on the latest threats discovered to enable fast update measures.
Data is also used by the police, according to the CyberAlarm website, to keep up with emerging threats, take enforcement action, and help businesses better prepare themselves.
Justice secretary Angela Constance added: “Improving cyber resilience remains a key priority for the Scottish Government.
“As a nation of small and medium sized companies, we work with partners, including Police Scotland, to raise awareness and support organisations to improve their cyber defences, which is key to their operational and business continuity.
“As a free digital tool, I would encourage businesses to sign up to Police CyberAlarm. The technology helps firms understand the risks they face online and assists Police Scotland to work with organisations so they can prepare to respond to cyber-attacks effectively. We want to make the most of technological advances while keeping Scotland digitally safe and secure.”
Following racist riots throughout the UK, Prime Minister Keir Starmer introduced a government programme to improve the police capabilities handling mass racist riots, but civil rights groups have raised alarm bells on the implication this could have in terms of surveillance.
On 1 August, the government announced their National Violent Disorder Programme which will “bring together the best policing capabilities from across the country to share intelligence on the activity of violent groups so the authorities can swiftly intervene to arrest them,” a press release claimed.
The programme intends to use “local insight and data” to understand the operations of criminals – for instance, British Transport Police will keep track of the upticks of train ticket sales to see if it will be linked to organised “violent disorder.”
In the announcement of the programme, the government will look into how it will deploy facial recognition technology, but so far, it has yet to be confirmed if this will take the form of live or retrospective facial recognition.
But this idea already has civil rights groups ringing alarm bells over what the entire programme means as far as human rights, surveillance, and government tracking.
The Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol), an advocacy group monitoring police conduct that is excessive and discriminatory – says that the programme will likely be used to target anti-fascists, rather than the far-right groups responsible for the violence and riots seen in the UK in recent weeks.
“Even though the recent public disorder is better described as race-rioting than protest, this first test of his leadership almost certainly means that any prospect of Starmer’s new government rethinking the expansion of anti-protest police powers created by the Public Order Act 2023 is now over,” Netpol wrote in a blog post.
Further, the Prime Minister has backed the continued roll out of facial recognition technology across UK policing, despite call outs of its perpetuation of racial bias and risks of surveillance.
“After the immediate crisis recedes, expanded police surveillance is just as likely to focus on movements for social, racial and climate justice as it does on the far-right,” Netpol warned.
Indeed, following 2011 riots, the conservative government increased policing authority specifically for protesting, introducing the Public Order Bill making it increasingly difficult for people to exercise the right to protest.
The support from the new government is therefore worrying to civil adovocates which previously hoped the Labour party would reverse new encroachments on protesting rights and privacy – now, Netpol’s hopes are dashed.
“What we can expect instead is more funding for, and more central coordination of protest intelligence gathering, including live facial recognition,” they warn.
Scottish asset management firms have been identified as poor investment performers in a new report.
Spot the Dog, a report conducted by Bestinvest by Evelyn Parnters which analyses fund performance across the globe, found that Ballie Gifford and Martin Curries, both Scottish asset managers, are high in their list ranking poor investment performance.
Dog funds – investment firms that have delivered worse returns than the market it invests in for three consecutive 12 month periods, have been down a further 44% according to the report, amounting to £53.4bn of money from investors year-on-year.
Despite the AI boom at the end of 2023 improving the US stock market, the Spot the Dog report reveals these benefits to be narrow, only helping already strong performers.
Renewable and sustainability initiatives also suffered as oil and gas soared during the energy crisis spurred on by the war in Ukraine. These funds make up 20% of the Spot the Dog global list of poor performing funds, though these might recover.
It is important to note that the report covers past patterns, and does not necessarily represent what the future may hold for these funds.
“The high number of funds badged variously as sustainable or responsible that feature in the latest Spot the Dog report is likely in part down to the stellar performance of oil and gas stocks in 2021-22,” Jason Hollands, managing director of Bestinvest, said, as reported by Insider.
“Compare this to the alternative and renewable energy market, which fell out of favour during the post-pandemic surge in energy demand, and the story is very different – however, we expect the number of ESG funds to reduce in the next couple of reports as the effect of surging energy stocks drops out of the data.”
Similarly, while certain markets boom, not all are able to benefit.
The rise in AI saw prolific highs for companies participating in the AI race, such as Nvidia and Microsoft, but this increase in performance was narrow and did not penetrate the wider market.
The top ten worse performing funds overall, and their three-year underperformance compared to the market benchmark, are as follows:
Artemis Positive Future Fund -71%
Baillie Gifford Global Discovery Fund -65%
FTF Martin Currie Japan Equity -64%
AXA Act People & Planet Equity Fund -53%
Aegon Sustainable Equity -52%
IFSL Marlborough Global Innovation Fund -51%
L&G Future World Sustainable UK Equity Focus -51%
Baillie Gifford Japanese Smaller Coms Fund 047%
FSSA Japan Focus Fund -47%
“Funds can stumble for a myriad of different reasons, from poor decision making or a run of bad luck to instability in the team or because the fund has a style or process no longer favoured by recent market trends,” Hollands said.
“Identifying whether a fund is struggling with short-term challenges that will later pass, or more deep-rooted issues with long-term consequences is vital for investors considering whether to remove an investment from their portfolio.”
A child protection advocacy group is calling on Meta to do more to prevent the spread of child sexual abuse material across the messaging platform WhatsApp.
WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption messaging service has faced hot water by child protection groups before as their encryption methods make it impossible for the company itself or others to see or block criminal files being shared.
The platform, owned by Meta, is where disgraced BBC journalists Huw Edwards was sent illicit material, including category A imagery of children as young as seven, which is the most extreme category of child sexual abuse imagery.
Following this, safeguarding minister Jess Phillips has joined child protection charities and the National Crime Agency in calling on Meta to do more to stop images and videos of child sexual abuse from being shared on its platforms.
Meta contends that current methods of detecting and blocking child sexual abuse material (CSAM) are incompatible with end-to-end encryption, which the company says it uses to help keep people safe.
The continual debate around the need for end-to-end encryption, which protects private messages from being viewed by outsiders, companies, and governments, and the potential harm of the technology, is tricky to navigate from a security and safety perspective.
End-to-end encryption was a continual topic for controversy when the Online Safety Act was moving through Parliament, as MPs argued for its effectiveness in terms of privacy, while others pointed to how this very same privacy enables the sharing of illicit material.
As we see continual coverage highlighting the commonality of CSAM, child protection groups and government appear to be at a loss for what to do, and for what big tech companies are doing to prevent its spread across their platforms.
“I’d like to ask this question. How is Meta going to prevent this from happening again? What is stopping those images being shared again on that service today, tomorrow, and the next day?” Dan Sexton, chief technology officer a the Internet Watch Foundation said.
“We should not be seeing this in the news time and time again. It is a solvable problem.
“There are tried, trusted, and effective methods to detect images and videos of child sexual abuse and prevent them from being shared in the first place. But in WhatsApp, these safeguards are effectively switched off, with no alternative measures in place.
“This was a technology-enabled crime against children and I think this is where we need to see change.
How this change occurs, however, leaves even more questions. This was a point of major contention during Online Safety Act debates, as tech companies contended, and still contend, that there is no way to scan messages for illegal activities without compromising user safety.
In a proposal to first scan messages for illegal content before encrypting them, many tech companies, including WhatsApp and Signal, informed the government that currently, no such technology exists, and doing so would completely derail the point of end-to-end encryption.
On the other hand, end-to-end encryption does offer a safe harbour to criminal activities such as grooming, selling of illegal substances, and the sharing of illicit images, including CSAM.
While it is of course reasonable and often demanded that government officials take a hard line when it comes to CSAM – as Phillips said, “UK law is crystal clear,” implementing technology on the sharing end of CSAM is not so black and white.
“Technology exists to detect and prevent the abhorrent abuse of thousands of children and ensure victims are given privacy by stopping the repeated sharing and viewing of images and videos of their abuse,” the safeguarding minister said.
“Social media companies must act and implement robust detection measures to prevent their platforms being safe spaces for criminals.”
But how they act is not so simple. And more messaging services are moving towards enabling end-to-end encryption, much to the concern of child protection advocates. Meta added end-to-end encryption to its Messenger service, for instance.
Privacy experts are in favour of encryption, saying it prevents companies and governments from accessing people’s private correspondence, preventing surveillance. Child protection experts say end-to-end encryption is making their jobs harder, and enabling an easy avenue for criminals to share and spread child sexual abuse imagery, and often providing a lane for them to procure illicit images from children through grooming as well.
These two groups, while not necessary against the other in principle, are at a standstill when it comes to end-to-end encryption.
Currently, there are no effective methods to scan messages for illicit content while ensuring privacy – advocates argue that opening up this door could lead to surveillance, arrests of other non-connected crimes, and an overall invasion of privacy.
This case also left a scary precedent, potentially enabling police to carry out mass warrants on encrypted messaging services if they decide enough criminal activity is being carried out on the service.
And still, end-to-end encryption is allowing criminals to proliferate CSAM online across platforms, evading law enforcement and detection efforts.
“It is fundamentally not acceptable for technology companies, with the resources they have at their disposal, to consciously step away from preventing the distribution of indecent images of children across their platforms,” Rick Jones, the acting director of intelligence at the National Crime Agency, contended.
“Technology is available to identify these images, but most companies are choosing to design their platforms in a way that does not allow it to be used either at all, or to its full effectiveness.
“When end-to-end encryption (E2EE) is used, technology companies cannot protect their customers, millions of whom are children, as they simply cannot see illegal behaviour on their own systems.”
While the number of girls taking computing A-level in 2024 increased year on year to over 3,000 students, computing science still hasn’t cracked the top ten list of A-level courses taken in England and Wales.
Computing science uptake among girls has been on a steady rise, with many initatives aiming to get more girls into computing courses to one day fill the gender gap in tech.
The growth seen in 2024, which saw an increase of 28.6% from 2023, by 800 students, represents the largest showing of girls in the course in five years.
2024 also saw an overall rise in the number of students taking computing, with an increase of 11.3% from the previous year.
The uptick however still falls short of breaking computing science into the top ten A-level courses of 2024, as young people still show hesitancy on taking the course.
“Technology plays an integral role in every aspect of our lives,” David Shepherd, senior vice president of EMEA at Ivanti, said.
“Yet although the digital revolution has been going on for years, the skills gap is widening. While computer
science is gaining traction, its absence from the top ten A-Level subjects announced today is concerning. Every job, from engineering to law, is increasingly reliant on technology.”
Getting rid of ICT (information communication technology), a course that taught students more business and administrative computer skills, may be reason for the overall increasing in computing students.
Computing courses, on the other hand, offer more technical computing skills, such as programming. While programming is becoming more common place, removing ICT from the A-level curriculum was controversial as many entering the workforce lack basic digital skills.
And, while the number of girls taking computing may be on the rise, this figure generally falls when girls progress in their education to university, and even further when entering the workforce.
“The next generation needs to be digitally fluent to ensure their future success,” Shepherd continued.
“Whether they pursue an IT career or not, these skills allow people to leverage the right tools, adapt to evolving technologies, and unlock their full potential.
“What’s more, digital literacy promotes productivity and safety. It safeguards individuals from online threats, such as AI-generate misinformation and cyber threats, and equips them to harness the power of AI responsibly – at work and in their personal lives.
“Increasing the focus on computer science in schools is paramount. However, the responsibility for this lies with all of us. As tech leaders, we must influence our organisations
to invest in schools – providing students with the equipment and knowledge to thrive and build our future talent pipeline.”
In a major decision for AI copyright regulation, a US judge has denied several AI companies’ appeal to dismiss a class-action copyright lawsuit.
Following the development of advanced AI-art generators, visual artists and creators began to claim that AI-generated art closely resembled their own, sparking concerns over data-scraping and copyright infringement.
Artists, writers, and other creators began to claim that AI companies had used their images to train their AI content, noticing similarities in styles of the AI’s output. Users also noted that they could prompt AI image generators to create images in the style of artists, despite these artists not providing consent.
This drove several artists to file a class action lawsuit against Stability AI, Midjourney, DeviantArt, and Runway AI, claiming that these companies’ used the artists copyrighted images to train their AI models, without the artists consent, let alone compensation.
In the initial lawsuit, which was filed February 2023, US Judge William Orrick upheld the copyright infringement claim against Stability AI, but dismissed many of the other complaints asking for further detail from their attorneys.
The AI companies involved, on the other hand, argued for the entire case to be thrown out, denying any copyright infringement, instead saying that the complainants had not stated a valid claim on the Digital US Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
But in the judge’s latest statements, Orrick dismissed the companies’ points based on new information provided by the artists’ lawyers.
The artists may now continue pursuing their claim under the Copyright Act and the Lanham Act, the main trademark statute in the US.
“We won BIG as the judge allowed ALL of our claims on copyright infringement to proceed and we historically move on The Lanham Act (trade dress) claims! We can now proceed onto discovery!” one of the plaintiffs, Karla Ortiz, wrote in a post on X.
As other AI copyright infringement cases come to the foray, this decision could be a turning point as governments and courts grapple with the new AI age and its many pitfalls.
The English Premier League will debut a new offside detection system for the upcoming 2024/25 season, powered by a fleet of smart phones rather than VAR.
Developed by Genius Sports, a sports data and technology company, and Second Spectrum, its subsidiary, the new tool, called Drago, promises to increase the accuracy of often controversial offside calls and other critical live decisions.
The introduction of VAR systems to aid referees in making more accurate calls during football matches was met with opposition, and the failings of the technology often left fans frustrated
Motion-capture systems that were previously used, even in major tournaments like the FIFA World Cup, had limitations, with angles blocked by players, and could often only report simple metrics. This often led to less accurate decision makings, sparking outrage among fans.
By using multiple iPhones, Dragon will attempt to remedy these faults by offering a more holistic view of the field, capturing more angles and data.
The tool will use at minimum 28 iPhone 14s, or new models, set strategically around stadiums in order to capture more angles.
From there, the iPhones will take high-frame video of the match from various angles, protected in waterproof cases complete with power sources and cooling fans.
The videos will track between 7,000 to 10,000 points on each player on the field, which will then be fed into a machine learning algorithm which will provide real-time data on players.
The advanced cameras, which analyse up to 200 frames per second, are more advanced than traditional broadcast video, which will allow for enhanced accuracy when assessing when actions take place. This specifically will help referees in deciding offside calls, a growing area of controversy with less-advanced VAR systems.
While it offers more advanced insights, the baseline technology is more accessible and cost efficient than traditional tracking systems. Further, the set up allows for flexibility, letting Genius Sports adjust design on a needs-basis.
Similar to VAR, however, the final call will be the referee’s decision, while the AI-based Dragon system will provide detailed assistance and analysis.
Tech companies are calling on the new government to change the updated visa rules introduced by the last conservative government, over fears it could turn away valuable employment opportunities.
New Skilled Worker visa regulations were put into place last Spring by then home secretary James Cleverly, which included a steep increase in the minimum baseline salary from £26,200 to £38,700.
The change was accompanied by the same increase for the Family and Spousal Visas, restricting the ability for workers to bring their families over, and for UK citizens to marry foreign nationals without a high enough wage.
The national minimum wage currently sits at 11.44 an hour for those over 21, meaning that the yearly salary for a 35-hour work week is just £20,820, dramatically lower than the new visa standards, which is £3,700 above the UK’s median salary.
Centuro Global, a global mobility firm, claims that the new visa rules will dramatically restrict the UK’s incoming workforce, with UK startups at the greatest risk.
UK startups will likely not be able to hire foreign talent with the new higher wage requirements, and could risk losing out of talent competing with larger tech firms.
Stricter visa restrictions as well as Brexit are already turning away top talent from Europe, as students have limited pathways to stay in the UK after study, despite the Graduate Visa Scheme. The raised baseline salary – coupled with the visa fees for employees and employers – could further dissuade workers from a country that lacks free movement with much of the wider continent.
Other companies are therefore joining Centuro’s call for the new Labour government to “clarify” its plans on immigration and the visa system.
“If the government is truly serious about spurring economic growth, something must be done to help the skills-intensive businesses that have been so damaged by the onerous system recently introduced by the Tories,” Centuro Global said in a blog post.
“The business community needs decisive action and clear, growth-friendly policies. Any delays will hinder the confidence that is so immediately needed to lift the UK’s low levels of investment,” the company warned.
As part of its advocacy, Centuro Global is conducting a report on how the Skilled Worker visa restrictions are affecting businesses in the UK, and is asking for testimonies.
So far, the Labour government has made no moves to say it will change the current UK visa restrictions, though newly appointed Department of Science, Innovation and Technology minister Sir Patrick Vallance has said that the current visa costs are “very high” and should be addressed.
A Home Office spokesperson contested this claim, saying it was not government policy to change the current immigration rules, potentially exposing a gap between Labour party leaders.
Highland Broadband will receive a further £1o million in funding from the Scottish National Investment Bank.
The latest round of funding from the bank aims to make significant progress in broadband rollout to rural and remote parts of Scotland, with the goal of providing connectivity to more than 100,000 premises.
A part of Lothian Broadband Networks, Highland Broadband estimates that around half a million Scottish premises still lack access to gigabit-capable networks, as it plans to connect as many as possible over the next coming years.
The bank initially provided £20m in funding to Highland Broadband back in 2021, with a further £20m in 2023. These investments helped the company install gigabit-capable networks across Scotland, to areas such as East Lothian, Stirlingshire, Fife, and the Highlands north of Inverness.
Highland Broadband’s latest phase of deployment includes furthering its network throughout Great Glen, the Black Isle, and the Cairngorms.
“The Highlands and Islands face unique connectivity challenges, but we view overcoming these barriers as essential for providing what should be a basic service for everyone in Scotland,” Gavin Rodgers, chief executive at Highland Broadband, said,
“The bank’s continued support has enabled us to accelerate our plan to connect these regions, which ultimately helps reduce place based inequality in areas such as education, employment and healthcare.”
Before the company started work in 2015, fewer than 1% of premises from Inverness to the north of Scotland, the Black Isle, and on the east coast had access to a gigabit capable network. Now, Highland Broadband’s efforts, as well as other network providers, have improved that to around 80%, with the company expecting to reach 98% coverage by the end of the year.
Andy Clapp, executive director of the Scottish National Investment Bank, said; “Our support of Highland Broadband’s multi-year effort to connect all parts of Scotland aligns with one of our core missions to increase equality through improving spaces.
“The installation of gigabit capable networks, which so many of us take for granted, is already having a real-world impact that’s strengthening the threads of Highland communities.”
AI has reached the point where it is now considered an esteemed member of society, at least according to results from a new Kaspersky survey.
The study found that AI applications are increasingly taking on a variety of new roles previously earmarked for senior members of staff, and over a quarter of respondents (27%) in the UK now believe the technology would be a fairer leader than humans due to its perceived “impartiality.”
According to data aggregation service, Similarweb, ChatGPT garnered 153 million visits in the first month after its launch in November 2022, and peaked at two billion visits in April 2024.
According to the study, respondents consider AI to be a “valued work colleague and manager”, with nearly half (49%) of all UK respondents stating that they are already working with AI to run their daily lives, both professional and social, more efficiently.
A further 34% have a positive outlook on AI’s potential to improve the future for everyone.
The role of AI extends to our social and romantic lives, with 44% of UK respondents stating that they are ready to use an AI chatbot to have conversations online and a quarter (25%) would use it to help them to find the right partner on a dating app.
Perhaps understandably, exactly half (50%) of respondents in the UK believe that human relationships will change because of the impact of AI if virtual characters start replacing real-life partners.
Most respondents admit that AI has the most wide-ranging capabilities in creative areas with 64% believing the technology can be a credible producer of works of art. A further 43% foresee an imminent future where children are even taught through AI-driven virtual experiences.
“It is clear we are in the midst of an AI adoption revolution. More and more people are turning to and embracing AI technologies for cultural tasks, such as creating art, rather than just for traditional data processing and analysis that has dominated AI usage in recent years,” stated David Emm, principal security researcher at Kaspersky.
“As AI technologies continue to improve and evolve, their potential to unlock innovation and enhance our daily lives is immense. However, greater usage brings greater responsibility.
“Overreliance on AI can lead to increased security risks and potential problems, it is important to employ stringent cybersecurity solutions and be wary of putting personal, sensitive data through an AI solution model.”
AI and automation in UK policing is being called out to the UN for perpetuating structural racism within law enforcement and the wider country.
The joint report by Runnymede Trust and Amnesty International UK to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination comes less than a week after riots by far-right nationalists broke out across the UK after the murder of three young girls was wrongly associated with a Muslim man.
The riots – driven by rising racism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia galvanised and exploited by rising far-right politicians – are only a symptom of structural racism perpetuated in the country.
“The racist and Islamophobic violence unfolding on the streets of the UK highlight the failures of successive governments to make progress on institutional racism,” Ilyas Nagdee, racial justice director at Amnesty UK said.
The report eviscerated the state of racism in the UK and the wider world, discussing the socioeconomic effects across different racial groups, and racisms intersections with gender, religion, and social mobility.
Notably, the report had a section specifically discussing the role of AI and automation systems in their perpetuation of racism, highlighting its use by police in England and Wales.
Since 2015, police forces in England and Wales have employed facial recognition technology, including the more controversial live facial recognition (LRF) technology. This technology is often used in large crowds in live time, so public consent is not gathered, and non-suspects may have their face scanned.
The use of LFR was used nine times between 2020 to 2022, resulting in nine arrests or disposals, but this figure exploded to 96 occasions between 2023 and May 2024, resulting in 243 arrests.
LRF has notably been used in the policing of protests, including those in solidarity with Palestine, and the King’s coronation.
Further, facial recognition has been found to be increasingly used in non-police settings, such as foodbanks and to combat shoplifting. According to the report, the Home Office’s actions appear in support of this, as it lobbied the Information Commissioner’s Office – the UK’s independent data protection regulator – to approve the use of private facial recognition software.
Coupling an intelligence system which is known to perpetual racial bias and mis-identify BME individuals with a policing force that has admitted to having a racial bias problem would logically compound in the exacerbation of structural racism in the UK.
The Metropolitan Police already faced scrutiny of their Gangs Matrix, which racially profiled predominantly young Black boys and men for being suspected gang members based on their music taste and social media activity – but similar systems empowered by AI, which is known to perpetuate human bias, could be even worse.
To combat this, the statement is calling for an inquiry into all police gang databases for racial bias and their overall effectiveness.
The paper therefore recommended the prohibition of all forms of predictive and profiling systems in law enforcement and criminal justice.
The advocacy groups also call for transparency when police, migration, and other national agencies use ‘high-risk’ AI, such as facial recognition and decision-making AI.
The joint statement is also calling for legal limits prohibiting AI for uses posing an unacceptable risk to human rights.
“People of colour have faced a rowback on their civil and political rights over the past five years,” Alba Kapoor, head of policy at the Runnymede Trust, said.
“From the inhumane changes to our asylum system, to the introduction of legislation that restricts protest rights and ramps up harmful policing powers, it is time to shift the dial.”
Data skills gaps are expounding into productivity gaps across industries, with workers on average losing 25 days of productivity a year due to inefficient completion of data tasks.
This is according to a new report from Mutliverse Skills, which found that employees on average spend 14.31 hours a week on data tasks, equivalent to 36% of their total working week.
Data skills are continually more and more vital as digital transformation takes hold across industries, but employees are lacking even the most basic of digital skills.
According to the report, over half of workers (57%) have no or only basic Excel skills. Over half (53%) lack the ability to make data analysis more efficient or use automation processes (49%).
More advanced skills are also lacking – 55% have no skills in Tableau, and 86% have no skills in Python.
While it may not be necessary for every employee to have even a basic understanding of Python, other holistic data skills are also missing.
Predictive data analysis, modelling and forecasting (49%), analysing data to make decisions (46%) and visualising and presenting data (46%) are all key skills missing by a large proportion of employees.
Effectively handling data is essential for business prospects, but a lack of efficiency can waste precious time for employees spending hours on data handling rather than other aspects of their job.
Employees working in manufacturing spend about three hours a day working on data, but more than an hour of that is spent inefficiently.
Those in education spend about 38% of their time working with data unproductively. About 34% of the time healthcare workers spend working with data is unproductive – that means of the 20 hours a week they spend working with data, nearly seven of those hours are wasted.
Further, about 68% of those working at not-for-profits have only basic Excel skills or none at all – severely limiting their data analysis capabilities.
Commenting on the findings, Euan Blair, CEO at Multiverse said: “The lack of data skills is holding businesses back, and it is holding economies back. Workers are wasting hundreds of hours a year because they lack the skills to handle data effectively – that loss is coupled with the faulty decision-making and opportunity cost of poor data use.”
Despite these shortfalls, 90% of employees on average across different industries want to improve their data skills, the survey found.
“Companies have spent billions on software, but hardly anything on the skills needed to get the most from that software,” Blair said, elucidating on the pattern of companies investing in AI, without complimenting this with appropriate investment in skills.
While about four in five (79%) of professional services firms expect to increase investment in emerging technologies, there are significant challenges holding back adoption.
This is according to new research from Deltek which shows that organisations are prioritising AI implementation to overcome these challenges to drive growth and profitability.
Almost a third (30%) of professional services firms report that failing to make significant digital transformation progress will result in the loss of market share within 12-months, making it essential for firms to overcome barriers, quickly.
The top three challenges adoption are: the cost of technology (54%), prioritising which technologies are most applicable to the business (50%), and a lack of employee education about trends and how they apply to their industry (30%) according to respondents.
Investing in and implementing AI is seen as a competitive advantage (74%), alongside giving businesses the ability to expand the services they can deliver to the market (74%). 72% believe AI will improve their staff’s job satisfaction and 41% believe successful implementation will increase profits.
“Project management challenges have been further compounded by ongoing global socioeconomic disruption, placing greater pressure on firms to optimise cost and reduce resources to stay profitable while meeting customer demand.” Bret Tushaus, vice president of project management at Deltek, said.
“It’s like trying to keep a household running smoothly during tough times, making sure all needs are met while tightening the budget.”
“Investing in Project ERP as a backbone, will provide insight into business metrics, optimisation of processes, and support the productivity gains needed to help firms ensure they stay on-track and demonstrate success confidently to key stakeholders.
“Think of it as a detailed family planner that helps you track expenses, plan meals, and manage schedules all in one place, making it easier to keep everything under control and show progress.”
The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) and Defence and Security Accelerator, two government initiatives set up to support the Ministry of Defence, have announced the six innovators that will share £1.6m in funding to develop technologies for the space domain.
The funding was achieved as a result of Space to Innovate Campaign – Charlie Drop which invited innovators to submit their innovative technologies and solutions to help overcome challenge areas.
The first of which involved novel ways to achieve fine resolution connection for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
Challenge two focused on technologies and techniques to alert, protect and defend satellites.
And the third challenge revolved around satellite and ground segment technologies for future defence and security operations.
“As space becomes increasingly contested and congested, the ability to harness novel technologies to ensure freedom of action is essential,” major general Paul Tedman, commander of UK Space Command, said.
“We will continue to work with our partners in industry, DASA, Dstl to seize and maintain the competitive edge in space.
Athos Ritsperis, Dstl Space Systems programme manager, added: “Accelerating the development of these technologies could contribute to the development of future operational concepts in support of the Defence Space Strategy. We look forward to working with all the contracted suppliers.”
The Space to Innovate Campaign was set up to encourage the development of space technologies that can maintain the UK’s freedom of action in the space domain by enhancing its space military and civil potential.
The Winning Projects
Nottingham Scientific Ltd – GMV NSL Limited
This project aims to develop an automated system for the identification of unattributed radio transmission and for the prediction of the orbit of their source.
Surrey Satellite Technology Limited
This project aims to develop a fully deployable telescope for high resolution Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) from Medium Earth Orbit (MEO).
Spectra Defence Limited
This project focuses on developing an innovation that allows for high resolution remote imaging and characterisation of unknown objects approaching high value satellites in Geostationary orbits.
Super-Sharp Space Systems Ltd
This project’s goal is to develop a control system to enable the self-alignment of large space telescopes.
University of Liverpool
This project sets out to develop large area antenna systems that can be stowed via origami folding and a novel deployment mechanism for utilisation in low-Earth orbit (LEO).
QinetiQ Ltd Farnborough
This project aims to dramatically improve the ability to sense small objects that are largely invisible to our current sensing capability and yet pose a significant threat to the operation of space assets.
Our digital ecosystem is under threat and has been for some time. The cybersecurity crisis facing organisations is two-pronged, involving both internal and external threats. Human error is a significant contributor, as theWorld Economic Forum states that 95% of data breaches result from human mistakes.
On the other hand, external threats from cyber-criminals continue to escalate. A government-backed report in the UK reveals that 52% of primary schools, 71% of secondary schools, and 86% of colleges and universities experienced cyber incidents in the past year.
There have been several reports in the past month alone, including one Essex-based school that wasforced to close after a “critical incident” was declared following a ransomware attack. This is far from an isolated incident. In fact, there arereports that schools are being targeted at critical times in the academic calendar, such as when term is just about to start, or an exam season begins.
Schools, like businesses, have come to rely on connectivity, cloud storage, and digital infrastructure more in recent years. They store high volumes of sensitive information and rely on seamless communication channels with local councils, parents, and suppliers. Given this dependency on digital infrastructure, the UK government has issued education-focused guidelines as part of itsNational Cyber Strategy.
Cyber Vulnerabilities in Education
A critical aspect in education lies in how data is being transmitted. Email remains the most appropriate means of sharing sensitive information both within schools and across local authorities. This may include governing bodies, SEN provisions and social services. However, without proper security measures, email communications can expose institutions to significant risks.
For cyber-criminals, data is like currency. The more they can steal, the higher the leverage they have to extort their target. A scenario might be an attacker intercepting an email in transit with specific details on a homework assignment. The email appears to be legitimate, asking students to submit their work via a fake portal.
The student then enters their credentials, which the attacker can use to access the school’s network. All of a sudden, this harmless transmission of data from student to teacher has been weaponised, and the criminal can steal someone’s identity or extract data and hold it ransom.
Educational institutions house vast amounts of data by necessity, but often lack the cybersecurity capabilities, resources, or awareness that private institutions have. That makes them vulnerable. Not only that, but the theft or loss of this data can lead to significant disruption – the cyber-attack on Billericay School, referenced above, led to a complete school closure when its IT systems were compromised, halting learning and interrupting exams.
The Human Factor: Building Cyber Resilience
While we must always be on alert for external threats, the truth is that human error is the leading cause of data loss events in the education sector. According to theICO, of the 7,650 events reported since 2019, nearly 6,200 were unrelated to outside threats, and nearly 2,500 were simple errors such as emails sent to the wrong person or misuse of Bcc.
Educators are often working under pressure and to tight deadlines. Add to this that they are regularly handling large quantities of sensitive data, and emailing a wide variety of stakeholders (students, parents, colleagues, and third party agencies outside of the organisation), it is easy to see how mistakes occur.
A common error is sharing a file without realising it holds sensitive information; a hidden tab in a spreadsheet, for example. A data loss event of this kind could be considered a significant safeguarding issue. Afterall, protecting people means protecting data in the public domain.
The fact is, limitations in our traditional email platforms often leave employees vulnerable to such incidents. We cannot recall emails quickly or easily, view when messages have been accessed, have limited access control, and it could be argued that autofill capabilities are more of a security hindrance than a help.
Proactive Steps for Mitigating Threats
There are a few fundamental steps that education institutions can take to help mitigate risk to students and faculty. First, implementing two-factor authentication (2FA) adds an extra layer of security for accessing and sharing sensitive data.
2FA requires users to provide two or more verification factors to gain access to a system, such as punching in a code from a text message or an authenticator app, making it significantly harder for unauthorised users to breach security defences – even with a password.
By adopting 2FA, schools can protect against unauthorised access even if someone’s login credentials are compromised, massively reducing their exposure.
Next, encrypted communications further improve the integrity and confidentiality of data. Email systems that use encryption will ensure that any data transmitted between users or stored on devices is unreadable to unauthorised parties. This will help to safeguard sensitive information such as student records, financial details, and personal data, ensuring that even if data is intercepted, it remains secure and inaccessible to cyber-criminals.
Reducing the platforms used to handle sensitive information can also prevent the chance of data loss incidents. Simply put, controlling data access points will limit the opportunity for mistakes or attacks to happen.
For schools, sharing large files is often a challenge, with email often limiting file sizes to 20MB. Enhancing email to enable large file transfer will simplify workflows for staff by eliminating the need for third party file transfer sites – which often fail to meet compliance requirements.
Regularly updating and patching IT systems is also fundamental. Cyber-attacks often use vulnerabilities in outdated software to gain access, making regular updates essential to protect against known threats.
Schools should establish a routine schedule for system updates and patches, ensuring that all software, including operating systems and applications, is kept current, and fit to support compliance with data protection laws.
Finally, raising digital security awareness in staff and students is crucial for building a robust cybersecurity culture. Staff and students cannot be expected to become cybersecurity experts, but they can be made aware of the risks and be asked to follow guidelines and policies that lessen the chances of a breach taking place.
However, as security fatigue becomes more prevalent, it is key to review the delivery of training; there is no one size fits all approach. Instead, educational establishments should seek out tools which embed security awareness and best practices into day to day workflows, rather than relying on twice annual training.
Cyber threats are on the rise, and schools are firmly in the crosshairs of attackers. But, with the right blend of technology and training, the education sector can learn from previous mistakes, strengthen its security, and heavily mitigate the risk associated with the weakest link in any security chain – humans.
AES Solar, based in Moray, has acquired heat pumping specialists Black Isle Renewables.
The Dingwall-based company, founded in 2010, installs ground source and air source heat pumps and exhaust air units across the North of Scotland and the Western Isles.
AES Solar plans on integrating Black Isle Renewables’ heating expertise with their longstanding solar energy experience to provide comprehensive energy systems that provide power and heat to homes and businesses.
Black Isle’s 16-strong team has 20 years of experience, and the acquisition is expected to not majorly impact the workforce, and the company will retain their Dingwall premises.
AES, with over four decades of industry experience, is the longest-stablished solar energy company in Europe. It offers solar panels for homes and businesses.
In February 2024, AES was taken over in a management buyout by its current leadership team.
“This integration as AES Solar expands horizons will make us one of the biggest renewable energy companies in Scotland which further strengthens our position in the market and reflects our strategy to remain the leading solar manufacturer and installer in Scotland and throughout the UK,” Jamie Di Sotto, commercial director at AES Solar, said.
“This is a really promising time for everyone involved as we bring together the combined six decades of industry experience between AES Solar and Black Isle Renewables to offer our customers the very best in the design, installation and maintenance of renewable energy systems.
“This merger means that we can now provide a complete energy system to power and heat homes and businesses.”
Iain Thomas, owner of Black Isle Renewables, added: “This acquisition is fantastic news. Our goal has always been to be the go-to in heating solutions in Scotland and with the support of AES Solar, we are closer to achieving that vision.
“I feel we share the same ethos and therefore know that our customers will continue to be in experienced hands on completion of the merger. Together we can leverage our expertise, knowledge and service across the company and we look forward to combining our resources to unlock new opportunities and add value.”
Social media giant X is facing nine GDPR complaints from privacy advocate group NOYB (None of Your Business) over the company’s use of personal data from 60 million European users to train its AI large language model ‘Grok’.
According to NOYB, which was founded by prolific data privacy advocate Max Schrems, X failed to inform users that their personal data, including their posts and likes, was being used to train the company’s AI, and they did not ask for user consent.
On X’s settOn X’s settings, Grok can train on users’ posts by default, with a box saying “Allow your posts as well as your interactions, inputs, and results with Grok be used for training and fine” automatically turned on.ings, Grok can train on users’ posts by default, with a box saying “Allow your posts as well as your interactions, inputs, and results with Grok be used for training and fine” automatically turned on.
The revelation prompted swift replies from UK and EU regulators alike, with the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) saying companies must take the steps to gain user consent to train AI models.
The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), the EU data protection subsidiary with direct jurisdiction over X, noted their “surprise” at the policy, which is in direct violation of GDPR regulations.
Under both UK and EU GDPR, users must consent to their data being processed and trained by AI, and have the full authority to refuse consent. Further, the condition should be an opt-in, not an opt-out. By automatically opting users in to having their data scraped for AI training, X appears to be in violation of GDPR.
Following the Irish DPC’s lacklustre response, Schrems filed multiple GDPR complaints against X for a range of violations, hoping for a full investigation into X’s practices.
The filings seek to find out why X failed to inform consumers about the training, what happened to EU data that has already been used, and how to separate EU and non-EU data.
Max Schrems, chairman of NOYB said: “We have seen countless instances if inefficient and partial enforcement by the DPC in the past years. We want to ensure that Twitter [X] fully complies with EU law, which – at a bare minimum – requires to ask users for consent in this case.”
Scotland’s GDP grew 0.3% since May 2024, and by 0.9% in the three months leading up to May, according to labour market statistics.
Published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the figures show that, not only did the GDP rise, but the unemployment rate between April to June was 4.4% for those aged 16 and older.
With an employment rate at 73.4% and the inactivity rate at 23.1%, the Scottish Government said these latest figures represent the highest number of payrolled employees in Scotland since July 2014.
Further, the median monthly pay of £2,427 in July 2024, as estimated by HM Revenue and Customs, is the highest recorded yet.
“Today’s figures show the welcome news that payrolled employment and median monthly pay are at record highs,” deputy first minister and cabinet secretary for economy Kate Forbes said.
“However, many households and businesses are still feeling the effects of harsh trading conditions and the global cost-of-living crisis.”
The deputy minister took the opportunity to highlight the Scottish Government’s investment plans to further improve the economy as the cost-of-living crisis’s squeeze on households continues to leave the public scarred.
“That’s why we are prioritising action to tackle child poverty, grasp the opportunities of net zero and support growth within the restrictions of the devolution settlement.
“Over the current financial year, we are investing more than £5bn to drive growth in the economy,“ she continued.
“We will continue to work with the UK Government where we can, while encouraging them to support investment in Scotland’s economy and an end to spending cuts from Westminster.”
Ofgem is fast-tracking a project to deliver an electricity superhighway cable link reaching between Scotland and Yorkshire.
The energy regulator is fast-tracking 26 major electricity connection projects to boost grid capacity, which could deliver an estimated savings of £1.5bn.
A £3.4 billion funding package has been awarded to build a proposed new subsea and underground 500km cable between Scotland and Yorkshire which could power up to two million homes.
Eastern Green Link is the first project to complete its fast-track process to secure funding through Ofgem’s new Accelerated Strategic Transmission Investment (ASTI) framework.
The projects delivered via Ofgem’s ASTI programme are a vital part of the work to upgrade the energy system and allow more renewable energy to be brought onto the grid.
This will help to deliver Government’s goal of clean power by 2030 and reduce our reliance on volatile international gas markets.
EGL2 will deliver a 2GW high voltage electricity superhighway cable link between Peterhead in Aberdeenshire and Drax in North Yorkshire, which will help harness the potential of British offshore wind power.
Most of the cable (around 436km) will be under the North Sea with the remaining 70km buried underground onshore. Two converter stations, one at each end of the cable, are planned to help feed the electricity transported by the cable into the grid and from there onto consumers.
As part of its mission to upgrade the energy system at least possible cost to customers, Ofgem says it scrutinised the developers’ proposal and identified over £79m of savings which have been cut from the project without impacting delivery or quality.
ASTI projects aim to deliver an estimated £1.5bn in savings by reducing the need to compensate generators who are currently asked to turn off production during times of high wind due to a lack of grid capacity.
“Ofgem is fully committed to supporting the government to meet its aims of getting clean power by 2030,” Jonathan Brearley, Ofgem CEO, said.
“Today’s announcement is a further step in putting the regulatory systems and processes in place to speed up network regulation to achieve its aim.
“Accelerated Strategic Transmission Investment (ASTI) accelerates approval times for projects such as Eastern Green Link 2 (EGL2) by up to two years. However, streamlining the process does not mean blank cheques for developers as we are able to step in and make financial adjustments to maximise efficiency and consumer benefit.”
Work on the project is expected to begin later this year and be completed by 2029.
A new study has established clear evidence of a growing demand for AI-generated images of child sexual abuse on the dark web.
Researchers from Anglia Ruskin University scoured the dark web, seeking to understand how online offenders are using AI to create child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
The ‘IPPPRI Insights’ publication comes after the Internet Watch Foundation shared a report highlighting the continued growth of this emerging technology as a tool to exploit children.
The study analysed dark web forum chats from the last 12 months, and found clear evidence of the growing interest in this technology, the continued use of AI, and the collective desire on the part of online offenders for others to learn more and create new abuse imagery.
“We know without doubt that the AI-produced child sexual abuse material is a rapidly growing problem,” Dr Deanna Davy, a researcher on the study, said, “but we need to understand a great deal more about precisely how offenders are creating it, how widely it is being shared, and the impact it is having on offender pathways.
“Obtaining this understanding will ultimately help us to prevent and combat these types of offences.”
Researchers also revealed that forum members are actively teaching themselves how to create AI-generated CSAM by accessing guide and videos online, as well as sharing advice and guidance among themselves.
Analysis also showed that forum members are using their own supply of non AI-generated images and videos already at their disposal to facilitate their learning, and that many shared their hopes and expectations that the technology would evolve, making it even easier for them to create this material.
Some forum members also referred to those creating the despicable AI-imagery as “artists.”
“We know that one of the many significant risks associated with using AI to create this type of material is the huge challenge it poses for law enforcement agencies tasked with understanding, coding and responding to the material they find,” Dr Davy said.
“It is critical that our police and public protection agencies seek to better understand this, so that they can effectively respond to this technological change which shows no sign of slowing down.
“There is a misconception that AI-generated images are ‘victimless’ and this could not be further from the truth. We found that many of the offenders are sourcing images of children in order to manipulate them, and that the desire for ‘hardcore’ imagery, escalating from ‘softcore’ is regularly discussed.”
Professor Sam Lundrigan of the study added: “The conversations we analysed show that through the proliferation of advice and guidance on how to use AI in this way, this type of child abuse material is escalating and offending is increasing.
“This adds to the growing global threat of online child abuse in all forms, and must be viewed as a critical area to address in our response to this type of crime.”
Storegga has launched a four-week consultation on its proposal for Speyside Hydrogen, a pioneering project that will produce green hydrogen to fuel operations and support the decarbonisation of distilleries and other businesses across Moray.
Scotland is home to 151 whisky distilleries with more than 50 of these located in Moray which, between them, account for almost 45% of the total fossil fuel demand in the region.
Green hydrogen can offer an alternative energy source for whisky production supporting the industry to reach its ambitious net zero target by 2040, five years earlier than the Scottish Government targets.
The project sets out to produce green hydrogen through the electrolysis of water using renewable electricity. The process entails water being split into two parts, hydrogen and oxygen, and its production results in no harmful emissions into the atmosphere.
Speyside Hydrogen will see a phased build-out of hydrogen production capacity. The first two phases of the project will deliver a total of 70MW of hydrogen capacity via two electrolyser facilities on a site identified at Ballindalloch, near Marypark.
The consultation will run until 5 September and a public drop-in event at Glenlivet Public Hall on 22 August.
Storegga will share its initial design for the development within the community and invite feedback, before finalising the design and preparing applications.
The development will support the decarbonisation necessary to help safeguard existing employment at distilleries and their supply chain partners while creating new highly skilled, high-value jobs during the construction and subsequent operation of the facility.
The Scottish Government has recognised low carbon hydrogen to be one of the multiple solutions required to replace fossil fuels to achieve the legislated 2045 Net Zero target.
“Moray has a strong heritage of whisky production and innovation and boasts excellent access to renewable energy and transport infrastructure as well as supply chain expertise,” Neil Hardie, Speyside Hydrogen, opportunity manager at Storegga said.
“Not only does this make it the perfect location for Speyside Hydrogen, but it means our project can ensure culture is preserved by supporting this hard-to-abate industry as we move towards a net-zero economy.
“We look forward to this opportunity to engage with the local community and to hear their feedback on our proposal.”
The National Cyber Security Centre is calling on organisations to submit to an evidence base on the use case and efficacy of cyber deception.
Recently, the NCSC, along with international government partners, discussed the advent of cyber deception tactics and tools in cyber defence initiatives.
Following this, the NCSC has found motivation to establish an evidence-base for use cases of cyber deception and their efficacy, on a national scale, in support of Active Cyber Defence 2.0.
The NCSC did highlight the need to define their use of the term cyber deception, to include tripwires, honeypots, and breadcrumbs, i.e., various methods for attracting and detecting threat actors often to better study their processes and methods.
So far, the NCSC has identified two primary use cases for cyber deception:
Low-interaction solutions, including tripwires and honeytokens which alert unauthorised access
Low-interaction and high-interaction honeypots used to collect threat intelligence
The NCSC says it is aware of wider thinking and approaches designed to produce synthetic behaviours and content, but these are outwith the organisation’s scope.
For its evidence base, the NCSC intends to collect existing evidence, while at the same time encouraging at-scale deployment within the UK.
The NCSC has specific objects to meet, as a minimum:
5,000 instances on the UK internet of low and high interaction solutions across IPv4 and IPv6
20,000 instances within internal networks of low interaction solutions
200,000 assets within cloud environments of low interaction solutions
Through this, the NCSC hopes to answer key questions about how cyber deception deployments can discover latent and new compromises, as well as how the known presence of these tools at a national level cause changes in observable behaviour of threat actors.
Public and private sector organisations in the UK which have deployed cyber deception solutions as described are invited to participate, with contact information found here.
OpenAI, creator of prolific AI chatbot ChatGPT, has developed an AI watermarking tool with 99.9% effectiveness – but its rollout is being stalled by internal squabbles.
While the advent of the advanced AI chatbot has been lauded for its effectiveness and the main driver of the continued AI race, it also raises continued concerns about how to differentiate between human and AI-generated content.
ChatGPT’s conversational manner, ability to solve maths equations and write essays, have left academic institutions in the lurch as far as how to detect plagiarised and AI-generated work – and this is all besides the countless copyright infringement quarrels mounting against AI companies.
Since the introduction of ChatGPT, as well as countless AI image-generators, companies and researchers have been trying to develop AI detection capabilities and watermarking tools to discern AI generated content from that made by humans.
According to reports from The Wall Street Journal, OpenAI has developed this tool, which can label content generated by ChatGPT, about two years ago.
However, the transformational tool, which could put many of these AI-generated quandaries to rest, has yet to be released.
According to the report, the tool changes how tokens are selected slightly, created a watermark pattern similar to a SynthID for Text tool developed by Google.
Internal documents revealed that OpenAI’s tool is 99.9% effected on texts that contain enough new material generated by ChatGPT.
Despite developed two years ago and ready for release – ChatGPT itself was released just over two years ago in November 2022 – the watermarking tool’s launch has been stalled by internal squabbles.
The company is reportedly mainly concerned with how the introduction of the tool with impact users.
A 2023 survey conducted by OpenAI revealed that nearly one in three loyal users of ChatGPT would be turned away by a watermarking technology since it could detect plagiarism and teaching.
Essentially, OpenAI developed a tool that could solve one the major issues associated with its hallmark technology, but is neglecting to launch it due to users wanting to continue exploiting this issue.
UK altnets – independent broadband providers – could be underutilising vast amounts of newly installed fibre optic cables, despite conditions on government funding.
According to research from AssetHUB, some full fibre network builders which have received government funding to create broadband connectivity in rural and hard to reach areas could be failing to make their cables easily available to other operators, despite open networking being a condition of receiving taxpayer’s money.
Failing to promote and enable access to these networks is holding back plans to ‘level-up’ rural and remote communities across the UK, according to asset reuse specialists AssetHUB.
Through the government’s £5 billion Project Gigabit, an estimated 100,000km of taxpayer-funded full fibre cables are being laid in the UK thanks to government subsidies.
So far, over £1.4bn has been granted to 12 companies which are building broadband networks throughout the UK.
While it is a condition of the grant that companies raise awareness of where their new networks are and enable other operators to use them, many are failing to make the most of these important assets.
Without these stipulations, companies risk overbuilding in certain communities and sites, as well as decreasing the efficacy and use of the cables if their interoperability is restricted.
Publishing these details will not only keep these organisations in compliance with Building Digital UK (BDUK), the UK government’s organisation promoting telecoms infrastructure, but it will ensure that these cables are utilised effectively whilst maintaining a better level of fair competition among the involved companies.
“Close to 100,000km of fibre is being deployed across the UK thanks to the £1.4 billion in Project Gigabit funding from BDUK,” said James Saunby, from industry specialists GreySky Consulting.
“It is critical that network builders understand the potential for these networks to be clearly open and able to be used. A network mapping and contracting service, which is already being driven by the ongoing consolidation between altnets, that can securely share the location and scope of existing networks is required.”
BDUK is providing public money for rural developments that are mandated to provide wholesale access to passive, active, backhaul, and dark fibre. Without proper publishing of sites and interoperability, altnets risk defaulting on these conditions for funding.
The Project Gigabit broadband rollout programme aims for 1Gbps capable broadband networks for 85% of UK premises by the end of 2025, and nationwide coverage by 2030.
“The UK altnet industry is at a risk of more unnecessary overbuild as new entrants rush to deploy new infrastructure without considering the long-term sustainability of their business models,” said Rob Leenderts, CEO of AssetHUB.
Tomoro, an AI scale-up that helps large enterprises unlock the value of AI through custom AI agents, has announced the hiring of Ami Islam as head of people based out of the Scottish firm’s Edinburgh Office.
Before joining Tomoro, Islam was the architect of the rapid growth of the data and AI consultancy, Mudano, which grew at a rate of 100% a year for five consecutive years before being acquired by Accenture in 2020.
“We are focused on building one of Europe’s next great AI companies,” Ed Broussard, managing director at Tomoro, said. “We have huge traction in the market so the focus is on hiring and growing the greatest AI team in the country. There is no one with better experience to make that happen than Ami.
“We are committed to building our team across our London, Manchester and Edinburgh bases. Having Ami join in Edinburgh grows our leadership team in Scotland and further demonstrates our commitment to the Scottish AI eco-system, on top of our commitment made earlier this year to invest £4m in AI jobs in Scotland.”
Ami Islam, who joins Tomoro as head of people, will lead on recruitment, training, and development, and will lead the expansion of the team.
“I am delighted to be joining Tomoro who are one of the most exciting AI firms globally right now,” he said.
“Their partnerships with OpenAI and Nvidia mean they are working on some of the most exciting AI projects in the world. I look forward to helping scale the team to become one of the most successful and well-known enterprise AI firms in the UK.”
Tomoro works with large enterprises across financial services, energy, media, telecommunications, and other industries to help embrace AI to drive new revenue and reduce their cost base through custom-built AI agents.
The company has recently announced a partnership with chip designer NVIDIA, as well as working in alliance with ChatGPT creator OpenAI.
Tomoro’s mission is to increase human work productivity to such a level that a three-day working week, with no loss in employee wages, becomes the default for society.
The UK’s competition watchdog is set to investigate Alphabet’s (Google’s parent company) partnership with Anthropic, the AI startup, and its potential fallout on competition in the emerging AI market.
It also follows the joint statement signed by the CMA along its EU and US counterparts, intending to collaborate on fair competition safeguarding efforts in the AI sector.
AI company Anthropic, which created ChatGPT competitor Claude, was founded by ex-OpenAI executives Dario and Daniela Amodei. Last year, Alphabet invested $500m in the company, with promises of a further $1.5bn over time. While Anthropic uses Google Cloud services, its AI chatbot Claude is a direct competitor of Google’s Gemini chatbot.
The CMA has since launched phase one of its inquiry into the potential anti-comepetitive nature of the partnership, seeking views from relevant parties on how this deal could impact the fairness of the AI market.
Similar investigations have also occurred for smaller company partnerships, including between Inflection AI and Mistral AI.
Concerned parties will have until 13 August to comment on the partnership between Anthropic and Alphabet.
“We are an independent company and none of our strategic partnerships or investor relationships diminish the independence of our corporate governance or our freedom to partner with others,” a spokesperson for Anthropic said, as reported by Reuters.
Additionally, a Google spokesperson said “Google is committed to building the most open and innovative AI ecosystem in the world. Anthropic is free to use multiple cloud providers and does, and we don’t demand exclusive tech rights.”
Following the initial comments, the UK’s antitrust regulator will then decide if a formal investigation is required.
Microsoft has issued an apology as thousands of UK users report issues with a range of its products, from its Office suit, email service, and Microsoft-supported games.
Thousands reported outages across Microsoft services on Downdetector this afternoon (30 July).
Just before 3pm, nearly two thousand users reported issues with Minecraft, with other services such as Outlook, Microsoft’s 365 admin centre, Intune, Entra, and Power Platform are also impacted.
Since the outage, Microsoft has released status updates showing that other services, such as OneDrive and Microsoft Team, are not impacted.
The company apologised to users on X, saying that “Our experts are currently investigating the situation in order to resolve it as soon as possible.”
We're sorry to hear you're running into issues with our services. Our experts are currently investigating the situation in order to resolve it as soon as possible. You can find updates here: https://t.co/w2r5lZVNSQ. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.
Less than a fortnight following the major CrowdStrike malfunction which lead to the downfall of thousands of Windows devices, Microsoft is contending with another service outage.
Earlier on Tuesday, the company said it was investigating issues with the “network infrastructure” that was affecting its cloud platform, Microsoft Azure.
The latest round of the Scottish Government CivTech programme invites companies and individuals to come up with innovations and products that will improve lives and practices across a wide range of public sector areas.
The tenth edition of the programme will provide entrepreneurs, startups, and companies the ability to work with public institutions to solve problems through collaborative technological innovations.
Applications to submit ideas to tackle nine different challenges are now open. They range from cutting pharmaceutical waste to using technology to improve public engagement in policymaking. Additional “wildcard” challenges are anticipated to launch in the coming weeks.
Successful applicants will work with their Challenge Sponsor to develop their proposal and pitch for a place in the programme’s Accelerator phase, which offers both financial and practical support to develop the business and market the concept to the public sector.
Since it launched in 2016, around £20m of Scottish Government funding has been invested in the CivTech programme, with 90 companies and entrepreneurs helped to grow and develop.
These include bioscience company SilviBio and Tape for Trees, which developed new seed germination technologies to help Forestry and Land Scotland increased the efficiency and survival rates of its tree seedlings.
“Driving entrepreneurship and innovation is important to helping unlock each of the Scottish Government’s priorities of eradicating child poverty, boosting economic growth, achieving net zero and improving public services,” employment and investment minister Tom Arthur said.
“In CivTech, we have a way to stimulate progress across each of these priorities so that, together, we can improve people’s lives and achieve our ambitions as a nation.
“This funding offers a unique opportunity not just to foster and support the innovators and entrepreneurs as part of a vibrant economy, but harness their ideas and inventions to continually test and improve our public services and our way of life.”
While CivTech is designed to support public institutions and councils, startups and entrepreneurs also often benefit from the experience.
“CivTech was a launchpad for us,” founder and CEO of This is Milk, Angelea Prenter-Smith said. Her company participated in CivTech 5.
“We got the amazing opportunity to develop a world-first platform directly with Government stakeholders, who trusted us to develop the product in line with user needs.
“My CivTech journey started with my 3-person band business, my five-year-old and a two-week-old baby called Neve. I showed up to the accelerator, baby in hand, through Covid lockdown and the team couldn’t have been more supportive.
“The result has been Neve Learning, the most accessible and inclusive, hybrid learning platform on the market. We’ve worked with the public sector for many years, and never found a fit for purpose procurement opportunity that genuinely provides the platform for innovation and human-centred product design.”
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has issued a reprimand to the Electoral Commission after hackers gained access to servers that contained the personal information of approximately 40 million people.
Back in August 2021, hackers successfully accessed the Electoral Commission’s Microsoft Exchange Server by impersonating a user account and exploiting known software vulnerabilities in the system that had not been secured.
Over a year later, until October 2022, the attackers had access to the personal information held on the Electoral register, including names and home addresses. The servers were accessed on several occasions without the Electoral Commission’s knowledge.
The ICO’s following investigation found that the Electoral Commission lacked appropriate security measures in place to protect the personal information it held.
In particular, it did not ensure its servers were kept up to date with the latest security updates. The security patches for the vulnerabilities exploited in the cyber-attack were released in April and May 2021, months before the attack.
Further, the ICO found that the Electoral Commission did not have sufficient password policies in place at the time of the attack, with many accounts still using passwords identical or similar to one originally allocated by the service desk.
“The Electoral Commission handles the personal information of millions of people, all of whom expect their data to be in safe hands,” deputy commissioner at the ICO, Stephen Bonner said.
“If the Electoral Commission had taken basic steps to protect its systems, such as effective security patching and password management, it is highly likely that this data breach would not have happened. By not installing the latest security updates promptly, its systems were left exposed and vulnerable to hackers.
“I know the headline figures of 40 million people affected caused considerable public alarm when news of this breach emerged last year. I want to reassure the public that while an unacceptably high number of people were impacted, we have no reason to believe any personal data was misused and we have found no evidence that any direct harm has been caused by this breach. The Electoral Commission has now taken the necessary steps to improve its security.
“This action should serve as a reminder to all organisations that you must take proactive and preventative measures to ensure your systems are secure. Do you know if your organisation has installed the latest security updates? If not, then you jeopardise people’s personal information and risk enforcement action, including fines.”
According to the ICO, the Electoral Commission did take a number of remedial steps to improve their security following the attack, including implementing a plan to modernise their infrastructure, as well as password policy controls and multi-factor authentication for all users.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), the ministerial department responsible for national health policy and the NHS, has injected over £5m in remote working devices to enhance accessible health and social care in underprivileged areas throughout the UK.
The data was retrieved under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) and analysed by the Parliament Street think tank, observing the spending of the Department of Health over the past three financial years.
In total, DHSC spent £5,119,717 on 7,246 laptops, tablets and mobile phones for staff and regional practices across the UK.
Laptops accounted for 70% of the expenditure, with over £3.5 million poured into 4,312 devices. Mobile phones also took up a sizeable portion of the spending, making up 28% of the budget on 2,806 devices, while tablets were far less common, accounting for 2% and 128 devices.
“For many remote working devices, essential security tools are not always effective,” Andy Ward, VP international at Absolute Security, said. “As highlighted in our Cyber Resilience Index, Endpoint Protection Platforms and network access security applications on managed PCs fail to operate effectively 24% of the time.
“Cyber resilience must be a top priority for organisations, especially with staff who work remotely. This includes having comprehensive cyber defence measures that integrate reactive, preventative, and recovery procedures.”
Just over half of the spending came in financial year 21-22, with a major injection from the department into remote working to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, helping to facilitate work-from-anywhere.
Responding to the findings, Sachin Agrawal, managing director for Zoho UK, said: “The onset of work-from-anywhere, catalysed by the pandemic, is still having a significant impact on working models today, and it’s great to see the Department of Health and Social Care equipping staff with the tech they need to facilitate this.
“The initiative not only supports the workforce, but also enhances the overall efficiency and responsiveness of healthcare delivery across the UK and helps to improve health and social outcomes in underprivileged areas.”
“This investment should form part of a wider strategy, providing employees with the latest software applications and digital skills training to fully understand capabilities to maximise productivity and deliver critical services, regardless of where they are logging on from.”
Michael Thornton, senior director, public sector at Investigo, part of The IN Group, said: “The Department of Health and Social Care’s recent investment in remote working devices is a clear step in the right direction towards bolstering employment opportunities in the public sector.
“While this investment is impressive and necessary to support remote working across the UK, we must see this as a wider commitment in investing in our workforce.
“Strong leadership and direction in the public sector are crucial for attracting and retaining the top talent, which translates to better service to communities across the UK. Therefore, we must prioritise training and upskilling to produce the most productive workforce in the public sector.”
New UK science secretary, Peter Kyle, is aiming to put artificial intelligence at the heart of the government’s agenda to deliver change, sustained economic growth, and improved public services.
The secretary of state has appointed tech entrepreneur and chair of Advances Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), Matt Clifford, to kick-start this work.
He has been tasked with delivering a new AI Opportunities Action Plan to identify ways to accelerate the use of AI to improve people’s lives by making services better and developing new products.
As well as exploring how to build a UK AI sector that can scale and compete on the global stage, the plan will also set out how to boost take-up of the technology across all parts of the economy, and consider the necessary infrastructure, talent, and data access required to drive adoption by the public and private sectors.
The Action Plan is set to help drive up productivity and kickstart economic growth. Estimates from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) show that the UK could ultimately see productivity gains of up to 1.5% annually, though the exact economic impact hinges on the wider development and adoption of AI, and realisation could be gradual.
Clifford will deliver a set of recommendations to the science secretary in September.
Alongside this, the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology (DSIT) – acting as the digital centre of government – will also establish an AI Opportunities Unit to bring together the knowledge and expertise to take full advantage of AI and implement recommendations from the Action Plan.
“We’re putting AI at the heart of the government’s agenda to boost growth and improve our public services,” science secretary Peter Kyle said.
“Matt Clifford brings a wealth of experience and shares my ambition when it comes to realising the opportunities of AI, using it to drive growth and improve people’s lives.
Together we will use AI to drive productivity and economic growth in every part of the country so we can make everyone better off.”
The action plan starts today (30 June) and will engage key figures across industry and civil society to help in its development.
“AI presents us with so many opportunities to grow the economy and improve people’s lives,” Matt Clifford said. “The UK is leading the way in many areas, but we can do even better.
“I’m excited to start work and develop an ambitious road map to identify the biggest opportunities and support the new government as it makes important choices about where to focus its efforts.”
The Action Plan will also consider key enablers such as the UK’s compute and broader infrastructure requirements by 2030, how this infrastructure is made available for start-ups and scale-ups, and how to develop and attract top AI talent in the public and private sector.
“Growing our economy and rebuilding Britain to make everyone better off is our number one mission – and artificial intelligence has the potential to raise productivity and help us do that,” chancellor of the exchequer Rachel Reeves said.
“Our AI Opportunities Unit will unlock its full potential to grow a more productive economy, create good jobs across the country and deliver the excellent public services that people deserve whilst saving taxpayers money.”
Heriot-Watt University is set to lead a quantum technology initiative that could help combat that £27 billion annual cost of cyber-crime to UK businesses, as part of a £160m government investment to establish Britain as a global leader in quantum innovation and cybersecurity.
The Integrated Quantum Networks (IQN) Hub, led by Heriot-Watt, is one of the five new quantum technology hubs announced by the UK government. It will focus on creating the core of a national quantum network capable of distributing quantum entanglement.
The main benefit of this quantum network will be enhanced cybersecurity immune to hacking, but it will also connect powerful future quantum computers, creating new opportunities in sectors such as healthcare, enabling accelerated drug discovery and personalised treatment plans.
Furthermore, quantum networks can eventually be used to connect quantum sensors for ultra low-noise measurements.
The IQN Hub will provide the research required towards the establishment of a quantum internet. Unlike current encryption methods, quantum networks use the principles of quantum mechanics to create unbreakable encryption keys, making them impervious to hacking attempts.
“Imagine an internet that uses the principles of quantum physics to secure data,” professor Gerald Buller, who will lead the IQN at Heriot-Watt, said.
“Unlike our current systems, which can be cracked given enough time and computing power, quantum encryption creates keys that are essentially unbreakable. It’s like having a lock that changes every time someone tries to pick it.
“The Integrated Quantum Networks Hub will provide the research required towards the establishment of a quantum internet,” continued Professor Buller. “The Hub harnesses the excellent research done over the last ten years in the National Quantum Technologies Programme to focus on delivering quantum networks at a range of distance scales, from local networks up to global satellite-based connections.”
Heriot-Watt’s involvement extends beyond the IQN Hub, with the university also playing significant roles in three of the four other newly announced quantum hubs. These include hubs focused on quantum-enabled position, navigation and timing, quantum biomedical sensing, and quantum sensing, imaging and timing.
“The launch of five new quantum hubs is a significant milestone for the UK and represents a major shift in data security and cutting-edge applications across all sectors,” professor Gill Murray, deputy principle for enterprise and business at Heriot-Watt University said.
“The UK has established itself as an early pioneer, aligned with the government’s national quantum strategy aiming to become a quantum-enabled economy by 2035. These hubs form a critical piece of that roadmap by tackling key research and development challenges around quantum networking, sensing, computing and more.
“For Heriot-Watt University specifically, the IQN Hub has several roles to play. It will firstly keep Scotland and the UK at the forefront of quantum technologies, and transform the modern economy and society.
“Secondly, it’s a notable step forward for the education sector as universities like ours will be at the forefront of developing and upskilling the future workforce working and living in a quantum-enabled future across design, engineering, manufacturing and the required support services.
“We also anticipate interest in the IQN Hub to attract talent to the UK from around the world that will drive international partnerships and business opportunities. We are incredibly eager to get stuck in and help develop a robust workforce and supply chain pipeline.”
The IQN Hub brings together a network of over 40 non-academic collaborators, ranging from startups to multinational corporations, alongside organisations like the National Cyber Security Centre and Scottish Enterprise. It will receive over £20m in partner support to help translate quantum innovations into new products and services.
The five new quantum hubs are being delivered by the UKRI Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (ESPRC) with a £106m investment from EPSRC, the UKRI Biotechnology and Biological Research Council, the UKRI Medical Research Council, and the National Institute for Health and Care Research. Industry collaboration is a key element, with significant cash and in-kind contributions from partners worth more than £54 million.
The new model leverages significant progress in extending quantum memory storage times to greatly expand en
Partner universities include University of Edinburgh, University of Glasgow, University of Strathclyde, Imperial College London, National Physical Laboratory. Queen’s University Belfast; RAL Space STFC, University of Bristol, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, University of Sheffield, University of Southampton, University of Warwick, and University of York.
“We want to see a future where cutting-edge science improves everyday lives,” secretary of state for science, innovation, and technology, Peter Kyle said.
“That is the vision behind our investment in these new quantum technology hubs, by supporting the deployment of technology that will mean faster diagnoses for diseases, critical infrastructure safe from hostile threats and cleaner energy for us all.
“This isn’t just about research; it’s about putting that research to work. These hubs will bridge the gap between brilliant ideas and practical solutions. They will not only transform sectors like healthcare and security, but also create a culture of accelerated innovation that helps to grow our economy.”
As the UK aims to become a quantum-enabled economy by 2035, these hubs form a critical piece of the national quantum strategy. They are expected to drive entrepreneurship, workforce development, and regulatory input into the rapidly emerging UK quantum industry, potentially sparking significant economic growth and job creation in the coming years.
According to a Capterra report, almost half (46%) of UK customer service teams currently use AI-powered software, and 48% expect that AI will manage nearly half of customer enquiries in the next five years.
The findings show that UK customer service teams are becoming more reliant on AI-powered software and reaping the benefits.
A total of 69% of surveyed customer service professionals believe that the introduction of AI capabilities in software has impacted customer service “positively” or “very positively.” The top three benefits identified are cost savings (58%), faster customer response times (55%), and improved customer satisfaction (31%).
Most companies already leveraging AI in customer service report improved productivity (71%) and higher customer satisfaction (57%). At the same time, 57% of customer service professionals say it reduces employee stress levels, and other half reported reduced query handling times.
“The results of our study underscore the transformative impact AI can have on enhancing customer service delivery and operational efficiency,” Eduardo Garcia Rodriquez, UK analyst at Capterra said.
“We are seeing how AI is being used to optimise customer service in various ways, from chatbots and voice assistants to predictive analytics and automating tedious, repetitive tasks. The fact that these types of solutions are benefitting both the business and the customer suggests AI’s strong potential for this industry in the coming years.”
The study indicates a clear shift towards AI-driven solutions to help meet customer and operational demands. However, like with most technologies, AI adoption also poses challenges.
Survey respondents highlighted the top challenges as concerns regarding customer trust (58%), information accuracy (40%), and the risk of alienating customers (33%).
To help build trust and transparency, customer service teams should clearly communicate their use of AI in their interactions. Currently, just under half (49%) say they include a notice or labelling during interactions, and 46% provide a notice in their policies or terms of service.
Furthermore, despite the advancements in AI-powered customer service software, there is still room for data errors that could cost an organisation. Along with being one of the top perceived challenges, an overwhelming 72% of all respondents expressed concern about the accuracy of information provided to customers by AI-enabled software.
This underscores the importance of implementing human insight in business-client interactions. Businesses should not only ensure their systems are trained on high-quality data to minimise errors and biases but also have human agents check and detect any potential errors from data outputs in AI responses.
Finally, while the results suggest that AI-enhanced tools show promise in boosting customer satisfaction, companies need to remember that not all customers are on board with this technology and would simply prefer to handle their queries with a real person.
To avoid alienating those customers, they should consider making AI-driven customer assistance optional by balancing automation capabilities with human-agent interactions.
Failing to tackle online fraud is increasingly damaging the brand reputation and the bottom line for thousands of businesses around the globe, new research reveals.
Almost two-thirds of all ecommerce brands (61%) have found themselves at the centre of highly damaging public media storms when fraud hits, according to fraud prevention company Ravelin’s Global Fraud Trends 2024 Survey.
Of those polled, 40% (and 41% in the UK) say their brand image ha been affected by fraudulent activities. This varies by sector – 40% of retailers, 36% of those in travel, 45% in digital goods, and 38% in marketplaces.
Overall, fraud has increased for 74.8% of companies around the world, with some regions suffering more than others. The UK has seen the biggest increase, at 84%.
The results of such negative publicity can be devastating for e-commerce brands.
Fraud also negatively impacts stock prices for 20% of larger companies, and across the board, responders said fraud affected growth the most, at 51.8%.
One in four say they lose over $15m (£12m) to fraud yearly, and over half (51.8%) say fraud still stifles company growth, leading to broader knock-on impacts.
Customer loyalty also takes a hit for 37% of companies, further impacting reputation.
Interestingly, 31% (39% in the UK) of respondents polled by Ravelin cited worries about public image as an obstacle to fighting fraud more efficiently.
The key concern was adding friction to the customer journey, which impacts loyalty and reputation.
“In a highly connected world where reputations can be globally trashed with just a few keystrokes, brands must do more to mitigate against fraud,” Ravelin CEO Martin Sweeney said.
“A company’s reputation means everything and must be protected as if it’s a matter of life and death – from a business perspective, that’s exactly what it is.”
Social media platform X, formally known as Twitter, is facing the heat from UK and EU data regulators after it was found to be potentially in breach of data protection laws for its AI data scraping tactics.
X is using user posts made on its platform to train its upcoming AI model, Grok, but its consent methods are lacking, it has emerged.
Users are automatically opted in to consenting to their data being used to train AI, a practice in breach of UK and EU GDPR.
On X’s settings, Grok can train on users’ posts by default, with a box saying “Allow your posts as well as your interactions, inputs, and results with Grok be used for training and fine” automatically turned on.
While users can turn this feature off via the web platform, GDRP in the UK and EU explicitly says that users must be asked for consent to their data being used for AI training.
Companies are not allowed to use any type of ‘default consent’ under GDPR, including pre-ticked boxes for data sharing.
Data regulators in the UK and EU provided swift statements in relation to the apparent breach, with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) saying that inquiries with X were underway.
“Platforms seeking to use their users’ data to train their AI foundation models must be transparent about their activities,” an ICO spokesperson said.
“They should take steps to proactively notify users well in advance of using data for these purposes, and provide people with ample time and simple processes to object to having their data used in this way.”
Similarly, the Data Protection Commission of Ireland, a subsidiary of the EU’s Data Protection Board, said they were “surprised” by X’s settings, as the data regulator had already been in conversation with the company about its AI and data collection methods.
The Irish DPC spoke with X as soon as the day before the news broke, and have since followed up since the revelation.
Data scraping, which is often used by AI developers to training their models, involves the scanning of the web and various, mostly public, platforms, for data to train large language models (LLMs).
LLM’s behemoth appetite for data has caused public concern as users become more aware of how large companies are using their personal data to for AI training.
At least 30% of generative AI (genAI) projects will be abandoned after proof of concept by the end of 2025, Gartner predicts, due to poor data quality, inadequate risk controls, escalating costs, or unclear business value.
“After last year’s hype, executives are impatient to see returns on GenAI investments, yet organisations are struggling to prove and realise value,” Rita Sallam, distinguished VP analyst at Gartner said.
“As the scope of initiatives widen, the financial burden of developing and deploying genAI models is increasingly felt.”
A major challenge for organisations arises in justifying the substantial investment in genAI for productivity enhancement, which can be difficult to directly translate into financial benefit, according to Gartner.
Many organisations are leveraging genAI to transform their business models and create new opportunities. However, these deployment approaches come with significant costs, ranging from $5 million (£3.9m) to $20 million (£15.6m), according to Gartner.
“Unfortunately, there is no one size fits all with genAI, and costs aren’t as predictable as other technologies,” said Sallam. “
What you spend, the use cases you invest in and the deployment approaches you take, all determine the costs. Whether you’re a market disruptor and want to infuse AI everywhere, or you have a more conservative focus on productivity gains or extending existing processes, each has different levels of cost, risk, variability and strategic impact.”
Regardless of ambition, Gartner research indicates genAI requires a higher tolerance for indirect, future financial investmnt criteria versus mmediate return on investment (ROI).
Historically, many CFOs have not been comfortable with investing today for indirect value in the future, a reluctance that can skew investment allocation to tactical versus strategic outcomes
Realising Business Value
Earlier adopters across industries and business processes are reporting a range of business improvements that vary by use case, job type, and skill level of the worker.
According to a recent Gartner survey in 2023, business leader respondents reported 15.8% revenue increase, 15.2% cost savings and 22.6% productivity improvement on average.
“This data serves as a valuable reference point for assessing the business value derived from GenAI business model innovation,” said Sallam.
“But it’s important to acknowledge the challenges in estimating that value, as benefits are very company, use case, role and workforce specific. Often, the impact may not be immediately evident and may materialize over time. However, this delay doesn’t diminish the potential benefits.”
Calculating Business Impact
By analysing the business value and total cost of genAI business model innovation, organisations can establish the direct ROI and future value impact, according to Gartner. This serves as a crucial tool for making informed investment decisions about genAI business model innovation.
“If the business outcomes meet or exceed expectations, it presents an opportunity to expand investments by scaling genAI innovation and usage across a broader user base, or implementing it in additional business divisions,” said Sallam.
“However, if they fall short, it may be necessary to explore alternative innovation scenarios. These insights help organisations strategically allocate resources and determine the most effective path forward.”
The National Cyber Security Council and international allies have exposed a global cyber espionage campaign carried out by attackers which the NCSC alleges are sponsored by North Korea.
Alongside the United States and the Republic of Korea, the NCSC revealed how a cyber threat group known as Andariel has been compromising organisations around the world to steal sensitive and classified technical information and intellectual property data.
The NCSC has assessed that Andariel is a part of DPRK’s Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB) 3rd Bureau and that the group’s malicious cyber activities pose an ongoing threat to critical infrastructure organisations globally.
The cyber actors have primarily targeted defence, aerospace, nuclear and engineering entities, and organisations in the medical and energy sectors to a lesser extent, order to obtain information such as contract specification, design drawings and project details.
As part of its operations, Andariel has also launched ransomware attacks against US healthcare organisations in order to extort payments and fund further espionage activity.
This advisory shares technical details and mitigations advice to help defend against the actors who have been seen exploiting known vulnerabilities to access victims’ systems before deploying malware and other tools to maintain persistence, evade detection, and exfiltrate data.
“The global cyber espionage operation that we have exposed today shows the lengths that DPRK state-sponsored actors are willing to go to pursue their military and nuclear programmes,” Pail Chichester, NCSC director of operations, said.
“It should remind critical infrastructure operators of the importance of protecting the sensitive information and intellectual property they hold on their systems to prevent theft and misuse.
“The NCSC, alongside our US and Korean partners, strongly encourage network defenders to follow the guidance set out in this advisory to ensure they have strong protections in place to prevent this malicious activity.”
The advisory, co-sealed by the NCSC, and complimentary US and Republic of Korea intelligence agencies, outlines how Andariel has evolved its operations from conducting destructive attacks targeting US and South Korea organisations to conducting specialised cyber espionage and ransomware attacks.
It warns that in some cases the actors have been observed launching ransomware attacks and espionage operations on the same day and leveraging both activities against the same victim.
“The latest advisory from the NCSC and its international partners is deeply concerning,” Andy Ward, VP international of Absolute Security said.
“The revelation that North Korean state-sponsored actors, particularly the Andariel group, are aggressively targeting critical infrastructure and sensitive sectors such as defence, aerospace, nuclear, and healthcare is a strong reminder of the evolving cyber threat landscape.”
OpenAI is entering the search engine arena long dominated by Google, with the partial launch of its new AI-powered search engine called SearchGPT.
SearchGPT will offer real-time access to the internet, aiming to give answers from the web with relevant, up-to-date sources.
The prototype will be launched to a select range of researches and users for feedback at this stage, but OpenAI plans on integrating the best of SearchGPT’s features into its ChatGPT model in the future.
OpenAI say that users will be able to ask SearchGPT questions and it will respond much like ChatGPT, with formal answers, whilst providing relevant sources to these answers.
Instead of providing a list of websites with answers, as other search engines typically do, SearchGPT will reply with the answers from the website already laid out to users, providing links and credit for further exploration.
Users will also be able to ask follow up questions, in keeping with the conversational tone of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
The platform, though still in development, will place OpenAI not only in competition with the largest search engine in the world, but also with its biggest supporter, Microsoft and its Bing search engine.
In a statement, OpenAI said it was committed to supporting publishers and creators, saying that SearchGPT will connect users with publishers by “prominently citing and linking to them in searches.”
Answers to queries will have clear, in-line attribution and links so users can ascertain where information is coming from and engage with the original content.
During its continued development, OpenAI says it is looking into methods for publishers to manage how they appear on SearchGPT so they can have more control over their content.
Importantly, OpenAI has separated SearchGPT from training its genrative AI foundation models, meaning that sites can be surfaces in search results even if they have opted out of generative AI training.
While business confidence in Scotland has increased to its highest level in two years, it lags behind the rest of the UK, according to new data from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW).
The institute’s Business Confidence Monitor (BCM) for quarter 2 of 2024 shows a sustained increase in confidence, as businesses expect falling input price inflation to support further growth in demand as well as improved profits in the year ahead.
The BCM surveyed 1,000 chartered accountants across the UK, covering a range of sectors and company sizes, with results showing a sustained increase in confidence across the UK.
In Scotland, however, business confidence only saw a marginal improvement in Q2 2024, with the index increasing slightly to +15.6 from +15.4 in the prior quarter. While this is well above historical average, it does lag behind the UK average of +16.7, up from +14.4 in the Q1.
Despite this, Scottish companies appear determined, expecting to outpace all other regions in terms of both domestic sales and export growth over the coming year and are optimistic that profits growth will improve significantly.
Scots expect the pick-up in sales should be aided by the continued softening of input price inflation, although businesses in Scotland forecast the joint-highest input price rises in the UK.
As far as challenges, regulatory requirements is still the most widespread rising challenge in Scotland, more prevalent here than anywhere else in the UK.
Labour market challenges are also more prominent in Scotland, including the availability of non-management skills, as well as anticipation of the fastest rate of salary growth next year.
Even with these obstacles, capital investment growth outpaces the national average and businesses expect to double this rate over the next year, with Scotland set to have the strongest investment expansion.
Scotland’s research and development growth also outpaces the UK, but businesses plan to moderate growth to match the national average.
Generative AI (genAI) for procurement is at the ‘Peak of Inflated Expectations on the Gartner Hype Cycle’, an analytical graph used to measure the trajectory of emerging technologies, mapping their potential success, or demise.
Rapid adoption and a multitude of credible use cases will quickly move genAI to the ‘Plateau of Productivity’ within two years, the analysis firm says.
Gartner’s Hype Cycle (as seen in the figure) can track multiple emerging technologies as they pertain to their adoption and deployment across the globe or in specific industries.
The Hype Cycle begins with an innovation trigger, which jump starts an emerging technology on its hype journey. With rapid adoption and continual advancements, generative AI skyrocketed to the peak of inflated expectations in terms of procurement solutions.
The cycle typically requires technological advancements to take a downward spiral towards the trough of disillusionment – which Gartner describes as a point where ‘interest wanes as experiments and implementations fail to deliver. Producers of the technology shake out or fail. Investments continue only if the surviving providers improve their products to the satisfaction of early adopters.’
However, Gartner predicts that GenAI will then swiftly climb the slope of enlightenment – which it describes as the point where ‘mainstream adoption starts to take off. Criteria for assessing provider viability are more clearly defined. The technology’s broad market applicability and relevance are clearly paying off.’ With this in mind, Gartner predicts that genAI will reach the plateau of productivity within two years.
“GenAI can already enhance many different workflows in procurement and 73% of procurement leaders at the start of the year expected to adopt the technology by the end 2024,” said Kaitlynn Sommers, senior director analyst with Gartner’s Supply Chain Practice.
“This level of adoption, along with promising use cases, such as contract management, means GenAI will rapidly move through the Hype Cycle and reach the Plateau of Productivity at a faster rate than is typical for most emerging technologies in procurement.”
Gartner’s 2024 Hype Cycle for Procurement and Sourcing Solutions evaluated more than 20 technologies impacting the procurement landscape in 2024. This year, many core procurement technologies continued to mature and increase in adoption across organisations.
Additionally, a set of emerging, AI-driven technologies neared the Peak of Inflated Expectations, including GenAI, autonomous sourcing, predictive analytics and conversational AI.
In the last 12 months, GenAI use case availability have expanded greatly, with more capabilities being added by vendors across the sourcing and procurement landscape every month.
Early prominent use cases include contract management, sourcing and supplier management. Additional expected use cases include supporting supplier performance management, P2P and analytics.
Procurement technology vendors are integrating third-party large language models (LLMs) to provide more affordable access to GenAI capabilities in line with digital process support.
These LLMs can adapt to provide recommendations and support based on the organisation’s data and an individual’s procurement role, such as category manager or buyer.
“The window for building competitive advantage through early adoption of GenAI in procurement is narrowing,” said Sommers.
“Despite this, procurement technology leaders should remain aware of the obstacles to successful implementations, notably in the areas of data quality and integration of GenAI with their current systems.”
Sommers recommended that the best way to solve for these challenges is to launch targeted use-case pilots that will help clarify what capabilities can be scaled, while also monitoring developments from current vendors for opportunities to utilise GenAI without the need to build proprietary infrastructure from scratch.
The prime minister and energy secretary have announced a new partnership between Great British Energy – a new, publicly owned energy company introduced by the government, and The Crown Estate, which has the potential to leverage up to £60bn to private investment into the UK’s drive for energy independence.
The government aims to put the Great British Energy at the government’s mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower.
“The company will be owned by the British people, for the British people,” the government claimed, backed with £8.3 bn of new money over the course of the new Parliament to “own and invest in clean power projects in regions across the UK.”
It comes soon after the Energy Secretary scrapped the ban on onshore wind and unblocked the production of cheap solar energy.
Great British Energy’s first major partnership will be between two national institutions as it joins with the Crown Estate.
With a £16bn portfolio of land and seabed, the Crown Estate operates independently and returns its profits to the government, bringing long-established expertise to the partnership, and new investment and borrowing power recently announced by government.
To the partnership, Great British Energy is set to bring the critical strategic industrial policy that the state aims to provide, as well as its own ability to invest.
The Crown Estate estimates this partnership will lead to up to 20-30GW of new offshore wind developments reaching seabed lease stage by 2030, enough power for the equivalent of almost 20 million homes.
The partnership will boost Britain’s energy independence by investing in homegrown power, and with accompanying reforms to policy, cut the time it takes to get offshore wind projects operating and delivering power to homes by up to half.
This partnership will see the public sector taking on a new role undertaking additional early development work for offshore wind projects.
This will ensure that future offshore wind development has lower risk for developers, enabling projects to build out faster after leasing and crowding in private sector investment.
It will also help boost new technologies such as carbon capture and storage, hydrogen, wave and tidal energy.
It comes as the department for energy security and Net Zero has published details of the company’s objective. Families across the country have suffered during the cost-of-living crisis, as energy prices squeezed UK residents.
Great British Energy is part of the government’s plans for clean power by 2030, so families and businesses are never left vulnerable again to spiking global prices.
The prime minister has confirmed that Great British Energy will be headquartered in Scotland and will back energy generation projects in the UK, bringing profits back to the British people.
The UK Government is in discussions with the Scottish Government and Crown Estate Scotland on how Great British Energy could help to support new development and investment within Scotland.
The government is already legislating to give both Great British Energy and The Crown Estate the powers they need to rapidly deliver, with two Bills being introduced in Parliament today.
The energy secretary also confirmed that leading captain of industry Juergen Maier, former CEO of Siemens UK, will be the Chair of Great British Energy, driving forward this new company.
“My government is laser focused on delivering change, to make people better off,” prime minister Keir Starmer said.
“This innovative partnership between Great British Energy and the Crown Estate is an important step toward our mission for clean energy by 2030, and bringing down energy bills for good.
“This agreement will drive up to £60 billion in investment into the sector, turbocharging our country toward energy security, the next generation of skilled jobs, and lowering bills for families and business.
“My mission led government is rolling up our sleeves to deliver for Britain.”
Great British Energy will have five key functions.
First is regarding project development, which involves leading projects through development stages to speed up their delivery, whilst capturing more value for the British public.
Next is project investment, which includes investing in energy projects alongside the private sector, helping to get them off the ground.
The project will also introduce a local power plan which will support local energy generation projects through work with local authorities, combined authorities and communities.
Further, the partnership will build supply chains across the UK to boost energy independence and create jobs.
Lastly, the government will introduce Great British Nuclear, which will explore how the energy project and nuclear will work together and function best.
The Great British Energy Bill, which is being introduced in the House of Commons, will support the creation of the new publicly owned company by setting out its objectives and ensuring it has access to necessary finances.
The Secretary of State will also have the ability to set Great British Energy’s strategic priorities to ensure it remains focussed on the government’s aim to accelerate the delivery of homegrown clean energy power in the UK.
The Crown Estate Bill will modernise The Crown Estate by removing outdated restrictions on its activities so it can, for example, invest in digital technologies that will further enhance its award-winning spatial mapping of the seabed.
The Bill will also expand The Crown Estate’s investment powers and grant borrowing capabilities, unlocking significant investment in public infrastructure.
This includes essential marine investment to help support the acceleration and growth of offshore wind capacity by 2030 alongside supporting the regeneration of urban centres, such as its most recent example of a new Life Science partnership in central Oxford and nature recovery across its portfolio.
These reforms will secure the continued future success of the Crown Estate business and maximise the returns it generates for the public.
The global technology marketplace is increasingly dominated by a select few companies, each fighting to further reinforce their competitive position.
As a clear demonstration of this trend, recent analysis shows that Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud control over two-thirds of the entire public cloud industry.
In what has come to be known as the ‘cloud oligopoly’, a consolidation of the market has created some unexpected challenges for businesses.
The pursuit of a distributed, more resilient business has left many organisations inadvertently exposed to concentration risk – with many of the SaaS products they rely on hosted on the same public cloud providers.
Regulators have repeatedly voiced concerns about this risk, as well as the potential for businesses to become ‘locked-in’ to their providers.
Ofcom, for instance, published a report in 2023 outlining their concerns with the practices of companies like AWS and Microsoft. These include high egress fees, technical barriers to interoperability and the double-edged sword of committed spend discounts.
With a sudden upheaval of the market or strict regulation unlikely to come into effect any time soon, the onus is on businesses invested in public cloud to evaluate their own exposure to these risks.
To this end, we’ve taken a closer look at the dynamics and future of the cloud oligopoly – as well as the steps organisations can take to protect their interests.
The cloud and concentration risk
Concentration risk is at its highest when an organisation is dependent on a limited number of vendors or suppliers, which can lead to significant disruption if or when they encounter issues.
In the context of the cloud, while using several vendors may create the illusion of supply chain diversity, if their shared cloud host suddenly fails – that illusion shatters.
In practice, concentration risk makes organisations more vulnerable to the failures of their vendors.
If a cloud provider suffers unexpected disruption – be it from a security breach, supply chain shortage, or natural disaster – so too are all the companies that rely on their services. Of course, potential interruption can have serious financial or reputational consequences.
Furthermore, concentration risk is not just an issue for individual organisations, it can impact entire industries.
If a sizeable portion of similar businesses rely on a single cloud provider, a disruption could ripple through the market with widespread and unpredictable results.
Avoiding vendor lock-in
Vendor lock-in is also an unfortunate, although almost certainly intentional, side effect of the cloud oligopoly. Cloud lock-in occurs when a business becomes dependent on a single cloud provider due to hidden costs, interoperability issues or financial incentives that can make it difficult to move to another provider.
For example, egress fees – charges for transferring data out of a cloud – are set high by the major providers, which makes it costly to switch vendors.
Technical restrictions may also be imposed that make it difficult to configure data and applications to work across different clouds, and further entrench customers in a single provider’s ecosystem.
Additionally, cloud providers are keen to offer committed spend discounts. While these offer a significant cost-saving benefit, they can incentivise customers to concentrate their cloud usage with one provider, thereby increasing vendor lock-in.
Building resilience in a concentrated market
To mitigate the risks associated with the cloud oligopoly, businesses need to adopt strategies that enhance resilience and reduce dependency on a single provider. Some key approaches include:
1. Regular audits and risk assessments
Organisations should conduct regular audits of their supply chains to identify vulnerabilities. This involves not only assessing direct suppliers, but also examining the supply chains of those suppliers. Understanding where risks lie enables businesses to take proactive measures to address them.
2. Diversifying cloud providers
While there are technical and financial challenges to using multiple cloud providers, diversification is crucial for resilience. Using different providers for production systems and backups can help to mitigate the risk of a single point of failure.
Immediate fail-over to another cloud may not be practical or cost-effective, but having copies of data outside of the production environment is also key to resilience. At a minimum, setting up backups to another cloud is an inexpensive but worthwhile practice.
3. Building across multiple availability zones and regions
Businesses should architect their cloud environments across multiple Availability Zones within a region to limit the impacts of localised outages. Deploying across different geographic regions can also help to improve resilience, although this is a more expensive and complex undertaking.
4. Embracing interoperability and containers
Technologies like containers can facilitate multi-cloud resilience by making it easier to move applications and data between different cloud environments. Containers encapsulate applications and their dependencies, allowing them to run consistently across various cloud platforms.
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) methods and tools also enable the creation and management of infrastructure which can be replicated across different cloud environments quickly and efficiently.
The future of the cloud and AI
As the adoption and complexity of artificial intelligence (AI) continues to accelerate, the influence of the cloud oligopoly can already be felt. Cloud storage, infrastructure and compute are essential for AI development, providing the means to develop and train the most advanced AI models.
However, this also means that the major cloud providers wield significant control over the future of AI, potentially stifling competition and innovation in the field. As AI becomes increasingly integral to various industries, the dependency could exacerbate existing concentration risks.
Policymakers and industry stakeholders must therefore consider measures to promote competition and ensure a healthy, competitive landscape for AI development.
Final thoughts
The cloud oligopoly, insofar as it stifles competition, represents a potentially overlooked area in which businesses must assess their supply chain commitments. While the growth of these providers has made public cloud more accessible than ever, their ascendency has ultimately left businesses and the wider market exposed to new vulnerabilities.
Under these circumstances, organisations must adopt strategies to diversify their cloud usage, build resilience and mitigate risks. Fortunately, we have already begun to see regulatory bodies take notice, and they will play a crucial role in ensuring that the market remains competitive and fair.
As we look to the future, particularly with the rise of AI, addressing these issues will become even more critical to ensure that every business maintains continuity and resilience in a rapidly changing technology landscape.
Despite its intentions to be a tech superpower, the UK may lack the key infrastructure necessary to participate – let alone lead – in the AI boom, according to the latest white paper form the Open Data Institute (ODI).
The ODI outlined some of the main weaknesses in the UK’s tech infrastructure, including a lack of robust governance frameworks for data protection and AI adoption and deployment.
The paper argues that the potential for emerging AI technologies to transform industries such as diagnostics and personalised education shows great promise. Yet significant challenges and risks are attached to wide scale adoption, including the reliance on a handful of machine learning datasets in the case of generative AI.
The UK’s non-statutory approach to AI regulations has meant that a lack of robust governance could pose significant risk to both adoption and deployment, as inadequate data governance can lead to biases and unethical practices, undermining the trust and reliability of AI applications in critical areas such as healthcare, finance, and public services.
The ODI also found that the UK public needs safeguarding against the risk of personal data being used illegally to train AI models, and steps must be taken to address the ongoing risks of AI models leaking personal data inadvertently via user prompts.
These risks are exacerbated by a lack of transparency that is hampering efforts to address biases, remove harmful content, and ensure compliance with legal standards.
Key transparency information about data sources, copyright, and inclusion of personal information and more is rarely included by systems flagged within Partnership for AI’s AI Incidents Database, which collects alerts and date designed to mitigate potential risks associated with AI.
Also key to this is an update to intellectual property law to protect creative industries.
The ODI also found that labour rights will need to be safeguarded as AI continues to be adopted and deployed, and the AI market will require scrutiny as the increasing price of high-quality AI training data excludes potential innovators and academia.
Based on its research, the ODI is calling for the new government to take five actions that will allow the UK to benefit from the opportunities presented by AI while mitigating potential harms:
Ensure broad access to high-quality, well-governed public and private sector data to foster a diverse, competitive AI market.
Enforce data protection and labour rights in the data supply chain
Empower people to have more of a say in the sharing and use of data for AI
Update our intellectual property regime to ensure AI models are trained in ways that prioritise trust and empowerment of stakeholders
Increase transparency around the data used to train high-risk AI models
To provide a clearer picture of how data transparency varies across different types of system providers, the ODI is developing a new ‘AI data transparency index.’
“If the UK is to benefit from the extraordinary opportunities presented by AI, the government must look beyond the hype and attend to the fundamentals of a robust data ecosystem built on sound governance and ethical foundations,” Sir Nigel Shadbolt, executive chair and co-founder of the ODI, said.
“We must build a trustworthy data infrastructure for AI because the feedstock of high-quality AI is high-quality data.
“The UK has the opportunity to build better data governance systems for AI that ensure we are best placed to take advantage of technological innovations and create economic and social value whilst guarding against potential risks.”
Before the General Election, Labour’s Manifesto outlined plans for a National Data Library to bring together existing research programmes and help deliver data-enabled public services.
However, the ODI says that, first, the UK government needs to ensure the data is AI-ready. As well as being accessible and trustworthy, data must meet agreed standards, which require a data assurance and quality assessment infrastructure.
The ODI’s recent research has also found that currently – with a few exceptions – AI training datasets typically lack robust governance measures throughout the AI life cycle, posing safety, security, trust, and ethical challenges related to data protection and fair labour practices. These are all issues that need to be addressed if the government is to make good on its plans.
Six in ten (61%) IT leaders think the attack surface is “impossible to control”, with 90% saying the severity and risk of cyber-attacks have increased in the last year.
Malware, ransomware, and phishing attack topped the list, particularly the threat that these attacks could prevent their company’s operations.
IT leaders were also concerned about a lack of visibility about unidentified security risks, which could come from any angle, internal or external.
Next, leaders were concerned about identities being stolen by threat actors to access private data and systems.
Internal issues were also a concern – misconfigurations that could leave systems vulnerable to attacks, as well as needing to patch and rewrite applications leaving them more open to attack, rounded out the top five list of concerns.
Looking to the future, around eight in ten (79%) of IT leaders surveyed think emerging technologies – particularly genAI – will be game changers when it comes to cybersecurity, potentially leaving them unprepared.
For public sector IT leaders, this concern rises to 94%.
IT leaders also appear at a loss for what to do about emerging cyber threats. While investment has increased according to 97% of leaders, over half (55%) say they feel less secure now compared to last year.
Leaders seem to be defeated, with over half (57%) feeling cyber-criminals will continue ‘winning’ despite investment, reiterating the 61% said that the attack surface is uncontrollable.
Another barrier for IT leaders is a lack of understanding for governance, processes and controls to safeguard their data.
Due to this, 67% IT leaders say their security is inconsistently applied as their teams are unable to apply governance policies and controls effectively over their environment.
Further, nearly three quarters (71%) say that a lack of access and control over data is leaving them vulnerable to security risks.
The Scottish Space Network has announced the appointment of its first wave of ‘Founding Partners’, a crucial step in the company’s mission to support the burgeoning space sector in Scotland.
The new partners include commercial lawyers Burness Paul, innovation experts Eureka!Europe, accountancy and business advisory firm Johnston Carmichael and international intellectual property (IP) specialists Marks & Clerk.
Collectively the founding partners bring a ‘wealth of knowledge, expertise, support and resources that will be instrumental in driving innovation, developing entrepreneurial companies and delivering commercial success for the Scottish space industry.’
This strategic collaboration aims to strengthen Scotland’s position in the global space market, driving forward the national ambition to become a leading location for the full ‘end to end’ of space technology and services.
A programme of support activity and resources is to be developed and rolled out over the next 12 months.
“With Scotland at the heart of the UK’s space industry, we’re very excited to join the Scottish Space Network as a founding partner and play our part in helping the sector realise its ambitions,” Callum Sinclair, partner and head of technology and commercial at Burness Paull, said.
“From advising growing businesses creating world-class tech to being involved in the development of the Sutherland Spaceport project, we’ve long been part of the ecosystem providing legal advice across a range of business areas including funding & investment, employment & immigration, and cyber & data privacy.
“The Scottish Space Network is a driving force behind the sector and we look forward to adding value to members and other partners alike.”
Philip Pozzo di Borgo-Oliver, partner at Eureka!Europe added: “Having worked closely with organisations in the UK aerospace and defence sectors, the Eureka!Europe team knows how these businesses need to innovate and test disruptive ideas quickly within a dynamic business environment.
“It’s about agile problem-solving while driving down the risk of trying new things. Eureka!Europe is proud to help realise Dr Andy Campbell’s vision for the Scottish Space Network as a Founding Partner, and we look forward to helping organisations leverage and scale the extraordinary opportunity that is the UK and Europe’s multi-billion dollar space economy.”
Jim Lockhart, business advisory partner at Johnston Carmichael commented: “The Space Sector in Scotland is a hugely exciting one, and it feels like a natural evolution for us as a country to be so heavily involved.
“As a firm, we are looking forward to working with the Scottish Space Network and doing our bit to support the ecosystem. We have significant experience of supporting entrepreneurs and innovative businesses, and working with dynamic partners like Andy is key to delivering success.”
Dr. Phil Merchant, principal chartered (UK) and European patent attorney, stated: “As a firm with a rich history of supporting technological innovation, Marks & Clerk is thrilled to join the Scottish Space Network as a Founding Partner.
“The space sector in Scotland is rapidly advancing, and we are eager to contribute our expertise in intellectual property to help safeguard and promote the groundbreaking developments emerging from this dynamic industry.
“We look forward to collaborating with the network and its partners to drive forward the vision of Scotland as a global leader in space technology.”
Established in 2023, The Scottish Space Network is dedicated to supporting the sector by promoting the achievements of Scottish SpaceTech companies, attracting investment, nurturing talent pipelines and developing commercial opportunities.
In June 2024, the Scottish Space Network announced its partnership with New York-based Sustainable Alpha. This partnership aims to open up investment opportunities for the Scottish, UK and international space sectors, focusing on developing a comprehensive investment strategy and securing funding for early-stage and scaling space tech businesses.
The Scottish Space sector is expected to grow substantially, with revenue projected to reach £4bn within the next six years and the creation of over 12,000 new jobs by 2030.
Speaking from the Farnborough International Airshow 2024, Dr. Andy Campbell, founder of the Scottish Space Network, expressed his enthusiasm for the new partnerships: “We are delighted to welcome Burness Paull, Eureka!Europe, Johnston Carmichael and Marks & Clerk as Founding Partners of the Scottish Space Network. Collectively, their expertise and commitment will be invaluable as we work together to support and elevate Scotland’s space sector on the global stage.
“This collaboration marks a significant step towards achieving our mission of fostering innovation, attracting investment and nurturing talent within the space industry. We look forward to rolling out our activity, announcing more partners in the coming weeks and continuing to build a strong, supportive ecosystem with all space and sectoral support companies in Scotland.”
This news comes after the announcement that Scotland’s Space Sector is set to receive a £10.9 million boost from the UK Government, announced on Monday 22nd July 2024 by Scottish Secretary Ian Murray. This funding is part of a larger £33 million pledge under the UK Space Agency’s national space innovation programme.
Key Scottish projects include a sub-orbital rocket test by HyImpulse at the SaxaVord Spaceport UK and Spire’s development of advanced weather forecasting technology. Additionally, three smaller projects will receive £2.4 million for early-stage development, including lunar exploration feasibility studies.
Speaking at the Farnborough International Airshow, Ian Murray said: “The burgeoning industry plays a vital role in our economy and employs thousands of people across the country.”
Following its global outage, CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity vendor, has published a Post Incident Review (PIR) into the incident which occurred on July 19, revealing that it was caused by a bug in its update.
The update was rolled out simultaneously across all of its systems, leading to a global outage and millions of PCs showing ” the blue screen of death”.
Planes were grounded in airports across the globe, hospitals and emergency responders lost their systems, and Sky News was off the air for several hours – with other broadcasters suffering major issues.
Microsoft was forced to take mitigation actions, and had to investigate issues across its cloud services and applications.
The company has now revealed that the entire global outage was caused by a bug in the Falcon update.
CrowdStrike said the release was a “regular part of the dynamic protection mechanisms of the Falcon platform.”
According to the release, the bug was part of a Rapid Response Content update with an undetected error, which was not picked up during stress testing due to a fault in the Content Validator.
CrowdStrike also released updates to its testing procedure to mitigate future faults.
These include adding an extra content validator, which the vendor says is already underway.
Further, for rapid response content deployment, the company says it will stagger its deployment of these updates rather than release them globally at once.
Customers will also be provided greater control over the delivery of these updates as they can select when and where these updates are deployed.
CrowdStrike aims to introduce a phased rollout using improved monitoring for both sensor and system performance. as well as providing customers release notes for update details.
A court case has pointed out a disturbing potential privacy crisis as police could use bulk surveillance techniques as laid out in a ruling by the UK’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal.
This means that platforms employing end-to-end encryption, such as WhatsApp and Signal, could be surveilled by law enforcement if they obtain a certain warrant.
This was all revealed in an appeal heard by the Court of Appeal’s Civil Decision surrounding the National Crime Agency’s (NCA) role in the takedown of an organised crime unit operating in Europe through Operation Venetic, which was achieved through intercepting messages sent via EncroChat, an encrypted messaging system.
Working with French and Dutch Police, the NCA helped intercept around 60,000 EncroChat phones by implanting software on the devices, which aided them in identifying and arresting over 3,100 people, resulting in 1,500 convictions and seizing of illicit materials including Class A drugs and ammunition, as well as £84m in cash.
Even at the time of the Operation’s success, some were concerned over what this could mean for the sanctity of encrypted messaging services, and the appeals hearing, which represented 11 defendants, revealed potentially troubling methods of the NCA in obtaining the warrant to infiltrate the messaging platform.
In order to intercept the messages, the NCA used a targeted equipment interreference (TEI) warrant enabling French police to hack EncroChat phones of individuals with UK residency.
Typically, TEI warrants are obtained for a single operation, for instance to monitor an identified organised crime group.
In the hearing, lawyers claimed that the TEI warrant was not suitable to monitor all users of a messaging platform, stating that the targets using the publicly available technology for their suspected criminal activity was not enough justification for that type of warrant.
Though EncroChat was notably adopted by many criminal organisations to keep their communications encrypted, the platform itself is completely legal and can be used by members of the public who want to enjoy more robust privacy in their messaging. The company first launched, for instance, aiming to provide private communication for celebrities hoping to avoid their messages being hacked.
According to defence lawyers, Operation Venetic’s purpose was to gather information from EncroChat messages for multiple investigations, and the warrant application was also intended to allow UK law enforcement to continue monitoring EncroChat for future investigations.
Another issue highlighted by the appeals court shows that the NCA blurred the line between bulk and thematic warrant requirements.
Bulk interception warrants are deemed lawful for international operations when crime agencies are not entirely sure what they are looking for, and are typically used for large scale operations that without as much pre-determined targets.
Thematic warrants have more than one subject, and often would be used to look at multiple suspects across a platform.
Lawyers argued that the NCA changed the re-named Project Venetic to Operation Venetic before applying for the bulk TEI warrant to allow them to sidestep this distinction, resulting in its ability to tap into an international platform.
The very use of TEI, over TI (targeted interception) was also questioned.
Initially, the NCA was advised by Lord David Anderson that a thematic TEI warrant would not be suitable for the operation as it did not have strong enough grounds.
The NCA did release a threat assessment of EncroChat phones in 2019, but this was also after French officials were investigation a server of the platform, which an NCA official had visited. Further, Europol already stated their intentions to access and decrypt EncroChat communications in 2019.
The threat assessment claimed that EncroChat was only used by criminals – the court questioned if this report was bias to enable the NCA to carry out its investigation and support its TEI warrant, and claimed that the IPT made a “speculative assumption” about the report.
SAP, the software solutions company, has revealed that their restructuring programme, which was first announced in January, will impact between 9,000 to 10,000 jobs by the beginning on 2025.
The majority of the restructuring will be accomplished via re-skilling measures and voluntary leave, the company said.
Despite the restructuring, SAP expects its overall headcount to remain close to its 2023 year end number, as it continues to grow in strategic areas despite the affected jobs.
According SAP, current costs associated with the restructuring have reached around €3bn, an increased from expected costs.
In quarter two of 2024, the company recorded €600m costs associated with the reorganisation, raising the total to €2.9bn.
SAP attributed this cost increase to the large number of employees opting for voluntary leave.
The company appears to be doing well despite the reorganisation, with strong financial results from Q2 2024.
Cloud revenue rose by 25% to €4.15bn, and the current cloud backlog grew 28%, with total revenue up by 10% to €8.29bn.
Gross profit from cloud increased by 29%, reaching €3.03bn.
The company claims its restructuring programme enunciates its aim to come out ahead of the AI revolution in business software.
As data becomes ever more essential to growing adoption of AI, cloud purveyors are attempting to position themselves at an advantage to businesses trying to adopt the data-dependent technology.
The UK’s market watchdog, the Competition and Marketing Authority (CMA), has significantly boosted investment in IT training and development for its staff as it seeks to overhaul its digital processes.
Information regarding this investment, totalling to £250,000, was retrieved via the Freedom of Information Act and anlysed by the Parliament Street think tank, observing the investment of government departments in IT spending and training over the past three financial years.
Between April 2021 and March 2024, a total of 1,281 staff members were sent on IT training courses as part of a strategic initiative to ensure employees are up to date in their skills in the latest technologies amid rapid developments in areas such as AI and cybersecurity.
Between 2022 and 2023, the investment in IT skills training hit an all-time high with £140,096.78 being splashed on 477 staff, in an effort to ensure they were up to date in advanced and specialised skills, participating in courses such as Microsoft Power BI Desktop, Power Automate, and Data Ethics professional.
Between 2023 and 2024, 567 staff were sent on IT courses, 90 more than the previous year, and 330 more than in 2021. Most of these lessons were focused on Microsoft Office Suite products like Excel and PowerPoint, as well as using Microsoft Teams.
The news comes amid the CMA launching a formal investigation into Microsoft’s recruitment of AI staff from startup Inflection, expressing concern around stifling AI innovation through a de facto merger.
The competition authority also signed a joint agreement supporting competition in AI, joining authorities in the EU and US in supporting a competitive AI market.
“It is really encouraging to see the CMA investing in digital skills training and development for their staff,” Dr Adeshola Cole, CEO of Tritek Consulting, commented on the findings.
“In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, it is crucial for employees to be equipped with the right skills to fully harness the potential of digitalisation. By empowering employees through comprehensive training and initiatives, the CMA is laying a robust foundation for businesses to thrive in the AI revolution.”
Stuart Munton, chief for group operations & technology at AND Digital added: “The challenge in technology doesn’t just lie in keeping up with technological demand, but in continuously upskilling individuals to use them effectively.
“Businesses must emphasise empowering the individual with the right skills and mindset to harness the full potential of tech innovation.
“CMA’s investment in digital skills training and development is a welcome sight and we hope to continue to see government bodies and other organisations prioritising upskilling approaches for their staff to navigate the rapidly evolving digital landscape.”
UK consumers are calling for brands to fix declining levels of customer satisfaction, with many looking to AI to solve a rise in poor service delivery.
This is according to a new survey commissioned by CommBox, a conversational AI-powered digital customer engagement platform, which surveyed over 1,000 customers and 250 managers in customer-facing organisations.
The survey revealed an overarching disconnect between brands and UK shoppers – while over 90% of businesses believe the service they provide meets customer expectations, less than half (43%) reported they were ‘satisfied’ with the service they had received online over the past year.
Mind the Gap: Disappointed customers lead to business losses
At the heart of UK consumer dissatisfaction lies long wait times (43%) and the inability to speak directly to a human agent (37%), as well as having to use chatbots that can’t solve queries (36%).
As automation and AI chatbots become an increasingly popular part of the customer service toolkit, UK shoppers also reported ongoing frustrations with the technology.
The majority of consumers are willing for AI to be used to resolve their frustrations, though it appears that AI is no guarantee these will be solved.
Further, a failure to acknowledge the low levels of customer satisfaction could have costly consequences. Following a negative experience, 87% of consumers reported that they would take some sort of action, with 51% avoiding spending money with a brand, while a further 30% would seek out a competitor.
On the flipside, after receiving a positive experience, the same number (87%) of consumers would also take action, with 38% of customers actively returning to a brand following a positive experience, and one in four willing to spend more money with that brand.
Bridging the Gap: Applying AI
When asked about what ‘good’ customer service looks like, the survey reveals that consumers are ultimately wanting brands to strike a balance in two core areas: speed and availability. Speaking to people with the right knowledge (56%) tops consumer requirements for good quality customer service, which is closely followed by speedy resolution (48%) and brands ensuring they are available 24/7 (34%).
Although the survey does highlight some frustrations around the use of technology and AI, particularly consumer frustrations with chatbot technology, it also reveals it is a key area where consumers and brands converge on a solution.
While much of the UK is sceptical about how AI will be used and what it means for employment, the vast majority (80%) want to see AI within customer service pathways to help with areas such as speed of resolution (39%) and ensuring agents have the right knowledge (37%).
Encouragingly, brands seem to be taking note, with 45% reporting that they have only just started deploying AI across the service function, with just 1 in 10 having no plans to deploy it at all. For those who plan to deploy it, areas such as improving automation capabilities (37%) and improving access to knowledge (37%) are top of mind.
Brands seem to be taking note, as they expect to use AI mainly to analyze the sentiment of customer queries, and improve personalization, automation capabilities, and access to knowledge.
“The growing adoption of AI presents a unique opportunity to deliver on customer expectations and close the gap between businesses and consumers,” Dvir Hoffman, CEO at CommBox, said.
“Artificial intelligence arms chatbots and human agents with the right knowledge, at their fingertips, and it’s time for businesses to adopt AI securely, providing personalized and on-time experiences to improve satisfaction and efficiency, cut costs, and drive growth”.
SMEs are struggling to keep up in an ever-evolving threat landscape, new research has found, as half (49%) say they don’t have enough resources or staff to protect themselves against emerging threats.
This is according to a survey of 612 IT decision-makers by JumpCloud, which also found that half (49%) of IT teams at SMEs faced layoffs in the past six months, despite worries over cyber skills shortages.
Further, nearly a third (28%) reported that they export even more layoffs within the next six months, despite growing cyber concerns.
About seven in ten (71%) of SME respondents said that cuts in their security budgets would only increase organisational risks, as nearly half (45%) have been victim of a cyber-attack in the first six months of the year.
Of those that faced an attack, nearly a third (28%) have faced two, 17% have faced three, and 5% have experienced more than three.
Nearly two-thirds (60%) said that they consider security their biggest IT challenge, which makes layoffs and budgetary cuts all the more troubling.
Half (50%) of SMEs are more concerned now about security than they were six months ago. Emerging technologies, such as AI, hold some of the blame, as 61% say their organisations are unable to keep apace with AI-enabled threats.
Further, IT sprawl – the decentralisation of IT tools and systems – have created issues surrounding shadow IT, which is unknown or unregistered IT systems, which create further liabilities. 84% of SMEs are concerned about shadow IT, which makes sense as JumpCloud discovered that 37% of the breaches SMEs experienced in this year were caused by shadow IT.
The problem only compounds as IT architectures diversify: over a quarter of employees (28%) need 11 or more tools to manage their work, and 17% has to manage 10 or more passwords.
This increases the likelihood of phishing, which was the top attack vector SMEs experienced so far this year.
Axis Studios, a visual effects company based in Glasgow, has appointed administrators, and 162 people have lost their jobs at the company.
All production projects will cease at both Axis Productions Limited and Axis VFX Limited, which trade under Axis Studios.
Axis Studios, which is based in Glasgow but has a presence in Bristol, worked across large projects in TV, film, and video games.
The company has been animating in Scotland since 2000, becoming the nation’s largest animation studio by 2008. Among its numerous accolades is a Royal Television Society award and an Emmy.
On July 15, Alistair McAlinden and Geoff Jacobs of Interpath Advisory were appointed administrators, and while all productions have ceased, they are looking for operators to continue with live projects.
“It is a great shame to see a creative business in Scotland close its doors. Axis has been a studio of choice for key production companies and has produced content for household names such as the BBC, Netflix and Blizzard Entertainment,” McAlinden, head of Interpath Advisory in Scotland and joint administrator, said. “The Company experienced a high demand for its services during COVID as animation and visual effects for TV, film and videogames skyrocketed.
“Unfortunately, however, Axis has more recently been impacted by a decline in customer projects, as well as increases in labour costs which have resulted in severe cash flow problems. The directors worked tirelessly to explore alternative solutions, but ultimately had to take the difficult decision to seek the appointment of administrators.”
The company previously employed 166 workers, four of which will be retained to assist with the transfer of knowledge and the wind down of operations.
“Our priority is to give employees support in the first instance,” Geoff Jacobs, joint administrator, said. “We would encourage any party with an interest in Axis’ live projects to contact us immediately.”
SSE, with headquarters in Perth, has signed an agreement with TotalEnergies to create a joint venture establishing electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure in the UK and Ireland, under the brand Source.
The new business will deploy in both countries up to 3,000 high-power charge points, aiming to meet demand from EV and fleet owners to provide fast and reliable charging.
Within the next five years, Source aims to deploy up to 3000 high power charge points (of 150kW and more) grouped in 300 EV hubs, targeting 20% market share.
Charging hubs are set to be distributed in and around urban areas, and powered by renewable energy provided by SSE and TotalEnergies.
Several hubs are already under construction with plans for dozens more currently in development studies.
Source aims to provide reliable ultra-fast charging infrastructure needed across the UK to meet demand from EV drivers and fleet operators. The demand was recently triggered by the enforcement into law of the UK Government’s zero vehicle emissions mandate for all new cars and vans, raising power supply infrastructure for EV and fleet owners as one of the biggest challenges facing the decarbonisation of transport.
“TotalEnergies is proud to contribute to the development of electric mobility to decarbonize transportation in the UK and Ireland,” said Mathieu Soulas, senior vice president new mobilities at TotalEnergies.
“This is a great opportunity to extend our network in Europe and stake out a key position as a reference high-power charging player. We want to offer our customers – passenger cars and fleet alike – a nationwide, ultra-fast and reliable charging service that allows them to travel efficiently with complete peace of mind.
“This development also contributes to our integrated power strategy in the UK, combining renewable and flexible power generation capacity, trading and marketing of low-carbon electricity available 24 hours a day.”
Neil Kirkby, managing director of enterprise at SSE added: “SSE is already playing a leading role in decarbonising the UK and Ireland’s power system including building the world’s largest offshore wind farm and transforming electricity networks.
“Now this agreement will help accelerate progress towards a decarbonised transport system too, ensuring the vehicles that keep the economy moving can do so in a more sustainable and efficient way.”
The agreement is still subject to the applicable regulatory approvals being obtained from the relevant authorities.
A new wireless device that could help in the diagnosis of respiratory and sleep conditions in babies and young children is being trialled for the first time with patients.
The Paediatric Advanced Respiratory Service (PARS) has been developed by the West of Scotland Innovation Hub, which is hosted by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, in partnership with digital therapeutics company PneumoWave.
It combines wireless wearable biosensors with mobile app-based software to give real-time analysis of infant’s breathing when they are asleep.
The technology is attached using an adhesive pad and tailored specifically for children, as many existing in-hospital devices are invasive and therefore poorly tolerated by babies and toddlers.
It will also be used to monitor babies in the Royal Hospital for Children’s Neonatal Unit in Glasgow who are at risk of central apnea.
Currently available for research use only, development of the technology in the PARS project has the potential to improve remote monitoring and diagnostic accuracy in conditions such as sleep disordered breathing, paediatric respiratory disease, and acute neonatal compromise.
It is hoped that it will improve patient outcomes and experience, while also adding capacity to clinical services.
The device and software is now being used in an early stage with 150 young patients from the Royal Hospital for Children – 75 from the Sleep Clinic Unit and 75 from the Neonatal Unit.
The study, which will run until October 2025, will allow medics to explore how tolerable it is and its feasibility going forward.
“Detecting and monitoring respiratory problems in children and newborns can be challenging and we know that existing in-hospital devices are invasive and poorly tolerated by children,” Dr Ross Landley, NHSGGC paediatric respiratory consultant, who led the PARS project, said.
“We are pleased that PARS has now entered an early stage study with patients as we explore new ways to diagnose sleep and respiratory conditions in young children.
“This has been developed with industry partner PneumoWave and is tailored specifically for children.
“The device has worldwide potential to improve remote monitoring and diagnostic accuracy in paediatric patients.”
Dr Bruce Henderson, CEO of PneumoWave, said: “Our goal as a company is to stop early deaths from preventable causes, and there is nothing more important than achieving this in children.
“We are privileged to have the support of patients at the Royal Hospital for Children, and of the dedicated staff led by Dr Langley, and grateful to Innovate UK for funding the project.”
The research infrastructure underpinning the study has been supported by Glasgow Children’s Hospital Charity.
CEO Kirsten Watson said: “We are delighted that our long-term investment in respiratory research at the children’s hospital has enabled this exciting new development.
“It is crucial that we continue to innovate with minimally invasive technology designed specifically for our most vulnerable babies and children.
“Our heartfelt thanks go to the Reid-Timoney Charitable Foundation for their generous support of our three-year respiratory research strategy.”
A new report has found that a potential £119 billion windfall in productivity for UK enterprises may be unlocked thanks to AI, showing that the UK could be on the cusp of a seismic shift after struggling to make meaningful productivity growth for a decade and a half.
This is from Workday, Inc, a management solutions provider, which released their report The UK Productivity Gap: How AI can unlock workplace, a new report discovering the positive economic impact AI is having as well as its future potential.
The report revealed that current productivity levels 24% lower than they would have been had pre-2008 trends continued, but AI could help this shortfall.
According to the report, AI could be the key to solving the UK’s productivity paradox. After years of uncertainty over the impact of digital technology and productivity, large businesses in the UK could save up to 7.9 billion employee hours through the use of AI.
Individual business leaders could save 1,117 hours per year through the use of AI if it was used to its full potential, equivalent to 140 working days annually, while individual employees could save 737 hours each year, the equivalent of 92 working days.
The study also found that team motivation must be prioritised, with low enagement hammering productivity even if AI is adopted. Unengaged employees are the biggest barrier to productivity, the study claims. With its potential to take on mundane, repetitive tasks, AI could empower everyone to focus on more meaningful and impactful work.
Further, overcoming barriers in trust is going to be essential for AI adoption. 93% of both employees and leaders have concerns relating to trust in AI today, according to the report.
“Sizeable productivity growth has eluded UK workplaces for over 15 years – but responsible AI has the potential to shift the paradigm,” said Daniel Pell, vice president and country manager, UKI, Workday.
“However, AI can only reach its full potential if it is trusted and aligned to business outcomes, which is why Workday AI solutions are designed with transparency, explainability, and reliability from the start.
“We encourage businesses to take a two-pronged approach when it comes to deploying AI: a concrete analysis of the efficiencies AI can drive, alongside a transparent strategy to tackle the material and cultural barriers to its adoption. As this report reveals, for those that get it right, the results can be transformative for growth.”
Quantifying AI’s Productivity Potential
In an 8-hour workday, the study found employees and business leaders being genuinely productive for 5.8 and 5.9 hours respectively, leaving over a quarter of the day unproductive and not generating business value.
With these lost hours in mind, the role of AI becomes clear. When asked about how much time they expect to save if AI was used to its full potential, both employees and business leaders are bullish. Employees claim 2.9 hours could be saved each day with business leaders predicting almost double this at 4.4 hours.
An additional 2.9 hours of work per day is the equivalent of £11,058 a year of added work for each average employee, based on salaries reported. With over 10 million employees in large businesses across the UK, £119 billion worth of productive work each year could be untapped across UK large enterprises through the use of AI.
Removing Barriers to AI Adoption to Meet Productivity Desires
While AI’s potential to transform productivity is clear, barriers to adoption remain. According to leaders, the largest concerns they feel delaying their organisation’s progress in AI are: fears over safety/privacy/bias (38%), needing more time to educate teams (34%) and lack of investment (32%).
These fears and concerns must be overcome in addition to the following obstacles which the data shows are harming organisation’s productivity: unengaged employees (41%), lack of incentives (41%), and inadequate technology (35%).
Of particular concern is the issue of trust in AI, with 93% of both employees and leaders having concerns relating to trust in AI. This underscores the critical need for responsible AI strategies, including comprehensive education and transparent communication initiatives.
The Walt Disney Company is facing a potential cyber-attack allegedly committed by NullBulge, which may have breached sensitive company data.
The hacktivist group claimed to carry out the incident on 12 July, announcing the act on X as well as on Breach Forums.
NullBuldge claimed to have breached Disney’s internal communications via its Slack, leading it to 1.2 terabytes of data which it then leaked online.
Allegedly, the breached data included confidential information including messages, code, and files from around 10,000 different Slack channels on the company’s workspace.
According to Stack Diary, which viewed some parts of the leaked data, the breach shows a variety of Disney’s operations, including emails, financial data, project information, and even sensitive information like developer data and internal network structures.
Employee information – including names, emails, and addresses – may have also been contained in the leak, as well as budgeting information for the Disney company.
NullBulge describes itself as a hacktivist group, and claims its motive behind the alleged attack was to expose corporate malpractice. The group is particularly concerned with artist compensation, and has instigated itself in ongoing arguments around Disney’s treatment of artists and creators.
Disney has yet to comment on the alleged breach, which could potentially interrupt some of its services and projects.
The attack follows two high profile breaches on US companies, including on telecommunications company AT&T and ticket seller Ticketmaster. The AT&T breach, which took place last week, affected the call records and texts of nearly all of its customers, totally around 110 million people. The Ticketmaster data breach is currently ongoing, and involves concert ticket barcodes.
Newly appointed Department of Science, Innovation and Technology minister Sir Patrick Vallance has committed to international collaboration to strengthen the UK’s global science and technology power.
In a speech to the G7 Science and Technology Ministerial, the new Labour MP said the UK is “open for business,” and committed the UK to increasing collaboration on AI and supercomputing.
He also called on data to be “open and accessible” and for resources to be pooled to “develop cutting-edge long-term research infrastructure and above all, stand in solidarity and support researchers who are under threat.”
After this, the minister controversally commented in a BBC Radio 4 interview that UK visa prices were “very high” and should be looked into to ensure the UK can attract and retain global talent in science and tech.
“We know there’s an impact of the difficulty of some of those schemes, so that means there is an opportunity there to try and make this easier again for people who do come in to do contributions to scientific knowledge creation and indeed to companies.” Vallance said.
“There are lots of different bits to the visa issue, including the cost which is very high at the moment for people coming to the UK that needs to be looked at and we need to think about how we can make the environment right for people to come who we want to have here contributing to science.”
New requirements for the skilled worker visa came into effect this Spring, with the minimum wage requirements rising well above the national average. New visa applications must secure a job with a wage no less than £38,700, which is over £10k more than the previous threshold of £26,600.
However, the a spokesperson from the Home Office said that decreasing visa fees was “not government policy,” as reported by iNews.
Proof of concept (PoC) exploits are being rapidly weaponised by threat actors, even as soon as 22 minutes after they are made available to the public, new research from Cloudflare reveals.
The cybersecurity firm’s Application Security report which covers from April 2023 to March 2024, which delves into the threat landscape.
The report found that the speed at which these vulnerabilities are exploited outpaces defence and patch development, leaving organisations in the lurch as weaknesses are identified and proliferate across the public sphere.
For Cloudflare, this pushed the company to integrate their human written signatures of defence with a machine-learning approach to increase the speed of their response and reduce false positives.
The firm also said the speed of exploiting attack vectors has been enhanced by the specialisation of threat actors in certain vulnerabilities and attack types, meaning they can efficiently use weaknesses to their advantage.
Internet traffic was also studied in the report, with a shocking finding that 6.8% of all daily internet traffic is caused by distributed denial of service (DDoS) traffic, which is a common form of attack aiming to make online platforms inaccessible to users due to an oversaturation of traffic.
This is a marked increase from the 6% seen in the year prior, showing that DDoS attacks are on the rise. In total, DDoS comprised 37.1% of all mitigated application traffic, and HTTP DDoS attacks increased by 93% year on year.
But this is still only the average – according the Cloudflare, malicious traffic can double, reaching 12% during global attack incidents.
This also suggests that bots are becoming increasingly common, and more effective in launching DDoS attacks. DDoS was found to be the number one attack type taken against web apps.
The report found that 93% of bots are potentially malicious, with one third (31.2%) of all traffic stemming from bots, 93% of which are unverified.
Meta has officially removed any restrictions on former US president Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts as of Friday, shortly before the Republican presidential contender was grazed in the ear by a bullet fired on Saturday at a campaign rally.
The controversial move also comes just before the Republican National Convention, which will see the Republican party officially select its nominee for the upcoming presidential elections.
Trump was originally banned from the social media sites for his part in the January 6 insurrection, when supporters of the convicted felon stormed the US capitol building, claiming the 2020 election results were fraudulent.
Following that, Trump was able to return to Meta’s platforms in 2023, with ‘guardrails’ in place to restrict certain posts.
Ahead of Trump receiving the formal candidacy, Meta said that it was their ‘responsibility’ to allow the American people “to hear form the nominees for president on the same basis,” the company said in a statement.
Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts will no longer be under increased restrictions, which were imposed due to “extraordinary circumstances,” according to Meta.
The former president will now be under the same scrutiny as other political candidates, with policies aiming to prevent hate speech and the incitement of violence.
Following the January 6 insurrection attempt, other social media sites also banned Trump for his role in the attack, as it was alleged he instigated and supported those storming the capitol.
X, then known as Twitter, Snapchat, and YouTube all banned the former president, prompting Trump to found an alternative, Truth Social, his own social network, in 2022.
Elon Musk allowed Trump to return to X when he bought the company in 2022, though he has yet to post on the social media platform.
Online safety proponents are concerned that Trump’s reintroduction to more social media platforms could cause the spread of misinformation, and the campaign for current president Joe Biden called the decision ‘reckless’.
In the last financial year (2023/24), consumers raised 80,137 cases about banking and payment products – that is a substantial rise from levels the previous year when there were 61,995 complaints.
Driving the increase were people’s concerns about their current accounts and credit cards, as well as worries that they may have fallen victim to frauds and scams.
In particular, consumers complained about administration and customer service followed by perceived unaffordable or irresponsible lending by financial firms.
Complaints are not just rising in the banking sector. Overall, we are seeing higher case levels across the board with 198,798 new complaints in 2023/24 compared with 165,149 the previous year.
The indications so far are that this trend is continuing into the new financial year.
“It’s always concerning when you see cases rise so significantly, particularly when so many people are struggling in the current economic climate,” Abby Thomas, chief executive and chief Ombudsman of the Financial Ombudsman Service said.
“Whether someone is the victim of a fraud, struggling with credit card debt, or having issues with their overdraft, they deserve support and understanding from their financial provider.
“It is imperative that all businesses treat their customers fairly and in a timely manner.
“If consumers don’t feel they’ve been treated fairly, they should contact our free, independent service and we’ll investigate their complaint.”
Across all categories, increasing levels of complaints are being brought by claims management companies (CMCs) and professional representatives – they accounted for 25% of cases in 2023/24 compared to 18% in the prior financial year.
The financial group has seen examples of both good and bad practice from professional representatives. Some representatives submit mass claims without determining whether they have merit, whilst others fail to respond to requests for evidence slowing down the service’s investigations.
Fraud and scam cases have risen by a fifth and are now at their highest level, according to the report, with 27,312 complaints in the 2023/24 financial year. Around half of these cases were authorised push payments (APP) scams where someone is tricked into sending money online to a fraudster posing as a genuine payee.
The EU Commission has found X, formally known as Twitter, in breach of its online content regulations, which could lead to a large fine and requirements for the site to change its operations.
After a seven-month investigation, X has been found in breach of the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which has specific requirements for major players online to mitigate illegal online content and online harms to safety.
The investigation called out some of X’s policies, including its transparency around advertisements, and researcher’s access to data.
In particular, the EU found that X’s verified user policy, which gives some users a blue checkmark to indicate that they are verified, may unjustly impact a user’s ability to discern factual and opinionated posts. Under Elon Musk’s leadership, the blue tick mark became a paid subscription, which caused further scrutiny on how people verified themselves as experts, spokespeople, and public figures.
Companies that are deemed large platforms under the DSA are also required to provide the EU with a directory of the advertisements on their platform – something X failed to accomplish.
According to the EU, researchers were blocked from accessing X’s public data, which also goes against DSA requirements.
“X has now the right of defence – but if our view is confirmed we will impose fines and require significant changes,” Thierry Breton, EU industry chief said.
If after the defence X is still found guilty, they could risk a fine of 6% of their global turnover.
X is not the only company being investigated for breaches of the DSA – TikTok, Meta, and AliExpress are all facing their own investigation.
Funding an AI ecosystem that fosters safety, security, and reliability could unlock over £18 billion a year in the UK by 2030, according to new research from the Institute for AI Policy and Strategy (IAPS).
Building up AI assurance is key, researchers argue in a paper published by the Social Market Foundation and UK Day One Project in growing the UK’s infrastructure and technological power.
The research found that there is a burgeoning demand for new AI assurance technologies (AIAT)- solutions for AI alignment, security, auditing, authentication, and risk management.
New modelling compiled by the researchers suggests that the global AIAT market will reach $276 billion by 2030, but most of these AIATs currently need research and development investment to operate at scale.
The research paper claims that the UK has a “head-start” in the AIAT landscape, with its AI Safety Institute (AISI) and a fledgling startup scene in the arena.
But uncertainties around regulations, technical priorities and demand mean that the global AIAT market is still very much up for grabs.
The paper therefore recommends that the UK establishes an inter-departmental group to guide AI assurance policies, and produce a three-year roadmap for introducing mandatory standards, in line with the EU and the US.
Researchers are also calling on the new UK government to direct £10m of the AISI’s existing budget into seed funding for AIATs, as well as granting companies that are developing these tools free access to public compute.
Moreover, the researchers want a commissioned study on the barriers – both technical and commercial – to developing AIATs and bringing them to market.
China and the UK are leading generative AI adoption across the world, according to a recent global study by SAS commissioned by Coleman Parkers Research Ltd.
Business decision makers in China report that 83% of their organisations are using the emerging technology. This is followed by the UK (70%), which is outpacing the US (65%) and Australia (63%).
But this is not the full story. Organisations in the US are ahead in terms of maturity and having fully implemented GenAI technologies at 24% compared to China’s 19% and the UK’s 11%.
What does this mean in terms of the global economic impact on AI and GenAI? In a 2023 report, McKinsey estimated GenAI could add the equivalent of $2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion annually across a variety of use cases.
That’s comparable to the entire GDP of the UK in 2021. This impact would increase the overall influence of AI by 15% to 40%.
Considering these economic implications, SAS and Coleman Parkes targeted 1,600 decision makers across key global markets. Respondents work in a range of industries including banking, insurance, the public sector, life sciences, healthcare, telecommunications, manufacturing, retail, energy and utilities, and professional services.
The smallest organisation surveyed employed a workforce of 500-999 people, and the largest employed more than 10,000.
“While China may lead in GenAI adoption rates, higher adoption doesn’t necessarily equate to effective implementation or better returns,” said Stephen Saw, Managing Director at Coleman Parkes. “In fact, the US nudges ahead in the race with 24% of organisations having fully implemented GenAI compared to 19% in China.”
When it comes to regions fully using and implementing generative AI into their organisation’s processes, North America leads with 20%. This is followed by Asian Pacific and Asturalia (APAC) at 10%, and Latin America at 8%. Northern Europe and South West and Eastern Europe round out the back with 7% in each.
The regions that have implemented GenAI use policies do not match this pattern – APAC leads (71%), followed by North America (63%), SW and Eastern Europe (60%), Norther Europe (58%), and Latin America (52%).
Further, early adopters are continually finding roadblocks and obstacles in using and implementing GenAI across their services and tech stack.
The top challenge organisations face when implementing GenAI is the lack of a clear strategy. Only 9% of leaders responding to the survey indicate they are extremely familiar with their organisation’s adoption of GenAI. Of respondents whose organisations have fully implemented GenAI, only 25% say they are extremely familiar with their organisatons GenAI adoption strategy.
Even those decision makers responsible for technology investment decisions aren’t familiar with AI – including those at organisations that are ahead of the adoption curve.
Nine out of ten senior technology decision makers overall admit they don’t fully understand GenAI and its potential to affect business processes. At 45%, CIOs lead the way with executives who say they understand their organisation’s AI adoption strategy, but only 36% of CTO say they are fully in the know.
Despite this understanding gap, most organisations (75%) say they have set aside budgets to invest in GenAI in the next financial year.
Organisations also face challenges in acquiring enough data to fine tune large language models (LLMs). They also realise – once they are deep into deployment – they lack the appropriate tools to successfully implement AI. Organisations’ IT leaders are mostly concerned about data privacy (76%) and data security (75%).
Further, only a tenth of organisations say they are fully prepared to comply with coming AI regulations. One third of organisations that have fully implemented believe they can comply with regulations.
Only 7% are providing a high level of training on GenAI governance. Plus, only 5% have a reliable system in place to measure bias and privacy risks in LLMs.
Although there are obstacles, some early adopters have experienced meaningful benefits already: 89% report improved employee experience and satisfaction; 82% say they’re saving operational costs; and 82% state customer retention is higher.
In a letter to the new technology secretary, the professional body for computing has highlighted that over 500,00 women are ‘missing’ from the UK’s IT sector.
Rashik Parmar MBE, CEO of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT congratulated Peter Kyle MP on being appointed to lead the government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).
BCS said it was ready to support his mission to transform public services and build trust in the power of AI and emerging technologies.
The letter goes on to outline the BCS membership community’s recommendations for government including supporting Chartered status for information technology professionals.
The letter also urges government to broaden and grow computing education, digital literacy programmes, and skills qualifications.
The over-50s, as well as people with disabilities, are also under-represented in the sector.
BCS is also calling for organisations to publish their policies on the ethical use of AI, and for companies to include cybersecurity experts on their boards.
The professional computing body argues that policies focusing on these areas can close the aspiration gap for individuals, and help UK companies compete on the world stage.
Darktrace, a global leader in cybersecurity AI, has released its UK State of AI Cybersecurity Report, which surveyed over 200 security leaders and practitioners across a broad array of industries.
The research asked security leaders their thoughts on the threats facing their businesses following the widespread adoption of AI, which has increased the speed, sophistication, and success of cyber-attacks.
Almost three quarters (71%) of businesses are already seeing AI-powered cyber threats significantly impact their organisations, and almost all (92%) expect these threats will continue to trouble their organisations in the future.
Respondents are particularly concerned that the threats will increase the volume and sophistication of exploits targeting known vulnerabilities.
Whilst there is an awareness of these threats, the vast majority (95%) of respondents in the UK are not strongly confident in their organisations’ ability to defend against AI-powered attacks, and half (48%) feel they are not adequately prepared for what’s to come.
This lack of preparedness is a challenge for UK businesses given the rising prevalence of large-scale AI-driven attacks in the country, with high-profile targets falling victim such as Barclays and HSBC.
The UK faces the third highest number of attacks in the world, behind only the US and Ukraine. Half of UK businesses experienced some sort of breach or attack last year, including 74% of large businesses.
However, on the global stage, Darktrace’s research found that other countries feel even less prepared to defend against AI-powered threats.
Based on their security capabilities currently in place, Japan is the most unprepared (90%), followed by Australia (78%), Germany (78%), Netherlands (73%), Singapore (72%), UAE (71%), Spain (59%), France (54%) and the US (54%).
Taking a proactive approach to cybersecurity
British security professionals are aware that the best way to defend and protect their businesses from AI-driven threats is by having AI-enabled defences. 98% of security stakeholders believe that AI-driven solutions will boost their defences, and the majority (72%) are significantly or extremely confident in the ability of AI security to stop AI-powered threats.
Two thirds (64%) consider adding AI-powered security tools to supplement their existing solutions as their top priority for improving their defences against AI-powered threats, with upping their cyber readiness as their second highest priority.
AI-powered solutions are often the answer to improving cyber readiness. By using AI within security stacks, teams can take a more proactive approach to cybersecurity, where security teams and AI work in lockstep to protect businesses and improve resilience. Two in three (65%) British security professionals surveyed are confident that AI-powered solutions will be able to stop AI-powered threats automatically, reducing alert fatigue and freeing up time for security teams to consider their wider security strategy.
“We’ve seen time and time again that cybercriminals are using AI to infiltrate businesses at a faster and more accurate rate,” head of threat research at Hanah Darley, said. “For businesses, it’s becoming a near inevitability that hackers will try to breach their systems – and this is shown by three quarters of those in the UK having already been impacted.
“The best way forward for security professionals is to play hackers at their own game and embrace AI within security stacks. AI can automate time consuming tasks, uplifting security teams to be able to think strategically and plan their next line of defences.
“At a time when the UK is a highly attractive target for attacks on the global stage, there’s no better way to secure a business.”
Platform-based security measures
When asked about their business’ security solutions, most (86%) respondents reported that their organisation prefers to purchase security capabilities as part of a broader platform instead of individual point products. The majority (89%) are also very confident that platform-orientated approaches are more effective at stopping threats than collections of point products.
Over three quarters (79%) also consider reducing the cost and complexity of their cybersecurity stack as a key objective at their organisation.
Europeans are concerned about digital identity theft and the role of AI in making life online less safe, new research from Okta, Inc, an independent identity provider, shows.
The research which polled over 4,000 consumers across the UK, Germany, France, and the Netherlands, reveals that 92% of Britons surveyed are worried about digital identity theft.
Over half (56%) of British consumers have increased their awareness of their digital footprint over the past year, with increasing cyber-attacks (33%) and the rise of AI (28%) given as the most common reasons for this.
Furthermore, the majority of British consumers think that AI has made the online environment less safe (56%) and increases the likelihood of digital identity attacks (58%). Over half of French consumers (51%) are very worried about digital identity theft, as opposed to 37% in the UK, 36% in Germany and 29% in the Netherlands.
Okta’s 2024 European Consumer Identity Survey also revealed several key findings regarding the everyday practices and concerns of European digital consumers.
Basic Cyber Hygiene Not Enough to Quell Hacks
Two-thirds (69%) of Britons surveyed know someone personally who has had their personal details hacked. This may be informing increased awareness of basic cyber hygiene practices: 43% report using different passwords for every online account, while only 10% use the same passwords for everything.
Online Banking a Top Target
Consumers consider online banking to be top target list for cyber-criminals (60%). However, they are significantly less worried about social media and workplace accounts, other common targets for cyber-criminals.
Only 12% of consumers think their social media profiles are primary targets for cyber-criminals despite it being a source of personal details, and 2% thought the same of their workplace accounts.
Secure Login Remains Headache for Many
Nearly three-quarters (73%) of British consumers plan to improve their digital identity strategy to get more secure, and consider protecting their online identity as a matter of personal responsibility (53%). A quarter (25%) believe in a shared responsibility between the individual, government and businesses for protecting online identity.
However, British consumers face some common obstacles. 77% report frustration when logging in to their online accounts. This comes despite the fact that over half (55%) of respondents would likely spend more money if the login process was simple, secure and frictionless. Notably, 41% of respondents are comfortable with businesses using AI to make the login experience easier, faster and more secure,
“Identity is the entrance to any experience in a digital first-world. With 80% of cybersecurity attacks stemming from credential abuse, identity-based attacks have become a top method for bad actors”, says Matt Ellard, SVP, GM EMEA at Okta. “Business leaders need to evolve quickly to adopt a rigorous security strategy and work culture to future-proof their organisation in the era of AI.
At Okta we’re leading by example, and are committed to sharing our own experience and best practice with the industry to fight against identity-based attacks. This is the only way we will be able to free everyone to safely use any technology.”
90% of women find their careers in tech rewarding, despite 90% also having been subject to gender bias, shedding a light on the duality of passion and barriers faced by women leaders in technology roles, according to new research from AND Digital.
The findings were revealed in AND Digital’s new ‘Rewards & Resilience’ report, which surveyed 200+ women leaders in tech roles to highlight the successes and challenges of being a leader in the industry.
The report is endorsed by Dame Stephanie Shirley, author of ‘Let It Go’, who commented: “This report celebrates the achievements and accomplishments of senior female professionals, suggests a pathway for more women to achieve senior roles, and it provides a roadmap for a more gender-diverse tech industry.”
The report highlighted significant economic opportunities and potential for independence that a career in tech has to offer, juxtaposed against persistent gender bias.
Almost 90% of women leaders love their work, with four in five feeling they have succeeded in their role.
Interestingly, only 3 per cent had considered leaving their tech role.
However, the dual experience of women in tech was showcased by 90 per cent having faced gender bias and over 60 per cent having experienced gender discrimination.
It was found that women have been disproportionately disadvantaged by the pandemic and cost-of-living.
In a tech industry that can offer enormous financial, intellectual, career and wellbeing rewards, women occupy just 24 per cent of roles, dropping to a worryingly low 5 per cent in leadership positions. There are two million vacancies in the UK tech sector worth £150 billion to the UK economy.
In terms of rewards, job satisfaction among women in tech is high, with 89 per cent stating they enjoy their job, while 79 per cent they’ve succeeded in their role.
However, women have had to show continued resilience to thrive in the sector, with 10 per cent still experiencing bias and discrimination regularly.
Nearly 80 per cent admitted that they have encountered challenges on their journey to becoming a leader.
Women in enterprise businesses are more likely to feel unsupported by their organisations in terms of resources and opportunities for upskilling compared to smaller businesses.
Wendy Stonefield London Hub executive at AND Digital said: “There’s been huge progress if you look at the focus on bringing female talent through organisations. But I think in some cases it is forced, a case of people having to demonstrate progress because clients are demanding it.
“People need to be much more aware of the cultures they create and recognise that bringing real diversity to the table is no longer optional.”
‘Rewards & Resilience’ is the latest in a series of measures by AND to champion the role of women in tech roles. The company is rolling out initiatives to support women in tech, including a dedicated women-in-tech community, the AND She Can programme, and truly flexible working policies.
The majority (70%) of UK business leaders expect to suffer a cybersecurity incident in the next 12 months, but only 35% of organisations feel well-prepared to deal with one. That’s according to new research from leading connectivity cloud company Cloudflare, Inc.
The research, conducted with over 4,000 business and technology leaders across Europe and 430 in the UK, found that almost half (48%) of UK organisations have experienced at least one cybersecurity incident in the last 12 months, making it the most targeted country in Europe — higher than Germany (42%), France (31%) and Italy (25%).
The majority (80%) of UK business leaders said the number of cyber incidents has increased in the last 12 months. And a worrying 60% anticipate a further increase over the next 12 months, with one in 10 (11%) expecting the number of incidents to “increase significantly”.
The Cloudflare data confirms that industries that had experienced more attacks, such as the IT and technology sector, felt more prepared for the future. While 48% of UK survey respondents were attacked in the last year, over a third (35%) of business and technology leaders say they are well-prepared for an attack.
Survey results from across Europe as a whole, however, show the IT and technology sector as the most confident in its ability to deal with an incident, with 35% saying they feel highly prepared, followed by companies in gaming and financial services (33% and 32% respectively).
The reverse is true for the less targeted sectors in Europe. For those working in education and healthcare, less than a third (31% and 28%, respectively) claimed to have suffered an attack in the last 12 months.
For those same industries, the perceived level of preparedness for an incident in the future was just 19% and 18%, respectively.
Despite the cyberattack threat, business leaders are optimistic about the increasing influence of cybersecurity.
More than two-fifths (44%) see cybersecurity as a catalyst to modernise the workplace and the same number to enable better cyber risk understanding by the board, leading to funding for essential projects.
Commenting on the findings, Christian Reilly, field CTO EMEA, said: “Thousands of UK business leaders are bracing themselves for growing cybersecurity threats that they feel ill-equipped to deal with.
“With incidents on the rise in both volume and frequency, preparation is key. Businesses that have previously faced attacks are seemingly on their guard, but industries that have not yet encountered such an incident are shockingly underprepared.
“Just because businesses have been lucky enough to avoid an attack so far, it doesn’t make them immune in the future.
“To face the increasingly multifaceted threat environment, greater investment is needed in consolidated and simplified solutions — and leaders must build a culture where cybersecurity is approached as a mission-critical strategic imperative.”
Pathways Forward is set to stage the inaugural Female Founders Growth Summit at the RBS Conference Centre at Gogarburn in Edinburgh on Thursday 5th September in partnership with Female Founders Rise, a UK-wide resource and community for female founders building growth businesses.
The all-day event will focus on women who are already scaling or planning to scale their business, enabling female founders to connect with investors from Scotland, London, and the rest of the UK, and to hear from established founders to gain learnings and insights.
“The Female Founders Growth Summit will be the first ever of its kind in Scotland, and we’re excited to bring so many talented women founders together alongside private, angel, and institutional investors from across the UK,” Pathways Forward’s Ana Stewart said
“Centred on growth and scaling, there will be a mix of keynote talks, breakout sessions, panels and workshops looking at areas including the types of funding available to support growth trajectories. Attendees will also get to hear first hand from women entrepreneurs who have built high value companies.
“This is about joining the dots for our female founders, opening doors and equipping them with the right tools to scale their businesses. At the same time, it enables investors and finance providers to engage and support these founders.”
Speakers and panelists will include highly successful female entrepreneurs including FinnCap founder and The Secret Sauce author Sam Smith, who grew her venture capital business to over £50 million, Darina Garland, co-founder of global brand Ooni and the world’s No.1 pizza oven company, Lucinda Bruce-Gardyne, Genius Foods founder and the inventor of gluten-free bread, and Carcinotech CEO and founder Ishani Malhotra, recently voted UKBAA’s Entrepreneur of the Year.
The key sponsors for the summit are Scottish National Investment Bank, RBS, Scottish Enterprise, British Business Bank, and Eos, while the community partners for the Summit are Dechomai and AccelerateHER. Former BBC broadcaster and Freer Consultancy associate Dr Vanessa Collingridge will be the on stage host on the day.
Over 250 attendees are expected at the Female Founders Growth Summit, and founders and investors can now purchase tickets, or view a live stream of the event.
“We’re very excited to come back to Scotland and to partner with Pathways Forward for this event,” Emmie Faust, founder of Female Founders Rise said. “It’s so important to bring female founders together to celebrate, connect and learn from each other.
“We’ve got an incredible line up for the day with some brilliant speakers, workshops, panels and office hours with investors. We can’t wait to get everyone together in one room for a mega day of growth.”
Scot Gov Pathways Pledge Launches with First Signatories
Last year, the Scottish Government accepted the findings of the Pathways report in their entirety, and subsequently launched a Pathways Pre-start Fund in September with 20 organisations leveraging the fund including Dechomai, Digital Boost, Egg, Elevator, and Women’s Enterprise Scotland to action initial programmes across Scotland. In May this year, Scottish Government announced further funding to support the implementation of key Pathways report recommendations.
Pathways Forward was launched in September 2023 following the publication of the Scottish Government-commissioned Pathways: A New Approach For Women in Entrepreneurship report.
In February, an Advisory Group was appointed to work alongside Pathways Forward’s chair Ana Stewart to amplify and progress the recommendations outlined in the Stewart Report.
Female Founders Rise is a community of 6000 female and non-binary founders in the UK founded by Emmie Faust in Dec 2022. Founders get support with business fundamentals, getting funded, resources for growth, as well as in-person events throughout the UK. And they have recently launched a directory to find, buy from and support women-led businesses.
Concerns around accuracy are slowing down the pace of generative AI (genAI) deployments, a new survey from Lucidworks found.
Over 2,500 AI technology leaders worldwide were surveyed, and the study found that over half (58%) of manufacturing leaders are planning to increase their AI spending this year. This is lower than the global average for all leaders (63%).
This is a major drop, as 93% of manufacturing leaders and 93% of all leaders surveyed were planning to increase AI spending in 2023.
This drop can have a massive impact on AI investment as executives stake their success on the emerging technology.
Manufacturing leaders showed the most concern about the accuracy of generative AI, which can produce hallucinations, or completely inaccurate, nonsensical outputs.
While 36% of all leaders in the survey are concerned about accuracy, 44% of manufacturing leaders shared their concern.
This could contribute to the finding that only 20% of AI projects have been implemented by manufacturers in the past year. However, 55% of them think they are implementing AI at the same rate as their peers.
UK tech executives may be overconfident about their organisation’s AI roadmap, new research from IT consultancy Zartis suggests.
A vast majority (85%) rate their existing workforce’s combined AI knowledge and expertise as ‘skilled’ – over half (51%) rate it as ‘highly skilled’.
But despite this confidence, many of these executives have concerns about barriers that might prevent further AI adoption. Meanwhile, executives are split on the return on investment (ROI) of AI.
Nearly every UK tech executive (94%) says their organisation uses AI in some form, while a few (6%) are still exploring or researching options. Not a single respondent said they’re not using AI at all.
The motivations behind adoption are not entirely universal, with 40% of executives feeling pressured to prioritise adoption and investment in AI following industry-wide momentum around the technology.
However, barriers prevent some businesses from adopting AI as much as they would like, including budget restrictions (41%), a shortage of AI talent within the business (38%), and technical complexity (35%).
Meanwhile, the primary concerns businesses have related to AI adoption, according to the executives, include integration challenges (44%), cost and ROI uncertainty (42%), and data privacy and IP security (38%). Interestingly, only 28% of respondents said there is cultural resistance to AI adoption from within their organisation.
“AI adoption isn’t some ‘on or off’ switch,” says Michal Szymczak, head of AI atrategy at Zartis. “To a lot of businesses, it involves a significant financial investment, and there are complex questions to grapple with surrounding data privacy, or integration with existing technology stacks.
“That makes executives’ confidence in their company’s AI skill set rather ironic. They puff their chests out, while simultaneously pointing to all the obstacles that could stop them in their tracks. That feels like a severe underestimation of how much work needs to happen to make AI capabilities work with software development and DevOps practices.”
Executives are split on the cost element of AI, though. While 42% raised ROI uncertainty as a primary business concern, 53% of executives see cost savings through improved efficiency as one of the most significant long-term business benefits of adopting AI.
In fact, ‘cost savings’ was the respondents’ most popular answer when asked about the most significant benefits of adopting AI in their business.
Nearly everyone (93%) is spending at least £100,000 on AI capabilities in 2024, while nearly half (44%) are spending at least £500,000. Another 25% are spending at least £1,000,000. Only 1% plan to spend above £2,000,000.
Software development is the most popular area (59%) where executives say they plan to make AI investments with this money in 2024. The next most popular areas include quality assurance (44%) and DevOps and automation (44%).
This lines up with the data showing that skills shortage and talent acquisition (46%), quality assurance and testing (40%), and continuous integration and deployment (40%) are the top three cited challenges organisations face within their software development teams today.
How much money will be saved in the long term remains debatable: about 56% of executives believe AI will reduce software development costs by at least 20%, while 36% expect less.
“I think what will become clear over time is who’s investing into AI for the sake of it, and who’s doing it for the genuine betterment of their business,” says Angel Benito, CTO at Zartis. “There’s clearly a lot of pressure on organisations to keep up with AI development or get left behind, which would explain why so many are making the investment despite the uncertainty about the ROI.
“They see the potential for long-term cost savings, regardless of whether that view is backed up by hard-boiled evidence or fairy dust. They must understand that it’s not about the tools at the end of the day. It’s about doing that deep-dive due diligence work into identifying and understanding where and how the tools will make employees at their organisations more productive.”
“There is significant pressure on organisations to keep up with AI development or risk being left behind. This explains why many are investing despite the uncertainty about ROI. They see the potential for long-term cost savings but need a well-curated plan to implement the changes.
“It’s crucial to understand that it’s not just about the tools; it’s about the people. The key step is identifying and understanding how and where these tools will enhance employee productivity or make products more competitive.”
When asked how executives plan to use AI to solve or alleviate the most significant challenges within their software development teams, the responses are decidedly mixed, with no clear winner.
The top three cited utilities of AI for software development are AI-powered copilot tools for coding (53%), improved continuous integration and deployment (52%), and improved team communication and collaboration (46%).
The study follows recent research from Zartis showing that over three-quarters of UK tech executives favour more government AI oversight.
A majority of them even express being broadly satisfied with current global government coordination of AI regulation – with many anticipating a myriad of benefits from the EU AI Act in particular.
New research conducted by CyberSmart, a SME security solutions provider, indicates that nearly all managed service providers (MSPs) report high rates of cyber confidence across their organisations, despite the vast majority having experienced at least one data breach in the past 12 months.
The research, conducted by OnePoll in Spring 2024, polled 250 senior leaders at UK-based MSPs, found that an overwhelming majority (87%) had experienced at least one data breach in the past 12 months, with 16% indicating they had experienced more than 5 incidents in the same timeframe.
This track record on cybersecurity stands in contrast to the associated cyber confidence that the surveyed MSPs reported. Almost all – 97% – of the MSPs surveyed suggested that their organisation had either a ‘fair’ amount of cyber confidence or a ‘great deal’ of cyber confidence.
Another interesting aspect of the results is that this confidence appears to be projected onto MSP customers too, with respondents reporting that they believed 85% of their customers had either a fair or a great deal of cyber confidence.
Both the customers and providers identified ransomware and malware infection as the top concern, at 55% and 57% respectively. For MSPs, inflation and spiralling costs came in second (43%) and for customers, exploitation of unpatched or undisclosed vulnerabilities was the second most concerning threat (44%).
“The associated confidence noted by MSPs is heartening but needs to reflect the reality on the ground for MSPs, and their own perception of their security posture is concerning and highlights the need for the cybersecurity to step up and work closer with Managed Service Providers,” said Jamie Akhtar, co-founder and CEO at CyberSmart.
“MSPs, due to the levels of privileged access they will have into multiple companies, make for an appealing target for cybercriminals. This, coupled with the fact they are responsible for the IT infrastructure of companies without IT or security resources, means it is paramount that security providers work closer with them to protect the £ 5.5 million SMEs who in many cases turn to MSPs to keep them safe. Failure to do this could be existential for many of their customers.”
MSPs suggested that a focus on cybersecurity training, IT policies and fostering a more security-conscious culture would help them to achieve complete cyber confidence.
Digital skills are reportedly being left behind in favour of programming in the current computing curriculum, according to research by Subject Choice, Attainment and Representation in Computing Project (SCARI).
SCARI has been tracking computing in the UK educational system for the past three years with funding from the Nuffield Foundation, looking into the changes in subject uptake and the opinions and concerns of students, teachers, and parents.
Their newest report claims that the UK is putting its goal to become a science and technology superpower with the curriculum, which has seen a low uptake from students, particularly girls.
Further, SCARI says that digital skills outside of programming are being left behind, contributing to an overarching digital skills gap.
The UK reformed the computing curriculum in 2014, phasing out some of the basic digital skills taught in the old programme in favour of computational thinking and coding. SCARI warns that this could lead to a decrease in overall digital literacy.
Though more students are taking computer science at GCSE level – the English equivalent of the Scottish National 5 – there has been fewer students taking digital skills at a secondary level, as well as a drop in the uptake of those studying digital qualifications at the same level.
A hit to the diversity of students taking computer science has also occurred, with even fewer girls taking GCSEs that are tech-based. Back in 2015, 43% of computer science GCSE students were girls – this dropped to 21% in 2023.
The uptake of computer science GSCE takers has outpaced the the number of students studying other computer-based courses. More girls than boys have shown interest in courses that more closely resemble the old ICT (information computer technology) curriculum than the current programme, including project work and presentation, and digital media.
Before the curriculum was changed, 2013 saw 69% of female students and 72% of male students taking a computer-related GCSE exam, compared to just 17% of girls and 39% of boys in 2020.
Breaking down the ethnicity of the girls taking computer science, girls with a Chinese background made up the most at 16%, followed by those of other Asian backgrounds (11.2%), black female students (6.2%), and white girls (4.5%).
This ethnic breakdown, however, is not apparent in the tech world as it stands, meaning there are further barriers affecting the number of women going into the tech industry.
Perceptions about computing science are still holding girls back from taking computing science degrees, with many citing negative ideas about what tech careers may look like and the type of people they may work with in tech deterring girls from entering the courses, let alone the field.
Still, 55% of girls are choosing computing science based on future career ideas, but 56% say they did not take it because it did not fit in with their future career ideas.
As digital skills and programming become more essential across different industries, these perceptions are in need of drastic transformation.
BGF, a UK&I growth capital investor, has announced a multi-million pound investment in Abderdeen-headquartered Glacier Energy, joining Averroes Capital as investors in the business.
BGF took a minority stake in the Aberdeen-headquartered energy services company after following its growth and expansion into the broader renewables market for a number of years.
With the support of Averroes and BGF, Glacier Energy will now continue the rapid growth delivered in the last two years, and is investing in additional manufacturing capacity and establishing a technician training academy. It will also pursue further strategic acquisitions.
Glacier Energy is a specialist provider of products, services, and engineered solutions for a wide range of industrial and energy markets.
Its core capabilities include heat transfer and pressure vessels, machining, welding, and Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) and inspection services. These specialisms are well suited to the energy transition, and Glacier has been instrumental in advancing in-demand hydrogen, carbon capture, and energy storage technologies.
Founded in 2011, the business has completed 11 acquisitions and has been an early-mover in leveraging its engineering and technical expertise to support low-carbon technologies. It directly employs 220 people plus 20 contractors, and is now recruiting further capacity.
Building on this growth, and to realise further ambitions underpinned by new investment, the company recently welcomed Nick Horler as non-executive chairman and Mark Ritchie as group CFO.
Horler joined following a longstanding executive career across the energy, oil and related infrastructure industries in the UK and USA. Alongside his new role with Glacier Energy, he also non-executive chairman of Horizon Energy Infrastructure and Smart Meter Assets.
Horler was CEO of Scottish Power until 2010, following which he has held several non-executive roles with the Royal Mail, Go-Ahead Group, Thames Water, UK Power Reserve and more recently ESP Utilities group.
Ritchie is a member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. Mark has over 20 years’ financial experience, ten years of which have been spent in Board level roles in private equity backed businesses.
Prior to joining Glacier Energy, Ritchie was CFO of RCapital portfolio company Richard Irvin FM, and a key member of the management team that led the sale of the business to the RSK Group. He has worked in the Energy sector for a significant part of his career, with CFO roles at ICR Integrity (Graphite Capital) and AIM listed energy engineering company Enteq Technologies.
“We have known Scott Martin for over ten years and have been impressed at how he and the team have grown Glacier Energy while also achieving success in a diverse set of high-growth markets,” Richard Pugh, an investor at BGF, said.
“We are really excited about the scale of ambition, involving investment across multiple sites in Scotland, as well as in Yorkshire and the North East of England. It is also great to invest in a business that is already working with other portfolio companies.”
Scott Martin, CEO of Glacier Energy, said: “We are thrilled to welcome BGF as a key partner in our growth journey alongside Averroes Capital. With BGF’s support and experience, we are well-positioned to accelerate our growth and further contribute to the development of sustainable energy solutions.
“The addition of Nick Horler and Mark Ritchie to the company’s board underlines our ambition. We have secured two of the best in the industry who will drive Glacier to the next level.”
Simon Rowan, partner, Averroes Capital, said: “We are delighted to bring BGF on board as a co investor and believe this will significantly enhance the undoubted growth prospects of Glacier Energy. The business has made large strides forward following our recent investment, and we look forward to seeing this positive momentum continuing alongside BGF”.
The designer first took us through his professional journey. Burns initially got a touch for physical interface design back in the 90s when he helped design an early PDA system.
Since then, he’s worked across UK mobile phone providers and manufacturers to develop phone designs, worked with the BBC to design and streamline their online content across news and iPlayer, and finally ended up at Apple in Cupertino as senior director of design at Apple while the tech firm further revolutionised the mobile phone industry.
During his work, Burns identified five patterns he noticed that made all the difference in company design journeys, as well as their journey as a thriving business overall.
First and foremost, Burns explained that design is actually rather simple.
“There’s really not that much to design,” he playfully noted.
“All design does is help you look at the world in new ways. That helps make ideas visible and tangible. And it helps you manage risk by trying stuff out in simple ways.”
While summing up design in three sentences may make it seem simple, good design takes a lot of practice, and is perhaps the most concrete confluence of human adaptations and skills.
Accountability and Art
Burns has worked across a number of mobile phone companies in the UK, including those that have long since been absorbed or disappeared, as well as the remaining few providers.
During his design process, he noticed a number of companies playing it relatively safe, driven by practical, data-driven methods – even if this was driving the companies into the ground.
Others put creativity and art at the heart of their experimentation, leading to futuristic-looking phone designs, despite a call back to practicality and an urge towards newer systems rather than fancy features.
Speaking in generalities, Burns could place most companies in either the accountable sphere, or the artistic sphere, with few able to place themselves in the sliver of their intersection.
“A very large part of my career I’ve spent helping clients find some kind of balance between those two things,” Burns explained. Throughout his career working for multiple companies, from Prada to Procter and Gamble, Burns noticed a continual pattern.
Much like people leaning more on their right or left brain, Burns found that most businesses struggled to find a balance between accountability and art on their own.
“What’s really amazing to me is actually how few businesses seem to naturally be able to inhabit that middle spot,” he said.
And while, in data-driven, results-oriented tech, many may think it is more dependable to be overly accountable, this runs a real risk.
“I think that so many of us are working in businesses where what’s valued is what could be measured and the almost like kind of the risk of a measure of dive to the bottom is somehow more palatable than the risk of using a creative or intuitive approach to what we’re doing.”
A calculated crash is still a crash, afterall.
While Burns has spent his career pulling organisations into the sweet spot, he found it when he went to Cupertino to work for Apple.
“I got to Cupertino and realised that that was actually at the very core of what performance is” – the overlap between accountability and art, that is – “And I think that this is such a fundamental part that determines if something is able to be successful.
“I think Steve Jobs personified that balance. He insisted. He demanded that balance from his team and that’s still very much a part of the controls of the company.”
Tribes and Tribulations
“If culture eats strategy for breakfast, then tribalism eats culture before it’s out of bed,” Burns said.
Essentially, the human nature to form little packs, or tribes, can get the better of a business. Over-compartmentalisation of business and technical units in a team can lead to tribalism, where company culture and ultimately business goals are lost.
“I think that managing or leading to try and get people to put their tribal things to one side and to realise the goals of the company is a real challenge,” Burns said.
Tribalism in itself is not all a bad thing – small teams exist for a reason, and a DevOps team will have very different functions, priorities, and structures than say, a marketing team.
But tribalism in companies is more than that, and boils down to product groups – a “they have more than us” mentality, and discipline groups – an “our way or the highway” mentality.
Burns presented solutions to each type of tribalism quandary.
Starting off with the most radical, he reflected in Apple’s structural transformation under Steve Jobs.
“Back in 1997, when Steve Jobs came back [to Apple], the business was organised in business units, each with its own profit loss.” This profit loss tended to exacerbate tribalistic tendencies.
“Steve Jobs came back and he fired all the general managers in a single day and put the whole business under a single profit and loss model and only had functional departments.”
A complete structural change, much more similar to a startup than to an expansive company Apple would one day become.
“I still believe this is a fundamental thing that Apple does that makes it the success it is.”
Further, this organisational framework means that communication is oriented around central business goals.
“The communication between people has to be about joining the products together in an ecosystem rather than one product group trying to somehow play our game. And I think that’s something that’s wonderful.”
For more discipline-based tribes, Burns recommended a less radical approach, looking back on his time at the BBC.
“We decided that we needed to print out the BBC Online,” he said.
This project culminated into about 50 feet of almost every page of BBC Online, every different format and design that the team had developed and published.
Burns and his team took these pages on a travelling roadshow of sorts, around four different cities in the UK, and showed it to the top 200 people in the business at each location.
“An extraordinary thing happened when we actually pulled all the tribal leaders together,” he said.
The various teams were able to see where their designs had varied for no reason, causing them to have a different look and feel despite the need for cohesion.
Actually presenting and discussing the ways tribalistic units keep important design elements from forming cohesion.
Making things visible across different tribes is key in getting separate units to work together. But this also ties into another point from Burns.
Hide and Seek (Or: A Sneak Peak)
“Businesses are really sort of set up to hide things,” Burns said. “It’s just something that is very very natural.”
Digitisation, and the compartmentalisation and separation of the workforce, have contributed to a culture that enables and even encourages hiding.
“I think that hiding is the flight response,” Burns said, referring to fight or flight tendencies. “It’s what people do if they think that someone’s going to object to what they’re doing or going to argue with them or create a problem.”
Hiding things can create a transparency problem, a productivity problem, and ultimately, even a business crisis.
Key to this in design is the creation of prototypes.
Burns discussed the various types of prototypes designers can create to essentially not hide their work, ambitions, and skills.
First, are look-and-feel prototypes. These are essentially taking ideas and creating something that can be, in simplest terms, felt.
It’s not necessarily about functionality, but about outward design. Think how a phone might fit in the hand rather than the software used in the actual phone itself.
Next, and more commonly, are implementation prototypes. Typically employed by engineers, these prototypes are all substance, no frills.
An important distinction here is that this prototype is about what the technology may be capable of, not necessarily connected to a specific use case.
Next, are role prototypes. These are prototypes focused on the use value of a potential product or service.
“I think what lots of organisations do is that they try to create the perfect post type by integrating the look-and-feel, implementation, and the role [prototypes] right from the beginning.
“On the whole, I find that that doesn’t allow ideas to be explored as fully.”
The integration of different prototypes is an essential part of the process, allowing the technical, role, and look-and-feel to all be explored to their full potential before being put together.
While the prospects of integrated prototypes are important, Burns said these should wait until at least the second round.
But for Burns, prototypes are just one method of no longer hiding in the design process.
It’s about giving people the room to not hide their processes, so better decisions can be made in the future.
He made a distinction between “smart” failure and “dumb” failure.
Failure does not necessarily mean that an idea was bad, and does not necessarily mean that the person who instigated it is a poor leader.
Providing people the room to explain their reasoning, ensuring transparency so that processes are tracked, can ensure that workers and leaders have room to fail, grow, and eventually succeed.
“Our workplaces are hunting grounds. We’ve still got these primitive instincts. People Get scared. People want to hide things because they think that if anyone finds out that it’s not quite right, they can be in trouble.
Burns instead encourages practising grace, presenting clear expectations, and managing to create a culture where workers can be open and honest about their failures, however smart or dumb they may be.
Burns does not abide by the traditional split between agile and waterfall projects, instead opting for a four pronged categorisation.
To discern between these four types of projects, you first need to answer two questions: Do we know what we want? Do we know how to do it?
Two Yeses
Projects with yeses are essentially a dream. Burns calls these paint-by-numbers projects, where the objectives and materials are clear. You want to put someone on the moon, and you know how to do it. Processes are well documented, with clear objectives, deadlines, and organisation.
Yes! No.
You want to put someone on the moon, and do not know how to go about it. These are called Quest projects, according to Burns. The goal is clear, but currently, the process of achieving this goal is not quite clear. Experimentation, trial and error, are essential to this project process, and are especially pertinent for marketers, where consumer data can inform market demand.
No. Yes!
These are the most common types of projects in the tech sector, according to Burns. He dubs these zig-zag, or movie projects. Essentially, the technology exists, but we are not sure how it meets consumer needs or demands. This requires a lot of pivoting, market research, and a number of role prototypes.
No. No.
No idea what we want. No idea how to do it. This is the fog, and is perhaps the most important project area to master, or at least, be comfortable in.
The fog can lead to the most conflict in an organisation amongst even the most regularly effective teams. A lack of clear goals or solid technology can leave project teams lost in a muddled mist of conflicting priorities, but through this haze of uncertainty, Burns believes the biggest innovations can be thrust through obscurity.
“In my experience, the organisations that are able to go into that quadrant” – the fog – “and trust their hunch, trust their intuition, are the ones that will do the breakthrough thinking we need.”
What is also important for leaders is understanding what quadrant their team falls under, and being able to lead them through the zig-zags, the quests, and even the fog – not just the paint-by-numbers.
Personal Practices
Throughout his explanations of business patterns, Burns regularly turns to thematic allegories of human nature – the juxtaposition and eventual confluence of the left and right brain, the primitive tendencies towards tribalism, the fight or flight response when things go wrong.
Burns urges companies to not necessarily go against their better nature, but to embrace these differences in human nature, understand where intuition serves us and instinct hinders us, showing a path where very human traits – learning, agility, compassion, inventiveness, and disruption – are key to success.
His main advice ultimately culminates in how to lead, how to collaborate, and essentially boils down to the most essential components of being human – mastering your craft, being able to collaborate, communicate, learn, and maintain a playfulness throughout it all.
OpenAI allegedly suffered a data breach last year, as threat actors hacked into the AI company’s internal messaging systems and stole information regarding its AI technology design, the New York Timesreported.
Apparently occurring April of last year, OpenAI didn’t disclose the data breach to the general public as customer and partner data was unaffected by the breach. However, the tech company apparently went so far as to not inform law enforcement of the incident as they didn’t consider the breach to be a threat to national security and was instead committed by a private individual.
No systems were accessed – instead, details from an online forum where OpenAI employees discussed the latest technological incidents were allegedly breached.
The findings come as the ChatGPT app for Apple Macs was allegedly designed with little consideration for privacy.
In a post on X, software developer Pedro José Pereira Vieito claimed that the ChatGPT app for macOS dismissed the inbuilt sandboxing the operating system uses to prevent private data exposure, instead storing user conversation in an unsecured and plain text records.
The OpenAI ChatGPT app on macOS is not sandboxed and stores all the conversations in **plain-text** in a non-protected location:
So basically any other app / malware can read all your ChatGPT conversations: pic.twitter.com/IqtNUOSql7
— Pedro José Pereira Vieito (@pvieito) July 2, 2024
While OpenAI updated its sytem and encrypted these locally-stored directories, departures of high-ranking employees points to a potential crisis in the company’s security policies.
Chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, and head of the company’s previous safety team, Jan Leike, both left the company, with many tying the exits to concerns over OpenAI’s overarching safety culture.
Amazon is under continuous scrutiny from the EU, as the European Commission has requested the tech giant to provide further information on what actions the company has taken to comply with their obligations under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
Specifically, the EU competition watchdog is requesting further details on Amazon’s “provisions concerning transparency of the recommender systems,” the Commission said in a statement.
The tech giant is tasked with providing the requested information by July 26th.
The Digital Services Act introduced new regulations targeting large technology companies in order to mitigate illegal and harmful content across their platforms.
Big tech giants such as Amazon, Meta, Google, and Microsoft are being kept to a higher standard due to their market dominance and prevelence in the online sphere.
“We are reviewing this request and working closely with the European Commission. Amazon shares the goal of the European Commission to create a safe, predictable and trusted shopping environment,” said a spokesperson for Amazon in response to the call for information.
“We think this is important for all participants in the retail industry, and we invest significantly in protecting our store from bad actors, illegal content, and in creating a trustworthy shopping experience. We have built on this strong foundation for DSA compliance.”
Under the DSA, big tech companies will have to prevent the proliferation of illicit and harmful content, including:
Illegal content.
Fundamental rights, such as freedom of expression, media freedom and pluralism, discrimination, consumer protection and children’s rights.
Public security and electoral processes.
Gender-based violence, public health, protection of minors, and mental and physical wellbeing.
Coming into effect in August 2023, big tech companies had four months to identify their risks and put in place concrete actions to mitigate these risks across their platforms, under review of the EU.
Meta has shaken up the AI race with a release of pre-trained models that rely on a new multi-token prediction approach with the potential to transform how large language models (LLMs) are designed and deployed.
The new method breaks through the cemented AI training mold, which typically trains LLMs to predict the next word in a sequence based on previous words.
Meta’s novel model instead is trained to provide multiple words at the same time, which aims to enhance performance and reduce training times.
First revealed in a research paper in April, the new model is meant to be especially efficient in generating code, and is useful for larger model sizes.
The multi-token prediction approach is meant to decrease the swath of data required to train LLMs, as well as lessen its negative environmental impact.
By using the same amount of input to produce multiple outputs at the same time, it can increase efficiency and could potentially remove some of the hallmark issues surrounding AI training.
As large language models expand, they require more and more data to train on, which requires data centres to store and transfer, requring mass amounts of energy and water. Concern around the carbon emissions and environmental impact of AI has grown, especially since Google’s annual environmental impact report cited AI as the main obstacle to it reaching its net zero goals.
To help develop the multi-token prediction, Meta has released the pre-training models for code completion, under a research only and non-commercial license.
Over $1.1bn (£860m) worth of cryptocurrency was lost from Web3 cybersecurity cases so far in 2024, according to data from Certik, a blockchain monitoring company.
This represents a massive increase from H1 figures in 2023, which saw $640.2m in losses. H1 2024 losses are already fast approaching the total losses seen across 2023, which was $1.84bn (£1.44bn).
While there was an 18% decrease in the number of incidents from Q1 2024 to Q2, the value of the losses increased by 37%. This could be explained by crypto’s fluctuating price, however.
Across 408 onchain security incidents over the first six months of 2024, victims lost an average of $2.9m (£2.27m) per incident, but the median loss to victims was $230,784 (£180,662)
According to the research, the most common threat vector was phishing, which made up 150 of the incidents, resulting in $497.7m in losses.
Beyond phishing, private key compromises left devastating financial impacts despite being relatively fewer in number. With 42 incidents, these attacks resulted in a loss of $408.9m (£320.10m).
Besides this, code vulnerabilities amassed $80m (£62m) in losses from 105 incidents, and exit scams raised $79m in losses from 55 incidents.
Price manipulation, with 25 incidents, resulted in $38.5m (£30m) in losses, and access control’s 20 cases resulted in $86m losses.
The research revealed that Ethereum was the most targeted blockchain so far in 2024, with 222 incidents, totally $315m (£246m) in resulting losses.
Bitcoin, on the other hand, was only hit by one incident during this period, but the results were massive, resulting in $304m (£298m) in losses.
Blast, another crypto blockchain, suffered seven incidents with $70.7m (£55m) in losses, while Arbitrum lost $31m (£24m) across 28 incidents.
What could be contributing to this rise in crypto scam losses? Decentralised finance (DeFi) platforms are already effective targets for threat actors, and Certik suggested that the easing of crypto trading restrictions in Hong Kong, Dubai, and other markets are opening up more avenues for DeFi platforms, as well as cyber-criminals targetting them.
FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile), the car racing governing body that coordinates Formula 1 and the World Rally Championship, disclosed that personal data was compromised in a phishing attack on two FIA email accounts.
“Recent incidents pursuant to phishing attacks has led to the unauthorised access to personal data contained in two email accounts belonging to the FIA,” the organization said in a statement on Wednesday.
“The FIA took all actions to rectify the issues, notably in cutting the illegitimate accesses in a very short time, once it became aware of the incidents.”
The non-profit auto mobile racing organisation said that it notified the French data protection regulator (Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés), and the Swiss data protection regulator (Préposé Fédéral à la Protection des Données et à la Transparence).
“The FIA regrets any concern caused to the affected individuals,” the organisation said, and also stated that they put additional security measures in place to mitigate against any future attacks.
“This incident underscores a fundamental truth in cybersecurity – no entity, regardless of its size or the nature of its domain, is impervious to cyber threats,” Javvad Malik, lead security awareness advocate at KnowBe4 said.
“Phishing, a method seemingly as old as the internet itself, remains one of the most effective tools in a cybercriminal’s arsenal, exploiting humans rather than technological vulnerabilities.
“It is why in addition to technical controls, equal focus needs to be placed on the human aspect of cybersecurity and fostering a strong cybersecurity culture where the security of an organisation becomes a collective responsibility taken on by all.”
Erfan Shadabi, cybersecurity expert at comforte AG also commented: “No industry, business, or organization is immune to cyber threats, as underscored by the recent disclosure of a data breach by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA).
“In today’s digital age, virtually all entities collect and store data, making them potential targets for cyberattacks. To mitigate such risks, it is crucial to adopt a data-centric security approach.
“This means focusing on protecting the data itself, regardless of where it resides or how it is transmitted. Techniques such as encryption, tokenization, and robust access controls should be employed to ensure that sensitive information remains secure even if other defences are breached.”
Half of employees are afraid to report security mistakes to their bosses, new research from ThinkCyber has found.
The survey found that half of employees said they would not feel free from repercussions if they reported a mistake within their organisation.
Respondents were also asked about security behaviours they witnessed in their organisation that caused the most concern.
Clicking on links in emails (53%), sharing corporate data outside of the business (53%), and sharing usernames and passwords (51%) were the most commonly cited alarming activities.
Worryingly, employees felt that security training and awareness did little to change the risky behaviour of their colleagues.
Concerningly, three in five admitted that they only receive training once every few months, or even just once a year. This raises some serious alarm bells as threats continue to rapidly develop and consistent training is required to defend against emerging cyber risks.
Part of the problem is the lack of progress tracking and measuring the success of security awareness programmes.
42% of respondents felt that their organisation could not even somewhat prove whether their current security awareness training is changing risky behaviour.
Further, half of respondents said they would not feel free from repercussion if they reported a mistake within their organisation, which could actually deter workers from reporting potential security risks.
While around half (51%) of respondents believed that most people across the business were focused on security, 39% felt only the executives and security teams were focused on it.
“Cybersecurity should be a concern for everyone, so pinpointing which user groups need extra help with safe practices is crucial for any business,” Tim Ward, ceo and co-founder Think Cyber Security ltd said.
“A training programme that’s flexible and enjoyable can make all the difference, boosting staff engagement and giving cyber professionals greater confidence in their team’s ability to make smart security decisions.”
The UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) has lead a coordinated global action against illegal versions of Cobalt Strike used by cyber-criminals to conduct attacks.
Unlicensed versions of the software, a penetration testing tool used to check for vulnerabilities in a company’s network and help improve cybersecurity, have been used by threat-actors for over a decade to infiltrate victim’s IT systems and conduct attacks.
The NCA targeted these illegal versions in a week of action beginning at the end of last month (24 June).
Since the mid 2010’s pirated and unlicensed versions of the software downloaded by criminals from illegal marketplaces and the dark web have gained a reputation as the ‘go-to’ network intrusion tool for those seeking to build a cyber-attack, allowing them to deploy ransomware at speed and at scale.
Due to the range of tools, free training guides and videos that come with legal versions of the software, those adopting it for criminal use require low levels of sophistication and money.
This disruption activity represents more than two-and-a-half years of NCA-led international law enforcement and private industry collaboration to identify, monitor, and denigrate its use.
Action was taken against 690 individual instances of malicious Cobalt Strike software located at 129 internet service providers in 27 countries. By the end of the week, 593 of these addresses had been taken down.
This was achieved through the NCA and law enforcement partners taking down servers and amplified by ‘abuse notifications’ from law enforcement and private industry partners, highlighting to service providers that they may be hosting malware.
Some of the biggest cyber incidents in recent times have used Cobalt Strike, and the software has also been identified in multiple malware and ransomware investigations including those into RYUK, Trickbot, and Conti attacks.
The takedown operation was jointly conducted with Europol, the FBI, Australian Federal Police, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, German Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt), Netherlands National Police (Politie) and the Polish Central Cybercrime Bureau.
A number of private industry partners, including BAE Systems Digital Intelligence, Trellix, Shadowserver, Spamhaus and Abuse CH also supported law enforcement in identifying malicious instances and use of Cobalt Strike by cybercriminals.
Private sector organisations shared real-time threat intelligence with law enforcement via a platform called the Malware Information Sharing Platform. More than 730 pieces of threat intelligence containing almost 1.2 million indicators of compromise were shared.
Cyber-criminals deploy unlicensed versions of Cobalt Strike via spear phishing or spam emails, which attempt to get a target to click on links or open malicious attachments.
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When a victim opens the link or document, a Cobalt Strike ‘Beacon’ is installed giving the threat actor remote access, enabling them to profile the infected host, download malware or ransomware and steal data to then extort the victim.
“Although Cobalt Strike is a legitimate piece of software, sadly cybercriminals have exploited its use for nefarious purposes,” director of threat leadership at the NCA, Paul Foster, said.
“Illegal versions of it have helped lower the barrier of entry into cybercrime, making it easier for online criminals to unleash damaging ransomware and malware attacks with little or no technical expertise.
“Such attacks can cost companies millions in terms of losses and recovery.
“International disruptions like these are the most effective way to degrade the most harmful cyber criminals, by removing the tools and services which underpin their operations.
“I would urge any businesses that may have been a victim of cyber crime to come forward and report such incidents to law enforcement.”
Welcome to the latest edition of the DIGIT Deal Roundup.
Last month, Scotland’s tech sector saw some big funding wins in medical tech, electric vehicles, satellites, and the broader innovation economy.
For a recap on those standout stories, here’s our round-up.
Funding and Investments
Evri Invests £1M in AI to “Further Transform” Its Customer Service
UK parcel company Evri has announced that it’s investing £1 million in its artificial intelligence (AI) strategy to “further transform” its customer service, as well as parcel security and workforce planning.
Formerly known as Hermes, the company said that its AI strategy will help to position it as a “disruptor” in parcel delivery, as well as a “leader” of AI adoption within the sector.
In terms of how Evri wants its strategy to benefit customer service, the company said it’s looking to automate data collection and the identification of customer issues in particular, as to free up its customer team so they’re able to attend to more complex issues.
Edinburgh-based wireless tech specialists, Sofant Technologies, has successfully raised £3.4 million in additional funding.
The investment, which has come from Scottish Enterprise, Kelvin Capital, and EMV Capital, is to be used to complete development of the firm’s core technology, and support the production and shipment of beta versions of its satellite antenna to customers.
Sofant’s radio frequency microelectromechanical systems (RF MEMS) are microscopic devices that integrate mechanical and electromechanical components to perform radio frequency signal processing functions such as phase shifting, switching, and tuning.
Scottish National Investment Bank Plugs Further £10M Into FOR EV
Investment has been confirmed as FOR EV and South of Scotland Enterprise unveil new rapid charging hub at Loch Ryan ferry port, Cairnryan.
Scotland’s only private electric vehicle charge point operator, FOR EV, has been boosted by a £10 million follow-on investment from the Scottish National Investment Bank.
The cash injection follows an initial investment of £2m by the Bank in 2021, followed by £10m the following year, and now a further £10m commitment.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced a $230 million (£180m) commitment for startups around the world to accelerate the creation of generative AI applications.
This will provide startups, especially early-stage companies, with AWS credits, mentorship, and education to further their use of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies.
Part of the new commitment will fund the second cohort of the AWS Generative AI Accelerator, a programme that provides expertise and up to $1 million in credits to each of the top 80 early-stage startups that are using generative AI to solve complex challenges.
‘Skyscanner for Construction’ Bags £1M Seed Funding with AI Platform
BuildBuddy, a Scottish startup founded by James Menzies and Alix Baldwin, has won £1m from investors for its innovative platform that’s been dubbed the ‘Skyscanner for construction materials.’
The tech startup uses artificial intelligence (AI) to find the best construction materials at the best price for small and medium enterprise builders across the UK.
The company aims to revolutionise the way construction materials are purchased for small businesses with the platform, which works similarity to Scottish unicorn Skyscanner.
Scots Tech Firm iGii Secures £8.8M to Accelerate Growth
Stirling-based nanomaterial producer iGii has secured £8.8 million in new funding to accelerate its growth.
Formerly known as Integrated Graphene, the company will use the funds to grow and scale customer projects, increase its manufacturing capacity, and deepen its research and development to explore further applications of its patented Gii™ material.
iGii also plans to expand its facilities and continue creating highly-skilled local jobs.
Scots Biotech OGI Bio Gains £650K to Accelerate Expansion
OGI Bio, a Scottish biotechnology company, has secured follow-on funding of £650,000 in a deal led by TRICAPITAL Angels and supported by Scottish Enterprise, Merleview, Apollo, and Old College Capital to accelerate the company’s growth and expansion in the UK, EU, and US biotechnology sectors.
Specialising in developing innovative solutions for microbial growth and analysis, OBI Bio focuses on creating advances bioreactors and automated systems that enhance the efficiency and precision of microbial growth.
By integrating cutting-edge technology and automation, OGI Bio facilitates product development in fields such as health and beauty, food manufacturing, feedstock, and green alternatives to petrochemicals.
AI-powered legal assistant platform, Wordsmith, has raised $5 million in a round led by Index Ventures, with participation from General Catalyst, and angel investors including Skyscanner founder Gareth Williams.
The investment is a testament to how applied AI is rapidly augmenting and enabling professional services.
“AI is not about replacing professionals,” Wordsmith CEO Ross McNairn said. “Just as the word processor didn’t replace writers, but instead made them more productive, Wordsmith is ushering in a new era of AI-assisted professional services.”
Initiatives for Next-gen Manufacturing in Scotland Get £14M Boost
Waracle, the Scottish technology services company, has agreed a deal to acquire Screenmedia, the Glasgow-based design and software engineering agency, in a move to further develop its digital product development capability.
The acquisition pairs the 145-person team at Waracle—with expertise in mobile app, digital product development, and AI—with Screenmedia’s team of 60 to take Waracle to over 200 employees.
Waracle, which has offices in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, and London, is making the strategic move to bolster its digital product development and AI offerings, as the market evolves and the technology services industry focuses on AI and its impact on software development.
Scots Courts Award MLL Telecom £1.8M Contract For New SD-WAN
A three-year contract worth £1.8 million has been awarded from the Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service (SCTS) to MLL Telecom, the public sector managed network integrators, for a new software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN).
Set to be deployed by August this year, the integrated mixed carrier WAN solution is being established in all 54 of SCTS’s sites across Scotland.
MLL’s solution will support the facilitation of virtual hearings, remote juries, and the livestreaming of court proceedings, for example, as well as offer staff reliable connection to important admin-related applications.
Scots All-electric Intercity Bus Operator Ember Gets £5.6M Loan
Ember, the UK’s first all-electric intercity bus operator, has increased its fleet of zero emission coaches with a loan totalling £5.6 million from Triodos Bank UK, the ethical bank.
The transport startup launched in Scotland in 2020, with two coaches operating its first route between Edinburgh and Dundee.
Today, Ember’s network also includes services to destinations including Glasgow, Stirling, and Kinross.
Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP) has selected Glasgow-based Systal Technology Solutions for a multi-year partnership to drive the consumer goods company’s network transformation journey across Europe.
Under the agreement, Systal will support more than 6,500 devices in 300 locations across 11 European countries.
Systal, the managed network service specialist, has supported CCEP for over six years through a multi-partner agreement, helping the drinks giant strategically transform its network by facilitating a new manufacturing system, rationalising its supply chain, and increasing product diversification.
The new direct partnership provides CCEP with business continuity across its manufacturing and distribution network infrastructure and empowers Systal to more rapidly and effectively deliver the higher value and flexibility needed to accelerate CCEP’s network transformation journey.
“We are thrilled to officially go live with our direct service as CCEP’s trusted technology services partner.” said Neil Wisbey, CIO at Systal.
“Our team’s agility and dedication to providing a higher value service delivery has been the bedrock of our CCEP partnership over the past six years. We are excited to continue supporting CCEP as they innovate and transform their critical network infrastructure.”
Tim Davies, director of infrastructure and network services at CCEP said: “We are excited to partner with Systal, a company known for its expertise in Network infrastructure solutions. This contract will significantly enhance our operational efficiency and allow us to better serve our customers and stakeholders.”
Systal’s global managed network, cloud, and security expertise will continue to help serve Coca Cola Europacific Partners’ 600 million customers.
Over two thirds of UK business leaders say they are afraid to admit when they don’t understand technology out of fear of looking out of touch or behind the times, according to new research by brand and cultural transformation company, BBD Perfect Storm.
Against a backdrop of slowing national productivity and, consequently, they need to create economic growth.
It has uncovered that over a third of business leaders don’t speak up because they fear not understanding makes them look old and they have a fear of embarassment.
One in four feel its easier to keep quiet and try to learn these new technologies at a later date.
Three in five are also worried about the digital world evolving faster than their business can keep pace. The biggest fears amongst them are not understanding new technologies, AI taking jobs, competitors quickly moving ahead of them and the business ultimately collapsing.
The research also revealed that business leaders are worried about feeling too old to grasp how things are changing, leading to losing relevance with consumers and employees losing faith in their ability to lead the business.
Interestingly, men ranked higher as feeling it’s more important to appear to understand whereas women are more worried about looking behind the times.
The report also looked at what the effects of these views are and how making fear-based decisions only exacerbates the problem. With over half of business leaders admitting to have spent money on digital services without understanding them or that haven’t helped or worked for the business, its more evident that C-Suite roles have become a lot harder.
Accelerated digital innovation and changing consumer behaviour are creating more decisions to make, at the same time growth is harder to achieve. Choosing where to invest and how to connect with consumers, is becoming complicated.
It also looked at the psychological effects of digital acceleration, with half of business leaders admitting they have lost sleep or felt stressed worrying about the speed of change in the digital world and the technological landscape – with a quarter worried this may soon happen to them.
But despite this, 52% of male business leaders and 44% female polled feel it’s not their job to understand digital technologies and digital change – and would prefer to hire specialists instead to deal with it.
“The research proved what we had expected – that business leaders are often acting out of fear rather than understanding when it comes to new technologies and digital culture,” Laura Redman, managing partner, BBD Perfect Storm CO/LABS said.
“Worryingly, half of business leaders surveyed also feel it’s not their job to understand digital technologies and change. But the lack of understanding will likely increase the fear of being left behind which leads to investment in the wrong places.”
60 branches of Lloyds Banking Group are set to close for the rest of the year, including 15 Bank of Scotland branches.
This brings the total branches earmarked for closure by the banking group to 190 for 2024, and 47 for the following year.
According to Lloyds, the use of the latest 60 branches set to be closed had fallen by 52% on average over the last five years as more customers turn to online and digital banking apps.
“Mobile banking is more popular than ever, with over 19 million customers choosing our app to manage their money,” read a statement.
“All of the branch locations announced for closure have alternative options for accessing cash nearby, such as a Post Office or free-to-use ATM.
“28 new community bankers will be introduces, in addition to those already helping communities to provide targeted banking support where a branch is closing.”
The latest round of banking closures will begin in October and last until June. More than 50 branches were announced to be closing between July 2024 and January 2025.
Community bankers will be introduces in North Berwick, Callander, Kyle, Mallaig, and Campbeltown.
After this latest round of closures, Lloyds Banking Group will have a totla of 947 branches, with 108 Bank of Scotland locations, 373 Halifax locations, and 466 Lloyds Banks.
Konpanion, the Edinburgh-based human-centric robotics company, has released its new robot, called Maah, onto the market.
The robot, designed to help with emotional support and companionship, was developed by a team of eight engineers, designers, and roboticists. The soft, fabric exterior aims to provide comfort to those suffering from loneliness and mental health issues, and the ‘living pillow’ features intelligent data design to provide feedback to users.
Founded in 2018, Konpanion was funded in part by its founders as well as through external sources including Creative Informatics, Scottish Edge, and Old College Capital.
Maah, the living pillow, began its journey at Central Saint Martin in London before becoming a research project at the University of Edinburgh. Developed in response to mental health specialists concerns, and interest from vulnerable groups, Maah transitioned from a research project into the commercial offering it is today.
The product features intelligent, customisable, and connected design, with technology-enhanced emotional support resembling that of a pet.
Beyond this, Maah integrates health and wellness monitoring through sensing technology, and features an API that feeds information back to users when they are interacting with the pillow.
Alexandre Colle, CEO and co-founder of Konpanion, says: “Konpanion challenges the idea that humanoid robots are essential for meaningful human-robot interaction. Maah embodies our vision of a living home underpinned by design excellence, sustainability, and human-centric innovation.
“We’re proud to introduce Maah to the world and look forward to rolling the robot out later in the year as it will offer a seamless blend of companionship and health monitoring benefits for all.”
Google is pinning the blame on AI as it announces its greenhouse gas emissions have soared 48% over the past five years.
Powering its data centres, which require a surplus of energy as well as cooling methods, has placed the tech giant’s net zero gaols in jeopardy.
Based on Google’s report, global data centre electricity usage accounted for 1-1.3% of global energy demand from 2022. By using this estimate as a proxy for 2023, Google’s data centre consumption accounted for 7-10% of global data centre electricity consumption, and about 0.1% of global electricity demand.
The company’s annual environmental report blamed supply chain and data centre energy consumption as the main culprits for the metric rise in carbon emissions, saying that it now “won’t be easy” to meet its “extremely ambitious” net zero by 2030 goal.
The tech giant has invested heavily in AI, which requires data centres to train and operate their complex models such as Gemini.
Shifting to an AI-centric business model has made ambitious climate goals all the more unrealistic for tech companies putting the advancing technology over efforts to reduce and mitigate their carbon emissions.
Microsoft is also struggling, with the company’s president Brad Smith saying that their carbon negative target was now even further out of reach due to AI investment and its accompanying energy consumption.
However, technology proponents claim that AI will still help in the climate crisis – Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, claimed that AI would help reduce emissions as tech leaders are willing to pay a premium for greener energy sources. While large tech companies have purchased renewable energy, the problem with AI energy consumption is much larger.
Supply chain emissions are less controllable and rely on multiple vendors, electricity still often comes from fossil fuels, and the water demand for AI data centres is also extreme.
The International Energy Agency has predicted that the energy demand of data centres could double from 2022 to 2026, amassing to 1,000 terawatt hours, which is about the same as Japan.
Further, AI requires hardware to function, meaning that continued mining of precious minerals such as lithium, copper, and cobalt will continue, with potentially dire human and environmental consequences.
88% of tech employers are using skills-based hiring, with more and more employers adopting a multi-measure approach to hiring to ensure they find the right candidates amid an ever-changing work landscape.
This is according to TestGorilla‘s global The State of Skills-Based Hiring 2024 report, which surveyed over 2,000 employers and employees in the UK, US, Australia, Europe, and Latin America.
The report found that soft-skills are increasingly in demand, even as AI continues to be adopted across industries, and employers adopting a multi-measure approach to hiring are seeing positive results.
Globally and across industries, 81% of employers are using skills-based hiring in 2024, an increased from 2023 (73%), and 2022 (57%).
While tech employers are above average when it comes to skills-based hiring, around half (48%) are finding it harder to find great tech talent in 2024 than 2023.
Despite this, 89% of tech employers are satisfied with the hires they have made in the last 12 months – an increase of 5% compared to the rest of the industry.
Further, 79% of employees across all industries are planning on staying in their role for three or more years in 2024, a major factor in employee satisfaction. It seems skills-based hiring is promoting employee and employer satisfaction.
As well, skills-based hiring could be the solution to tech’s diversity problem, with almost all (93%) of tech employers saying skills-based hiring has resulted in improved diversity, and 84% of employers across all industries agreeing that skills-based hiring helps reduce bias in the hiring process.
This is vitally important in tech, an industry in which 41% claim to experience bias during the recruitment process, compared to the industry-wide average of 31%.
But part of skills-based hiring success in the tech industry has to do with the nature of the tech sector itself.
“Testing is definitely important, especially now in this age where the cognitive requirements for most tasks are increasing,” Jonas Atil, director of recruitment at NexusHR said.
“That alone warrants an assessment tool measuring cognitive capacity. And then, of course, we need to test for specific skills that can’t be demonstrated in a resume, like coding. Someone can claim they’ve been coding for ten years, but the technology changes extremely fast.”
Software development is a remote-friendly career option, and skills-based hiring lends itself well to remote working models as it can be largley completed online.
Further, over half (56%) of business leaders in the tech sector are still identifying skills-shortages as one of their biggest challenges, so hiring based on skills makes sense.
Still, soft-skills are highly sought after as they are more difficult to replace with AI advancements, leading many to turn to multi-measure models. 89% of employers think it’s more important for candidates to have soft skills than it was five years ago, the survey found.
Security leaders are conflicted, to say the least, about AI‘s role in the future of security, and their policies only match this misalignment, according to a new report from Bugcrowd.
Of the 209 respondents they company surveyed in their Inside the Mind of a CISO report across all populated continents, 89% believe there are more cybersecurity threats, and these threats are more serious.
Despite this, seven in ten (70%) plan to reduce their security team headcount over the next five years, citing the adoption of AI technologies. Nearly all (91%) of respondents believe that AI already outperforms security professionals or will in the future.
Nearly nine in ten (88%) also believe that security roles are becoming more difficult, and 69% believe most organisations are not proactive about security.
Further, over half (58%) believe that the risks associated with AI outweigh its potential, making the shift to AI amid increasing threats and complexity all the more confusing. 42% still do believe in the potential of AI, however, meaning that a consensus is far from being reached.
The wanton shift to AI, despite growing security concerns, could be a sign that CISOs are taking note of the major burnout facing cybersecurity professionals. Two thirds (66%) believe security professionals experience a higher rate of burnout, which is exacerbated by new threats and the skills gap.
Despite this, however, 68% of CISOs believe the cybersecurity skills gap is shrinking – though demand for cyber specialists is still markedly high. Are leaders hoping AI will replace this shortfall of talent?
With AI being cited as a solution to security woes, three-quarters (76%) of leaders also think that the AI threat landscape is evolving too rapidly to adequately secure.
This is despite many companies already using methods of AI for defense, such as crowdsourced testing (70%), pen testing (55%) and color teaming (36%).
The confluence of AI risks and AI reward knows no greater arena than in the world of cybersecurity, and CISOs are clearly still grappling with their many options among increasing threats and emerging technological advancements.
Google will now make it mandatory to disclose if election ads on their platform include digitally altered content to depict realistic or real people or events in an effort to battle misinformation ahead of upcoming elections.
Advertisers will be required to tick a checkbox in the “altered or synthetic content” section under Google’s campaign settings under the new disclosure requirements.
The hastening, haphazard expansion of generative AI content, which can generate images, text, and video in seconds based on prompts, has ushered in a new era of misinformation and disinformation.
Deepfakes, images and videos created by AI which realistically depict often real people in fake scenarios or saying false statements, have been the scourge of modern election campaigns as advocacy groups, parties, and politicians try to battle the pernicious proliferation of AI doppelgangers.
To combat misinformation, Google says it will introduce in-ad disclosure for videos and feeds on mobile phones, computers, and television. Across other platforms and formats, advertisers will be mandated to include a prominent disclosure of AI-generated content for users.
Google has previously taken precautions and measures to mitigate the spread of deepfakes and AI-generated content ahead of global elections. It stopped its AI chatbot, Gemini, from answering any election-related queries ahead of the general elections in India this year.
2024 will see more voters than ever before in history elect officials across at least 64 countries, including the UK, US, and India. Amid major global conflicts, tumultuous economic headwinds, and the looming climate crisis, tensions are high, and the battle to quell misinformation is of the highest stakes.
Glen Cloe, a landmark of Scotland’s revered Highlands, is now home to the UK’s highest phone mast, according to Virgin Media O2.
With this installation, the telecoms conglomerate has announced it completed the first phase of its Shared Rural Network (SRN) rollout, a £1 billion project aiming to bring 4G broadband coverage to rural communities across the UK.
The mast at Glencoe Mountain Resort has reached the height of 1,108m (3,635ft) above sea level, and required a helicopter to be constructed.
The spot is a ‘partial not spot’ – a spot that lacked any broadband coverage, and a key target of the SRN project.
Marking Virgin Media O2’s 227th SRN site, the company claims to have built “more shared sites than any other operator,” though EE was the first broadband provider to reach the Partial Not-Spot 2024 target laid out by the government initiative.
“We are absolutely committed to bringing reliable mobile connectivity to more rural communities and have now completed the first phase of our SRN rollout,” chief technology officer of Virgin Media O2, Jeanie York, said.
“Our 227th site at Glencoe is now the highest mast in the UK and one of the most impressive to date, standing over a kilometre above sea level and providing connectivity to the nearby ski resort. This work is vital in tackling the urban-rural digital divide that exists in the UK.”
The official target of 88% coverage, a key figure in the PNS goal, has not been offcially reached as it is dependent on the continued work across different operators, including EE, Vodafone, and Three UK, as well as Virgin Media O2.
Ofcom is set to run a progress report on the Shared Rural Networks’ progress, which is vital in bridging the divide between urban and rural communities.
Meta has been found by the EU Commission to be in breach of their Digital Markets Act (DMA) in the company’s new pay or consent model for data collection.
The tech giant invoked the new subscription for an no-ad, and consequently, a lesser data-tracking, experience, after the EU had ruled that social media sites required formal consent to track user data for advertisers.
The EU’s anti-trust regulator said that the pay or consent choice did not offer a fair choice to users, who would have to pay to not get their data tracked and sold to third-party advertisers.
While Meta would have the right to introduce a subscription fee for a no-ad service, the fact that non-paying users have no way to restrict the use of their personal data for personalised advertisements goes against the EU’s regulations under GDPR and the DMA.
“We want to empower citizens to be able to take control over their own data and choose a less personalised ads experience,” EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.
While Meta claims it is not in breach of any EU laws, it will now have until March of next year to change its practices and avoid a fine worth up to 10% of its global annual revenue before the Commission concludes its investigation.
“Subscription for no ads follows the direction of the highest court in Europe and complies with the DMA. We look forward to further constructive dialogue with the European Commission to bring this investigation to a close,” a Meta spokesperson said, as reported by Reuters.
As more and more companies adopt AI technology, nearly three quarters (73%) of businesses are recognising data governance as a cornerstone of better AI.
AI continues its advancement and its inherent reliance on data has made data regulations and compliance a major hurdle for companies looking to boost their offerings with AI efficiency.
New research from Experian shows that UK businesses are recognising the critical role of effective data governance in today’s modern economy, but also cite inherent obstacles in putting these practices into action.
The findings reveal that eight in ten (83%) of British businesses acknowledge that data governance should no longer be an afterthought and can give them a strategic advantage.
A further 86% agreed that data governance will become more important over the next few five years.
However, difficulties in integration and scalability, as well as poor data quality are key challenges businesses are having to contend with when it comes to managing data effectively and responsibly through its lifecycle.
“In a world where everything is increasingly based on data, the importance of data management is crucial,” Andrew Abraham, global managing director, data quality, at Experian UK&I said.
“The research shows that British businesses understand that and, by leveraging data effectively, they can gain the competitive edge and ability to deliver better services as well as ensure they remain fully compliant and secure.
“However, there is one thing businesses must remember. While data management is crucial, a one-size-fits-all approach won’t work. Businesses need to develop data governance strategies using flexible tools that align with their own unique opportunities, risks and regulations to unlock the true potential of their data.”
The findings show the three most common barriers to good data governance to embed data governance into existing ways of working and processes (72%), improving data quality and scalability (71%), and ensuring it keeps pace with existing technology and business models (71%).
Experian provided some steps companies can take to ensure they are following proper data governance, citing the serious consequences that can come with a failure to comply.
Assembling the right team, choosing data governance investments wisely, and regularly reviewing data governance approaches and policies are paramount in staying ahead of the game as AI, and data regulations, continue to transform and advance.
Some of the most cost-effective sustainable IT initiatives currently have less than a 30% adoption rate by organisations, according to a new survey by Gartner, Inc.
“Sustainable IT progress is underway at a solid pace,” said Kristin Moyer, distinguished VP analyst at Gartner. “The survey found that executive leaders have completed an average of nine sustainable IT initiatives in the categories of data centers and cloud, digital workplace, data and software. However, sustainable IT adoption patterns show that executives may not always be implementing the most cost-effective initiatives.”
The survey was conducted in the fourth quarter of 2023 to assess the actions and impact of IT to reduce greenhouse gas emissions within IT and the enterprise, with 200 executive leaders across Europe, North America, and Asia Pacific participating.
The survey found that 64% of executive leaders believe they do not receive the emissions performance data they need from vendors.
“Because of these limitations, some executive leaders struggle to prioritise sustainable IT initiatives or know where to start,” said Moyer. “They also neglect to consider sustainable IT initiatives that are low cost and achieve moderate GHG reduction.”
While the top two areas where executive leaders have accomplished the most sustainable IT initiatives are in data centre (86% of respondents) and the digital workplace (79% of respondents), there are initiatives that are more cost effective and have low adoption in both categories. In data centre they include uninterruptible power supply (UPS) rightsizing and enhancing cooling.
“Executive leaders should right-size their UPS(s) based on current and future capacity requirements, which helps increase efficiency and cost savings,” said Moyer. “Enhanced cooling systems like immersion cooling, passive cooling and direct-to-chip cooling are also underutilized and can drive significant water reduction and mitigate GHG emissions.”
In the workplace, executive leaders are underutilizing circularity into IT. Only 22% of surveyed executive leaders are choosing to purchase refurbished assets to improve circularity, reduce waste and GHG emissions.
In addition, many organizations are still refreshing devices based on a fixed (three- to five-year) expected life span, instead of using analytics to determine the optimal time to replace laptops, PCs and servers. Executive leaders should use device performance analytics and telemetry insights to replace devices on an as-needed basis. Gartner estimates that by 2027, PC as a service will grow to 50% of PC procurement, an increase from 20% in 2023.
Cybersecurity defences are being strengthened across large organisations this year, new research shows.
Cyber consultancy Wavestone‘s new Cyber Benchmark 2024 report shows that companies with over $1bn in revenues will on average have one cyber expert per 1086 employees.
This is up by 15% in 2023, when the same companies only had one cyber expert per 1285 employees.
The financial sector lead in this figure, with one cyber expert per 267 employees.
Further the report found that more and more companies have launched initiatives aimed at talent retention to ensure that they maintain a steady level of cyber expertise in their organisation.
The emphasis on retention makes sense as there is currently a shortfall of about 4 million cybersecurity specialists worldwide, and the majority of professionals (92%) saying they have a skills shortage in their organisation.
The report also found that cyber budgets represent 6.6% of the IT budget across all sectors, and that cyber maturity was slightly higher among larger groups, which validated their efforts made in terms of budgets and talent attraction.
Large organisations are outpacing smaller organisations in terms of the cybersecurity basics, as 54% of smaller companies (those with less than $1bn in sales) remain fragile to ransomware risks.
Despite this, there have been areas of particular progress in terms of cybersecurity.
Cloud security is up 5%, driven by advances in platform administration security. However, this confidence may wane as transitions to the multicloud bring potential complexity to cloud security efforts.
Data security itself has also increased (+4%), linked intrinsically to AI advancements and its accompanying challenges.
The report even deemed some areas of cybersecurity as outstanding, such as the security of third parties like partners, suppliers, and increasing interconnected sources of attack, at 48.9% maturity. Industrial systems also show room for improvement, at 39.9% maturity.
Brightsolid, the Scottish cloud service provider, has expanded into England for the first time with new offices in Manchester.
With more than 25 years as part of DC Thomson, the Dundee media company, Brightsolid has grown to become one of Scotland’s largest providers of managed hybrid cloud and cybersecurity services for SMEs and public sector organisations..
Some of its current customers include Aberdeenshire Council, Albert Bartlett, Dundee City Council, Shell, Capita, West Yorkshire Combined Authority, and the University of Dundee.
The new city centre space aims to grow Brightsolid’s client portfolio, with the aim of increasing sales and technical service staff by 50% over the next two years.
“Brightsolid works in collaboration with customers to create unique cloud solutions that are tailored to each organisation. We don’t do one-size-fits-all,” chief commercial officer Alan Gardiner said.
“It starts with our dedicated tier III designed data centres, ensuring our clients’ critical IT infrastructure is secure, while providing industry-leading accessibility, scalability and connectivity. As one of the UK’s foremost hybrid cloud experts, we also help hundreds of organisations unlock the power, flexibility and cost-effectiveness of cloud.
“And with security at the top of most people’s agendas these days, we deliver some of the UK’s best MDR, SOC and BaaS services at affordable prices.
“While Brightsolid is already recognised as one of Scotland’s leading cloud services providers, the new Manchester office will be seeking to work with public and private sector organisations across the north of England, while also spearheading the expansion of our service offering across the UK.”
