Aqsen Innovations has partnered with CENSIS – Scotland’s innovation centre for sensing, imaging, and IoT technologies – to advance the development of its sensor system, Aquasense, which can be adapted to test for a range of variables in water, such as temperature, oxygenation, salinity, and the presence of chemicals such as chlorine.
The new, low cost Internet of Things (IoT) sensor system could support communities in developing countries fight against the effects of climate change by enabling them to detect, monitor, and manage water quality in real time.
Sensor systems with these complex features can often be highly expensive, making them too costly to use in many developing nations. However, Aqsen Innovations is aiming for the technology to be priced at just 25% to 30% of equivalent products.
Working with CENSIS should help the company achieve this price point by using a unique combination of components that will work with Aqsen’s software tools.
By monitoring water quality in real-time, the IoT sensors generate data that can be monitored remotely via a mobile device and inform decision-making. It is particularly aimed at areas which are prone to flooding or rely on climate-sensitive sectors such as agriculture and aquaculture.
Farmers, for example, could use the technology to monitor the soil moisture for crops, which influences plant health and yields. Fish farmers could also benefit by tracking the temperature, dissolved oxygen concentration, and the pH level of water, allowing them to identify the optimal time for feeding and monitoring health.
Later this year, the team will work with Makerere University College of Natural Sciences in Uganda to begin advanced trials of the technology in Lake Victoria. Initial trials have also successfully been undertaken at fish farms in Uganda, as well as in India monitoring the quality of water in floodplains and on farmland.
Rinku Dasbiswas, co-founder of Aqsen Innovations, said: “Aquasense provides real-time, dynamic insights on water quality that can support communities and help to improve productivity across a variety of sectors grappling with environmental challenges. It is about making technology that can make a real difference more affordable and accessible to those who need it most.
“The impact this could have in developing nations is huge, and it was brilliant to hear the initial feedback from farmers on the difference this could make to their livelihoods.
“Once we reach commercialisation, we hope to develop the product further and begin incorporating satellite imaging. CENSIS is playing a key role in integrating the IoT technologies into our sensor systems. The team also introduced us to other UK-based companies operating in the field, and we hope to foster these connections by working together to adapt the product and help mitigate against the impacts of climate change in this part of the world as well.”
The sensors are also going to be trialled on several projects in Scotland which involve CENSIS, exploring how to best monitor water quality in different contexts, including flooding and tree planting. Potential applications are also being explored in South Africa and Malaysia.
Rachael Wakefield, business development manager at CENSIS, added: “Aqsen Innovations’ mission is closely aligned with our own, and we have experience of creating bespoke IoT-enabled sensors for use in environmental sensing applications at scale.
“Accessible, affordable environmental sensing is not just a challenge for developing nations, it is useful here in the UK too – especially for small farms and not-for-profit organisations that have a need for data-evidenced land management change. The potential impact of Aquasense is huge and we look forward to continuing our partnership with Aqsen Innovations, supporting the team to address global climate challenges.”
ScotlandIS’ 14th annual Digital Tech Awards celebrated the year’s best and brightest in the Scottish tech scene.
The Radisson Blu in Glasgow was abuzz with some of Scotland’s most prestigious awards for technology pioneers, unsung heroes, innovations, and business acumen.
The awards honoured individuals and companies for their Olympic efforts over the past year, as well as highlighting some of the major themes arising in the tech sector.
“It’s always inspiring to see the work being done by those determined to push our industry forward,” ScotlandIS CEO, Karen Meechan, said.
“This year’s entries have been some of the strongest we’ve seen, with each of the nominees impressing the judges in their own way. It’s my hope that some of the success stories from this year’s ceremony will inspire others to achieve similarly impressive feats in the coming 12 months.
“The Scottish tech sector is an industry we should all be extremely proud of. Over time we have cultivated an ecosystem that has promoted and supported the growth of Scottish technology businesses, despite an economic environment that has, at times, been fairly hostile.
“Technology can be a shining light for the Scottish economy, a prime example of what innovation, ingenuity and determination can all come together to deliver. The Digital Tech Awards are a reminder of what can be achieved when the conditions are right.”
Tech for Good Winner: Neonhive Limited
In the Tech For Good category, Neonhive Limited took home the prize. The Glasgow-based video games PR company helped raise over £66,000 for the Glasgow Children’s Hospital charity by working with Games for Weens, developing an entirely new pathway for fundraising among the tech and gaming community.
“It’s a delight to have won,” Rachel Macpherson, head of PR at the company, who accepted the award on the night, said, “To have worked with such a brilliant charity, Glasgow Children’s Hospital, and to have done some good last year is just such a reward. We worked really hard on the campaign so it’s so nice to be recognised.”
Hyble, based in Edinburgh, won the Product Innovation prize for their on-demand design and print solution, utilising smart design to quickly create branding materials for companies.
“Mon the Hyble!” Andrew Smith, engineer for Hyble said, later giving full credit to lead product designer Charlotte Hancocks.
Service Innovation Winner: IOMA Renewable Energy
IOMA Renewable Intelligence, previously known as Turner Iceni, won for service innovation. Their customisable asset management tools for renewable energy bagged them the top prize.
Data Trailblazer Winner: Bellrock Technology
For their cloud software Lumen, Bellrock Technology won Data Trailblazer, providing speedy data-driven solutions for businesses.
Best Wellbeing at Work Winnner: FreeAgent
Reflecting the need for better working conditions and to fight the scourge of burnout, the awards honoured a company championing wellbeing. FreeAgent, the Edinburgh-based enterprise accounting software firm, won for championing worker progress and happiness in the workplace.
Georgina Allan, senior people manager at FreeAgent said: “It’s so good to work for a company that doesn’t just talk the talk, but walks the walk.”
Public Sector Innovation Winner: Pogo Digital Healthcare
For its work in healthcare, Pogo Digital Healthcare won for Public Sector Innovation for its web platform Tailored Talks which enables patients and clinicians to share and access personalised health information.
Cyber Trailblazer Winner: Lupovis Lts
For its innovative approach to cybersecurity defence, Lupovis Ltd won Cyber Trailblazer for its hunt-the-hunter style cyber posture. It also featured in DIGIT’s most interesting Glasgow Startups roundup.
“Its quite nice to be recognised as a leader, as a Scottish company, being able to be recognised in the field of cyber across the UK, across Europe, it’s competitive, so it’s an honour,” Xavier Bellekens, CEO of Lupovis said.
Digital Tech Rising Star Winner: Ewan Robertson, Morgan Stanley
Highlighting an individual, the Digital Tech Rising Star award went to Morgan Stanley’s Ewan Robertson, a software engineer who started as a school leaver who has built both his career and gained a high quality degree at the same time. His work on the new API Gateway project at Morgan Stanley shows not only his futuristic vision, but the trust he’s earned from his company.
“The award is a testament to the work that Morgan Stanley does to promote young talent through apprenticeships just like me,” he said.
The biggest awards of the night honoured the year’s best startup, best scale up, and best enterprise of the year.
Startup Business of the Year Winner: Loveelectric
Loveelectric won the Startup Business of the Year award. The Edinburgh-based firm aims to make electric cars cheaper and more accessible for everyone in a scheme similar to a bike to work scheme.
Scale Up Business of the Year Winner: Utopi
For Scale Up Business of the Year, Utopi took home the prize for their ESG technology geared towards the multi-tenant real estate sector, bridging the gap between property tech and climate tech to make properties more green.
Enterprise Business of the Year Winner: Dayshape
Dayshape won Enterprise Business of the Year – their AI-powered scheduling and planning platform was built from scratch to optimise workforce strategies.
Aberdeen City Council has launched an improved version of its virtual assistant chatbot which it first introduced with Microsoft in 2020, making it Scotland’s first local authority with a chatbot.
Since the initial launch of AB-1, the council has continued to innovate to improve public service delivery further, while adapting to the increasing pressures on local authorities across the country.
The council has now launched an improved version of the chatbot in Azure, Microsoft’s cloud offering, which has helped it to optimise and scale the chatbot. New generative AI capabilities will mean it can understand more complex questions, and respond with more detailed answers.
Enabling citizens to help themselves to round the clock support, AB-1 handles queries on topics such as refuse collection, school term dates and council tax.
The council also has an internal version of AB-1, answering questions about topics such as wages and annual leave for the council’s 8000 staff – this internal version is also soon to receive an update.
While the original chatbot reduced the number of calls and emails to the council, freeing up staff for more meaningful and in-person work, the latest version of AB-1 is producing even greater efficiencies.
“Early testing shows AB-1 is now answering twice as many questions, and we expect volumes to increase,” says Andy MacDonald, executive director of corporate services at the council. “Customers can now get most of their answers online.”
To create the chatbot, Microsoft supported Aberdeen’s developers during the creation of the original AB-1. It’s now helping the council to optimise and develop the upgraded chatbot’s training, using Microsoft’s Copilot Studio.
The team is also making sure that the chatbot’s feedback mode is enabled, so it can keep analysing and learning from past interactions.
“Copilot Studio’s newly available generative AI capability was leveraged to train the latest AB-1,” explains MacDonald. “Microsoft led the initial build out of the first version of new AB-1, and Aberdeen’s developer team worked with Microsoft to ensure they can lead on further enhancements.”
The new chatbot is being grounded in Aberdeen City Council knowledge, using generative AI training to ensure the right data gets indexed. This means the virtual assistant can give properly informed and focused help, rather than more generic responses.
There are plans to potentially give the new AB-1 access to even more data sets, such as service history and geo-location, which could help the chatbot deliver even fuller and more accurate responses. These would be designed in line with the principles of ethical use of AI. The council hopes that the chatbot will ultimately be able to preempt questions and reply with proactive suggestions.
When AB-1 launched it featured a unique ability to take some basic questions in Doric, the regional dialect. The council is now finalising a forthcoming edition with an enhanced understanding of Doric, which will also be able to support several other languages. These will include some of the most widely-spoken languages in the area, such as Polish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian and Russian.
“The upcoming release will support taking questions in Doric and providing answers in English,” says MacDonald. “But for other languages, translation services will be used to translate both the incoming request and the chatbot’s response. We are focusing on the common languages in the area, but many more languages can be used.”
Nearly one in five ransomware attacks lead to a lawsuit in 2023, according to data collated by Comparitech researchers.
Lawsuits filed following ransomware attacks have increased in the last two years, the research shows, with the average over the past five years being 12%.
Of the 3,000 confirmed ransomware attacks included in the study, 355 lawsuits were filed. Of these, 228 were completed so far, 59% of which were successful and lead to a data breach settlement or the company being fined, or were settled through mediation.
A further 57 (25%) were voluntarily dismissed by plaintiffs, suggesting that out-of-court settlements were reached. Only 11% of cases (25) were dismissed in court.
In the 112 settlement cases where figures were provided, these figured totaled over $245 million (£195.6m), with the average settlement being $2.2m (£176m). 2023’s average was $2.1 million (£168m).
Further, organisations have been hit with nearly $10 million (£8m) in penalties for company failures during the ransomware incidents, the highest amount being $8.7m.
The main factor leading to a ransomware lawsuit is a data breach. Of the 355 attacks leading to lawsuits, 283.3 million records were involved, accounting for 80% of records impacted across all the ransomware attacks confirmed from 2018 to 2023.
Some of the largest breaches of data were seen in the healthcare and finance sectors, where Comparitech also saw the most lawsuits filed.
However, the technology industry saw the most records impacting. This was because of the huge attacks, and their associated databases, on MOVIEit, Blackbaud, and others. Multiple companies were affected due to these attacks, highlighting the massive amount of data in jeopardy due to unpatched vulnerabilities across software stacks.
Of the top 50 ransomware attacks since 2018, in terms of records affected, 48 have lead to lawsuits.
Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) across the UK can apply for a grant of up to £10,000 for AI training as part of the UK government’s £6.4m upskilling fund.
Under the new Flexible AI Upskilling Fund, small businesses in the professional and business services sector will have until 31 May to apply for funding, in which they will be expected to deliver training by March 2025.
The fund is supported by the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology (DSIT), Innovate UK, and the Alan Turing Institute.
The pilot programme will allow businesses to apply for funding that covers up to 50% of the cost of AI skills training.
While the UK aims to be an AI superpower, the ongoing skills gap in tech is only heightened in terms of emerging AI. As larger companies continue to adopt the new technology en mass, small organisations fall at risk of falling further behind.
Reskilling and upskilling initiatives are vital in combatting the ongoing skills crisis, and SMEs may have to continue to rely on their own staff as they lack the funds to attract already skilled AI specialists.
The pilot programme aims to test whether training SMEs in AI will maximise the value of AI adoption. More specifically, it will see whether government support in the form of match-funding is an effective way of increasing employer-led upskilling in AI, and whether increased skills translated into AI adoption and firm-level productivity benefits.
Eligible businesses must have less than 250 employees, and have been operating in the UK for at least one year. They must also be able to match-fund 50% of the cost of training and operate in the professional and business services sector.
Those seeking more information on what type of AI upskilling training they may require, business leaders can visit the Turing website to determine their upskilling needs.
“Businesses of all sizes and across all sectors, from architecture to law and HR to advertising, are identifying the huge benefits that AI can bring in helping staff to boost their productivity while cutting business costs,” technology secretary Michelle Donelan said.
“I have launched this new pilot to help SMEs interested in AI adoption make it a reality by contributing towards the cost of upskilling their employees – ultimately increasing efficiency so companies can retain a competitive edge in an increasingly digital world.”
Less than 2% of organisations can access sensitive and classified data in less than a week, new research from Protegrity said.
Their research, surveying 600 IT and data chief executives and leaders from large companies, found that sensitive data remains elusive.
Despite 92% of respondents agreeing that the innovation resulting from data has a positive impact on the bottom line, and all agreeing that data can be used to improve customer and employee experiences, it seems that businesses cannot fully leverage the data they hold.
They are struggling to keep up with the pace of innovation because the data needed to power new technologies like AI is sensitive and is protected in ways that render it hard to access. While 37% of respondents cited waiting times for one to two months to access data, as many as 32% wait between three to six months.
The research, undertaken by independent research company, Opinion Matters, surveys CIOs, CTOs, Heads of data and data managers from enterprise organisations. It examines how organisations are protecting, modernising, and optimising data.
According to Nathan Vega, vice president solutions strategy at Protegrity, “From the research results it is evident that businesses are not leveraging the value of data due to delays in accessibility. If an organisation is measuring access to data in months and not days or hours, there is a limitation on their ability to realise the potential of this data. In today’s modern enterprise, organisations should see time to value within days, a few hours being the norm and within minutes or even seconds being optimal.”
Positively, the research findings revealed that organisations are adhering to data regulations and compliance requirements, with 45% using data controls such as tokenisation and pseudonymisation to secure data. Further, 84% state they are either fully or somewhat prepared to meet PCI compliance requirements.
While this is promising, equally concerning is that 2% of respondents admit to being completely unprepared 14% say they are somewhat unprepared and 46% of respondents say they are only somewhat prepared to meet PCI requirements.
“Companies need to implement data protection tools and strategies that allow them to balance the needs of data security with useability to meet new data modernisation use cases,” Vega added.
“It is also beneficial to make sensitive data usable data if companies are to make timely and effective decisions to improve customer experiences and drive innovation. Many are struggling keep pace and capitalise on innovation cost-effectively without more sophisticated and usable data monetisation strategies.”
Data compliance and governance have secured a place on the boardroom agenda, with 90% of respondents stating that corporate leaders have a good handle on the importance of data and compliance and regulatory issues surrounding their data.
Based on the important nature of data privacy and compliance it is promising to see that 96% of respondents are planning to invest a portion of their IT budget in data security in 2024 with nearly half (49%) of respondents planning to invest up to 15% of their IT budgets on data security.
“GDPR and other compliance regulations, while necessary and proven effective for driving data security, are adding to the growing complexity and cost for organisations to gain value from their data,” Vega concluded.
“Not only does it require more time and money to secure and access necessary data, but the delays in accessing and using this data also have a knock-on impact on various aspects of business.”
“As the technology landscape evolves and threat actors gain access to new tools, securing sensitive data will continue to be a growing challenge for organisations. However, companies can adhere to stringent data regulations and requirements, keeping data secure, and also reap the benefits of this data by investing in data monetisation and optimisation strategies and implementing tools to help make data accessible and useable without compromising on privacy.”
Following a cyber-attack in November, it may cost the Western Isles local authority council £500,000 to restore its IT systems.
Comhairle Nan Eilean Sair experienced a suspected ransomware attack on 7 November 2023, disrupting its IT system and causing its website to go down.
Now, estimated to restore the system show that it may cost half a million pounds to fully resolve its ongoing IT issues.
The disruption impacted services, and causing bills, such as council tax, to be delayed.
“Since the cyber-attack the Comhairle has taken steps to improve the security of systems and safeguard data,” Malcolm Burr, chief executive of the Comhairle said.
“Alongside improved security measures the Comhairle views cyber-security education as a key step that any organisation can take to improve cyber resilience. It was excellent that so many local organisations saw the value in this education and attended today’s sessions.”
The council did say that there is currently no evidence that any data stored on its servers had been published.
Since the cyber-attack, the work of rebuilding systems has been led by the Comhairle’s Incident Management Team.
Comhairle Nan Eilean Siar did cooperate with Police Scotland, the Cyber and Fraud Centre – Scotland, the National Cyber Security Council and the Scottish government for the criminal investigation after the attack.
Jude McCorry, CEO of Cyber and Fraud Centre- Scotland, said at the time of the attack: “Data breaches can be caused by many factors, and one of the most common causes is cyber attack. This impacts organisations large and small, as well as affecting individuals. If any organisations in Scotland need support to mitigate the impacts of an attack, our free Incident Response helpline is available on 0800 167 0623. ”
ChatGPT now has a memory, according to an update from OpenAI that is set to hit paying users outside of Europe and Korea.
The new memory capabilities are not yet allowed in Europe, likely due to data protection concerns, as the ‘memory’ functions based on tracking user input and some more personalised information inputted into the chatbot.
ChatGPT will now be able to remember details between chats, allowing it to provide more relevant responses.
Users can even tell ChatGPT to remember specific details, such as reminding the chatbot that the user is vegan when providing recipes in the future.
ChatGPT’s memory will be malleable, however, and users can reset or clear specific memories, or turn the feature off completely. Alternatively, they can use temporary chat, which will ensure a conversation without memory.
The new memory feature works similarly to Custom instructions, except the model has been trained to update the memories rather than requiring users to manually manage them. Information that might be useful is taken down as a summary to inform future conversations.
The model can also manage memories, updating pre-existing ones, consolidating them, and forgetting them when instructed by the user.
While memory will be turned on my default, users can turn it off, ask it to delete specific memories, or clear all memories.
OpenAI says it is still “taking steps to assess and mitigate biases and steer ChatGPT away from proactively remembering sensitive information, like your health details” the company said in a press release.
It remains unclear then if ChatGPT will remember these sensitive data points – further, if it will remember the names and sensitive information of underaged people mentioned in conversations.
OpenAI has said that it may use content provided on ChatGPT, including memories to train the model, but this can be turned off through Data Controls.
According to emerging reports, Google has allegedly laid off its entire Python development team, potentially in an attempt to cut costs.
As first reported by Free Press Journal, rumours speculate that the company aims to hire ‘cheap labour’ to replace the team.
Google has also been strengthening its AI investments, which rely on Python coding language.
According to reports, the Python team has less than ten members who are responsible for maintaining the Google’s Python ecosystem, as well as its third-party software.
News of the alleged layoffs are circulating across social media and Hacker News, where users claiming to be former employees disclosed the firings.
On Mastadon, a user alleged that they and their entire team were fired and asked to onboard new replacements that would take up the roles in a different country.
Screenshots of posts from various forums also made the rounds on X, with users claiming that new hires would be located in Google’s Munich office.
Google has laid off their Python Foundation team and asked them to train their replacements who will be in the Munich office.
This is similar to layoffs in their finance department a few weeks ago where some positions were moved outside the country where they’re cheaper. 😬 pic.twitter.com/tVBh1dWLli
In a statement made to ITPro, a Google spokesperson did not deny the claims, but said that Google was “simplifying our structures.”
This follows recent layoffs at the company, with planned firings in the finance department occurring just weeks ago, with more cuts hitting some of its subsidiaries including YouTube.
Google also recently terminated the contracts of dozen of workers in California and New York for protesting the company’s support of the state of Israel in the ongoing humanitarian crisis and genocide in Palestine.
“Throughout the second half of 2023 and into 2024, a number of our teams made changes to become more efficient and work better, remove layers and align their resources to their biggest product priorities,” a Google spokesperson said, as reported by Reuters just two weeks ago as the company announced an undisclosed number of layoffs.
Scotland’s video game industry is being celebrated at the National Museum of Scotland (NMS) in a new exhibition set to open this summer.
The exhibition is the world’s largest interactive exhibition of the culture and history of video games, with 120 playable games spanning more than 50 years.
Game On will run at the National Museum of Scotland from 29 June to 3 November 2024. It will feature iconic characters from Space Invaders to Mario and highlight Scotland’s role as a pioneer and world leader in game development.
From manufacturing the ZX Spectrum computer in Dundee in the 1980s to highlighting Scotland as home to some of the most innovative and influential game makers, including Rockstar North, the creators of Grand Theft Auto, Game On will reveal the roots of the gaming industry in Scotland.
The exhibit will also feature new frontiers and emerging Scottish talent such as Sad Owl Studios, whose game Viewfinder was awarded Best British Game at the Bafta Game Awards 2024.
Visitors will also discover the role Edinburgh studio 4J played in making Minecraft a global phenomenon.
Curated and routed by Barbican Immersive, the exhibit examines the creative and technological advances that have established gaming as a new art form.
“The gaming world has had an undeniable social, cultural, and technological impact,” Patrick Moran, Game On associate curator, said.
“Games transcend the boundaries between art and technology, becoming part of popular culture. Game On presents the opportunity to not only see the evolution of video games and how they have changed over time but also to immerse yourself inside gaming worlds with over 100 playable games.
“The show features the largest playable collection in the world, including original arcades, hand-held consoles, and key games, including Pac-Man, Super Mario, Tetris, Sonic the Hedgehog, Just Dance and FIFA. The exhibition also explores new advances in the gaming world. Highly interactive, groundbreaking and popular, Game On is engaging for hardcore gamers and visitors new to gaming. Crucially, the show is suitable for players of all ages.”
The National Museum of Scotland was the exhibition’s very first touring venue in 2002, and Game On has since been visited by over 5 million people of all ages in 25 cities around the world.
Game On returns to Scotland in a landmark year for gaming that includes significant anniversaries such as 30 years since the release of the first PlayStation console and 40 years of the iconic puzzle game Tetris.
“It’s great to welcome Game On back to the National Museum of Scotland,” Dr Geoff Belknap, keeper of science and technology at NMS.
“As someone in charge of Scotland’s national science and technology collections, it’s exciting to explore the country’s incredible contribution to gaming, past and present. I’m delighted to bring Scottish independent games to a new audience, including The Longest Walk, a pioneering project exploring the experience of living with mental health issues and Highland Song, a beautiful adventure through the Scottish landscape.
“The exhibition has been continually updated at each new touring venue since the early 2000s and so we look forward to bringing the story of video gaming right up to date here in Scotland, where the industry today is so vibrant.”
The Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) is in collaboration with academia and industry leaders to develop a digital manufacturing facility in Paisley, Scotland.
Working with leaders in pharma and digital could help medicines reach patients up to a year faster, the Centre hopes.
The collaboration will develop a working model of a cloud-first manufacturing facility that will use technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and the Internet of Things (IoT) to accelerate the speed at which new medicines are made.
Using these technologies in pharma could lead to patients getting faster access to innovative treatments and could reduce operational costs for manufacturers by up to 30%.
Alongside cost reduction, digital manufacturing technologies also allow greater agility to scale production and meet changing demand, with some estimates suggesting a possible 50% increase in productivity.
The cost-savings made through the collaboration could also help to widen access to medicines, with half of the global population currently unable to access health services.
The digital collaboration at CPI’s Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre has already provided the pharma industry with significant benefits.
Earlier this year, a consortium of 13 partners found they could unlock faster, more effective digitalisation by working together to enable digital manufacturing methods.
They achieved this by building digital architectures that track data from the ground up to ensure the right people or systems have access to information to make fast and effective decisions.
This meant creating standardised digital solutions tailored for each step of medicines development. Those solutions were also designed to interact with each other to produce real time data and improve the speed of decision making and ability to move onto the next phase of product development.
Now into its second year, the digital collaboration will look to further enhance digital manufacturing for novel therapies such as RNA vaccines and cell and gene therapies as well as taking on supply chain challenges.
This exciting next step in the collaboration is being developed at CPI’s Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre near Glasgow, Scotland.
Dave Berry, director of Digital Business Systems at CPI, said: “Crucially, this project could lead to treatments reaching patients much faster than currently possible, while also being able to save pharma companies time and costs. Opening faster access to new medicines could also allow companies to drive forward further innovations and increase sustainability.
“By providing pharma companies with a real-life replicable model of a cloud-first manufacturing facility, we will drive forward the digital capability of pharma manufacturers. However, our success will be rooted in humans collaborating effectively to deliver solutions that make a difference. We need to engage across pharma manufacturers of all scales if we are to realise the true potential of digitising medicines manufacturing.
“We are delighted to be collaborating with a host of industry leaders on this project. Their experience working in this area is second to none, and the collaborative approach has been excellent. Together we will accelerate our ability to provide a digital manufacturing solution that can be adopted by the industry sooner rather than later.”
Professor Duncan Graham, associate principal and executive dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Strathclyde, said: “The Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre is all about accelerating the time it takes to produce new state-of-the-art solutions to medicines development and manufacturing.
“This new collaboration is a perfect example of industry, academia and government working together to drive transformative change by employing new technologies in an innovative way that will introduce new medicines into clinical use in a faster, more sustainable, and cost-effective manner.”
The Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre is a collaboration between CPI, the University of Strathclyde and founding industry partners GSK and AstraZeneca with funding provided by Scottish Enterprise and UK Research and Innovation.
The Centre is tackling a host of challenges faced by the pharma industry and CPI have welcomed leaders into a Digital Membership group to tackle those head on.
The average ransom payment has increased 500% in the last year, Sophos’s annual State of Ransomware 2024 survey report has revealed.
Organisations that paid the ransom reported an average payment of $2m, up from $400,00 in 2023. However, ransoms are just one part of the cost.
Excluding ransoms, the survey found the average cost of recovery reached $2.73m, an increase of almost $1m since the $1.82m that Sophos reported in 2023.
Despite the soaring ransoms, this year’s survey indicates a slight reduction in the rate of ransomware attacks with 59% of organizations being hit, compared with 66% in 2023. While the propensity to be hit by ransomware increases with revenue, even the smallest organizations (less than $10 million in revenue) are still regularly targeted, with just under half (47%) hit by ransomware in the last year.
The 2024 report also found that 63% of ransom demands were for $1 million or more, with 30% of demands for over $5 million, suggesting ransomware operators are seeking huge payoffs. Unfortunately, these increased ransom amounts are not just for the highest-revenue organizations surveyed. Nearly half (46%) of organizations with revenue of less $50 million received a seven-figure ransom demand in the last year.
“We must not let the slight dip in attack rates give us a sense of complacency. Ransomware attacks are still the most dominant threat today and are fueling the cybercrime economy. Without ransomware we would not see the same variety and volume of precursor threats and services that feed into these attacks. The skyrocketing costs of ransomware attacks belie the fact that this is an equal opportunity crime. The ransomware landscape offers something for every cybercriminal, regardless of skill. While some groups are focused on multi-million-dollar ransoms, there are others that settle for lower sums by making it up in volume,” said John Shier, field CTO, Sophos.
For the second year running, exploited vulnerabilities were the most commonly identified root cause of an attack, impacting 32% of organizations. This was closely followed by compromised credentials (29%) and malicious e-mail (23%). This is directly in line with recent, in-the-field incident response findings from Sophos’ most recent Active Adversary report.
Victims where the attack started with exploited vulnerabilities reported the most severe impact to their organization, with a higher rate of backup compromise (75%), data encryption (67%) and the propensity to pay the ransom (71%) than when attacks started with compromised credentials.
The surveyed organizations also had considerably greater financial and operational impact, with the average recovery cost sitting at $3.58 million compared with $2.58 million when an attack started with compromised credentials and a greater proportion of attacked organizations taking more than a month to recover.
Other notable finds include that less than one quarter (24%) of those that pay the ransom hand over the amount originally requested, and 44% of respondents reported paying less than the original demand, with the average ransom payment caming in at 94% of the initial ransom demand
Further, in more than four-fifths (82%) of cases funding for the ransom came from multiple sources. Overall, 40% of total ransom funding came from the organizations themselves and 23% from insurance providers.
Proper backup management continues to be a priority, as ninety-four percent of organizations hit by ransomware in the past year said that the cybercriminals attempted to compromise their backups during the attack, rising to 99% in both state and local government. In 57% of instances, backup compromise attempts were successful.
In addition, in 32% of incidents where data was encrypted, data was also stolen – a slight lift from last year’s 30% – increasing attackers’ ability to extort money from their victims.
“Managing risk is at the core of what we do as defenders. The two most common root causes of ransomware attacks, exploited vulnerabilities and compromised credentials, are preventable, yet still plague too many organizations. Businesses need to critically assess their levels of exposure to these root causes and address them immediately. In a defensive environment where resources are scarce, its time organizations impose costs on the attackers, as well. Only by raising the bar on what’s required to breach networks can organizations hope to maximize their defensive spend,” said Shier.
Abrdn, the Edinburgh-based financial services company, has completed the sale of its assets – totalling £7.4bn – under management private equity business to Partia Investment for up to £100m.
Following a strategic review of the groups’s alternative businesses, the sale was conducted after it was found that the capital generated from the sale of certain private equity businesses would be better deployed within the core investment business.
Rene Buehlmann, chief executive of investments at abrdn, commented: ”The sale of our European-headquartered private equity business to Patria Investments follows the sale of our US-headquartered private equity business to High Vista Strategies last year and marks another step forward in our efforts to reshape and simplify our Investments business.
”We are building a modern investment company that brings together two leading UK wealth businesses with our global specialist asset manager that is now focused on areas where we have true strength and scale.”
First proposed last October, the upfront consideration was for £60m of cash, with secured deferred consideration of £20m plus interest of cash to be paid in the two years following completion.
Rothschild & Co served as financial advisor for the sale and Macfarlanes served as the legal advisor to Abrdn.
A further payment of up to £20m is also set to be paid, subject to the performance of the company in three years.
Currently, Abrdn manages and administers £508bn of assets for their investment, adviser, and personal business clients. The investment business manages £374bn on behalf of clients.
Recently, DIGIT report that Virgin Money had agreed to purchase abrdn‘s 50% stake in their joint venture, Virgin Money Investments, following the launches of its new investment and pension services for customers.
Businesses are investing increasing amounts of cash in artificial intelligence (AI) technology, with spending expected to grow by 61% year-on-year in 2024, new research from Lenovo highlighted.
40% see AI as a ‘game changer’, according to a new IDC eBook sponsored by Lenovo, titled CIO PlayBook 2024: It’s all About Smarter AI’.
While generative AI may have sparked the current AI boom, all forms of AI are reaping the benefits. An equal proportion of investment is being directed to generative AI (with 25% of investment) as interpretative AI (25%) and machine learning (25%).
Almost all European companies are incorporating generative AI into their strategies, processes, and offerings. Almost two-thirds (57%) of businesses have already invested, and a further 40% are planning to invest in the coming year, while just 3% have no plans to adopt the technology.
Organisations in EMEA plan to implement AI strategies favouring hybrid cloud (48%) or private cloud (24%), with just 17% opting for public cloud, reflecting stringent regulations around data privacy, particularly in mainland Europe.
Giovanni Di Filippo, EMEA president of Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group, said, “We are at a point where AI is becoming a reality for organisations in every territory and every sector. CIOs are eagerly embracing the potential of not only generative AI, but also interpretative AI, and will have to make the right tech investments and partnerships to maximise AI value for their organisations.”
Neil Ward-Dutton, VP AI, automation & analytics Europe at IDC commented, “There is a growing consciousness across every sector that AI offers potential to boost efficiency and competitiveness. CIOs should take this opportunity to invest in core enabling technologies, and ensure that AI expertise is not located within one single team, but spread throughout the organisation.”
Investing in AI
Intrigue for AI varies across industries, although most agree on its potential. Manufacturing companies are most excited, with 47% hailing AI as a ‘game changer’.
Telecommunications companies are least excited of those surveyed (22%), with leaders in the sector already having invested significantly in AI in recent years.
A majority of companies in every industry have already invested in generative AI, with half (50%) of government organisations having done so, climbing to 65% in the telco sector and 67% in banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI).
Across sectors, there is also a wide recognition of the importance of edge computing in AI, with organisations in every vertical having increased investment, up 29% in manufacturing and 60% in the telco sector.
AI in different territories
Enthusiasm for AI varies across the EMEA region, the research found, with respondents in France (58%) and the Netherlands (56%) most likely to label AI as a ‘game changing’ technology, while respondents in the Middle East were least likely to do so (30%).
In the UK only 31% stated AI would be a game changer. Over 90% of respondents had either invested in generative AI or planned to do so within the coming year, with Italian companies most likely to have already invested (68%) and Danish companies most likely to be planning to do so (64%). In the UK 96% have either invested or are planning to invest in GenAI.
In EMEA there is a 61% rise in planned AI spending for 2024 compared to 2023, a trend similar to organisations in North America (62%), but much higher than in Asia (45%).
The biggest technology challenge of generative AI, cited by 40% of respondents, was the capability limitations of models (in terms of training data models, which can require large amounts of computational power and data resources), followed by fears around the potential misuse of AI and AI ‘hallucinations’ (37%).
This involves systems that come out with incorrect information. Other technological challenges cited by CIOs included finding a reliable data platform (36%) and reliance on third parties (35%) for generative AI development.
At an organisational level, the most widely cited issue with generative AI was a cultural one, dealing with employee fears around job displacement (40%), followed closely by IT challenges (45%) including resistance from IT teams who are not used to implementing rapidly evolving AI tools and technologies.
61% of organisations are forced to evolve or rethink their data and analytics (D&A) operating model because of the impact of disruptive artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, according to a new Gartner, Inc. survey.
“Responding to the rapid evolution of D&A and AI technologies, CDAOs (chief data and analytics officers) are wasting no time in making changes to their operating model,” said Alan D. Duncan, VP analyst at Gartner.
CDAOs are doing it to support data-driven innovation and accelerate organisational agility, with data governance at the core, according to a survey of 479 data and analytics officers
When asked about changes CDAOs need to make to their D&A operating model to be fit for current and future purpose, 38% of CDAOs said that their D&A architecture will be overhauled over the next 12-18 months.
29% of respondents said they will revamp how they manage data assets and adopt and apply governance policies, practices and standards.
Expanding Responsibilities
“While the management of their organization’s D&A operating model is increasing year over year, no other role than the CDAO has the responsibility of many of the key enablers of AI, which include data governance, D&A ethics, and data and AI literacy,” said Duncan.
“The scope of responsibilities of the CDAO role has also expanded as budget and resource constraints become even more of a problem.”
Among the CDAO’s key responsibilities are managing the data and analytics strategy (74%) and governance (68%).
Being accountable for AI is also high on the CDAO’s agenda. The survey found that 49% of CDAOs said generative AI (GenAI) is within their scope of primary responsibilities. AI is within scope for 58% of CDAOs, which is an increase from 34% in 2023.
Negotiating Funding
The expansion of responsibilities entails a significant cost for CDAOs. Among CDAOs who report a year-over-year increase in their functions funding, 46% still report budget constraint as a challenge.
“CDAOs who present better business cases to CFOs, receive better and quicker funding for their D&A initiatives. They also gain higher executive buy-in,” said Duncan.
CDAOs must explain to the CFO how any change in D&A funding models aligns to the ratio of D&A value propositions as a utility, enabler or driver of the organisation.
“However, only 49% of surveyed CDAOs have established business outcome-driven metrics that allow stakeholders to track D&A value. In addition, 34% have not established business outcome metrics for D&A,” continued Duncan.
CDAOs need to grow their power and influence to make things happen. They also must understand the value levers and pain points of the organisation end to end to showcase their value to the board.
“If not, by 2026, 75% of CDAOs who fail to make organisation-wide influence and measurable impact their top priority, will be assimilated into technology functions,” concluded Duncan.
Security-by-design is coming to UK smart devices as a new law comes into effect, forcing manufacturers to follow stricter regulations to protect consumers from cyber-threats.
The new law will ensure that manufacturers meet minimum-security standards on all smart devices, legally requiring them to protect consumers from hackers and cyber-criminals.
Manufacturers will be banned from having weak, easily guessable default passwords like ‘admin’ or ‘12345’ and if there is a common password the user will be promoted to change it on start-up.
This will help prevent threats like the damaging Mirai attack in 2016 which saw 300,000 smart products compromised due to weak security features and used to attack major internet platforms and services, leaving much of the US East Coast without internet.
Since then, similar attacks have occurred on UK banks including Lloyds and RBS leading to disruption to customers.
The move marks a significant step towards boosting the UK’s resilience towards cyber-crime, as recent figures show 99% of UK adults own at least one smart device and UK households own an average of nine connected devices. The new regime will also help give customers confidence in buying and using products, which will in turn help grow businesses and the economy.
An investigation conducted by Which? showed that a home filled with smart devices could be exposed to more than 12,000 hacking attacks from across the world in a single week, with a total of 2,684 attempts to guess weak default passwords on just five devices.
“As every-day life becomes increasingly dependent on connected devices, the threats generated by the internet multiply and become even greater,” minister for cyber, Viscount Camrose said.
“From today, consumers will have greater peace of mind that their smart devices are protected from cyber criminals, as we introduce world first laws that will make sure their personal privacy, data and finances are safe.
“We are committed to making the UK the safest place in the world to be online and these new regulations mark a significant leap towards a more secure digital world.”
With 57% of households owning a smart TV, 53% owning a voice assistant and 49% owning a smart watch or fitness wristband, this new regime reinforces the government’s commitments to addressing these threats to society and the economy head on.
The laws are coming into force as part of the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure (PSTI) regime, which has been designed to improve the UK’s resilience from cyber-attacks and ensure malign interference does not impact the wider UK and global economy.
The new measures will also introduce a series of improved security protections to tackle the threat of cyber-crime, including banning easily guessable passwords.
Further, manufacturers will have to publish contact details so bugs and issues can be reported and dealt with, and they must be open with consumers on te minimum time they can expect to receive important security updates.
“Today marks a new era where consumers can have greater confidence that their smart devices, such as phones and broadband routers, are shielded from cyber threats, and the integrity of personal privacy, data and finances better protected,” data and digital infrastructure minister, Julia Lopez, said.
“Our pledge to establish the UK as the global standard for online safety takes a big step forward with these regulations, moving us closer to our goal of a digitally secure future.”
National Cyber Security Council (NCSC) deputy director for economy and society, Sarah Lyons, added “Smart devices have become an important part of our daily lives, improving our connectivity at home and at work; however, we know this dependency also presents an opportunity for cyber criminals.
“Businesses have a major role to play in protecting the public by ensuring the smart products they manufacture, import or distribute provide ongoing protection against cyber-attacks and this landmark Act will help consumers to make informed decisions about the security of products they buy.
“I encourage all businesses and consumers to read the NCSC’s point of sale leaflet, which explains how the new Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure (PSTI) regulation affects them and how smart devices can be used securely.”
AI investments appear to be a defining factor in market value and quarter results among tech giants.
Both Microsoft and Alphabet (Google’s parent company) saw sharp rises in their market share values thanks to investment in AI, whereas Meta has seen a slump.
Of the big tech companies, these three have reported their quarter results, with economists still waiting to see how Amazon will perform in turn.
Microsoft and Google have both taken bit leaps in the AI market, with Microsoft implementing their AI Co-Pilot across their Office Suite, and investing in AI for their cloud subsidiarity Azure.
The company also most notably is in a lucrative partnership with OpenAI, the creators behind ChatGPT.
As a result, Microsoft’s shares were up 3.84% on the New York Stock Exchange after beating Wall Street estimates on their third quarter profits and revenue.
The company’s revenue rose 17% in the quarter ending this past March, exceeding previous estimates at rounding out to $61.9 billion.
Their AI-driven capital expenditures were nearly $1 billion more than previously expected as well, showing the continued investment in AI.
However, the success of Microsoft also points to their domination of the cloud market.
“The valuation shared today should be a warning call to regulators looking at the current state of the cloud market,” Mark Boost CEO of Civo said.
“It’s clear that the hyperscalers are benefitting from anti-competitive practices like combining enticing free credit schemes with excessive egress fees which are ultimately locking users in and preventing them from leaving. A monopoly is forming, which is damaging the ecosystem and ultimately breaking cloud.
“In 2024, we need a new approach. There are plenty of challenger providers who are prioritising users and making cloud flexible, equitable, and easy to use, but these results show Big Tech is still dominating market share. It’s no longer sufficient to sit on the fence. We need to see action that prevents these damaging practices. Otherwise, Big Tech’s coffers will continue to grow at the cost of customers and the whole cloud ecosystem.”
Similarly, Alphabet’s shares skyrocketed 11.5%, set to top $2 trillion in market value.
Their revenue was up 15% year on year in the first quarter of 2024, reaching $80.5bn, and the company announced its first dividend of $0.20 per share.
Meta, on the other hand, struggled, seeing its shares slump by 15% on Thursday, falling $190bn, though its revenue did increase 27% from the previous year.
Investors seemed conflicted on Meta’s increase in spending expenditure for AI, as Mark Zukerberg, CEO of Meta, said that returns on AI investment would take longer to see.
The global legal technology market has grown significantly in recent years and generative AI (GenAI) will accelerate this growth, meaning the market will reach $50 billion in value by 2027, according to Gartner.
“GenAI has huge potential for bringing more automation to the legal space,” said Chris Audet, chief of research in the Gartner for legal, risk & compliance leaders practice.
“Rapid GenAI developments, and the widespread availability of consumer tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, will quickly increase the number of established legal technology use cases, in turn creating growing market conditions for an increasing number of legal-focused tools.”
There has been significant growth in spend management, e-billing, contract lifecycle management, legal matter management and legal document management as legal departments increasingly seek technology-led efficiencies. Incorporating GenAI into these applications will only accelerate purchasing and adoption.
In order to meet business demands and avoid future budgetary pressures, legal leaders must at least consider the adoption of developing technologies like GenAI.
“As various business functions pursue automation, legal leaders may find themselves facing some tough questions from senior leadership if they haven’t evaluated its potential in the legal department,” Audet said.
It will be just as important that lawyers understand the limitations and risks of using GenAI as well as its potential. It is essential to check the output of GenAI. It is not a suitable technology at this stage to complete tasks without review.
GenAI has the potential to force legal department and pay structure to adapt. For example, it may be hard to keep track on “billable hours” when legal documents are partly AI-generated. Moreover, the portfolio of legal services needed to get work done, the ratio of in-house and outside counsel expenses, the ratio of generalists and specialist lawyers, and talent needs in-house may all require significant change to ensure GenAI platforms are successfully implemented.
“New technologies can fundamentally change the way legal organisations do business, and GenAI has enormous potential to do this,” said Audet. “While at first technology can promise more than it delivers, that can be as much to do with adapting to new ways of working as it is to do with flaws in the technology.”
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has opened long awaited invitations to comment on a range of high-profile AI partnerships.
Microsoft’s partnership with Mistral AI, Amazon’s partnership with Anthropic, as well as Microsoft’s hiring of former employees and related arrangements with Inflection with AI, may be subjected to further investigation if concerns are raised about unfair market dominance and merger rules.
The gathering of comments is the first part of the CMA’s information gathering process, and does not indicate that the CMA has any jurisdiction over the mergers, as of yet.
The initiation of the process follows a recent report published by the CMA detailing the three key interlinked risks to open, fair, and effective competition in the markets for AI Foundation Models (FMs), specifically concerns that partnerships involving key players could be exacerbating existing positions of market power through the FMs value chain.
In its report, the CMA identified an interconnected web of over 90 partnerships and strategic investments involving the same firms.
Though these partnerships have the potential to bring pro-competitive benefits, the CMA intends to stay vigilant against the possibility that incumbent technology firms could use partnerships and investments to shield themselves from competition.
If the mergers are deemed to present competition concerns in the UK, then the CMA can open an investigation.
For now, invites for comments will be open until the 9th of May.
“Today we’re inviting comments into the partnerships between Microsoft and Mistral AI, Amazon and Anthropic, and Microsoft’s hiring of former employees and related arrangements with Inflection AI,” Joel Bamford, executive director of mergers at the CMA, said.
“We will assess, objectively and impartially, whether each of these 3 deals fall within UK merger rules and, if they do, whether they have any impact on competition in the UK.
“Foundation Models have the potential to fundamentally impact the way we all live and work, including products and services across so many UK sectors – healthcare, energy, transport, finance and more.
“So open, fair, and effective competition in Foundation Model markets is critical to making sure the full benefits of this transformation are realised by people and businesses in the UK, as well as our wider economy where technology has a huge role to play in growth and productivity.
“Given the global nature of these markets, competition authorities around the world are actively looking into AI.
“The CMA recently committed to step up the use of its merger control powers as part of its recent Foundation Models update. While we remain open minded, and haven’t drawn any conclusions, our aim is to better understand the complex partnerships and arrangements at play.”
The competition watchdog is also taking feedback on Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI, and is waiting on information from each party, but has yet to open a formal investigation.
The vast majority (93%) of businesses now worry that AI-driven attacks will be a daily concern by the close of 2024, a new survey by Netacea has revealed.
Despite the potential impact of AI on cybersecurity as a threat-enhancement tool still being hotly debated, cyber leaders are gearing up for an all out cyber war, driven by AI advancements.
About two in three leaders (65%) predict that offensive AI – using AI as part of a threat attack – will soon be standard practice among cyber-criminals.
AI has already lowered the entry barrier for threat actors, allowing less skilled and tactful instigators create malware and more effective and sophisticated social engineering campaigns.
But the attack vector of most concern to business leaders, according to the survey, is ransomware, as noted by around half of CISOS (48%). Phishing (38%), malware (34%), bot attacks (16%), and data exfiltration (13%) followed.
Concerns over AI are parallel to overall security concerns, with the list of attack vectors falling in the same order when CISOs were asked what they saw as the greatest threat in the coming six months.
Defending against AI typically requires AI, but the majority (83%) of businesses surveyed in an Office of National Statistics 2023 poll said they had no plan to adopt AI in 2024.
Small businesses will more limited resources were typically less likely to plan on adopting the emerging tech than larger companies, despite the UK government promising financial aid for AI initiatives.
Large organisations that have adopted AI are implementing it into their defence, Netacea found, showing that 100% of enterprises have incorporated AI within their security stack to some degree.
Despite expecting AI-driven attacks across several fronts, the majority (90%) of respondents are confident in their organisations’ AI capabilities of perimeter defenses such as WAF, DDoS and API security.
However, just 60% felt the same about bot management. This does seem to align with security strategies, as enterprises are typically more often using AI in DDoS, WAF and API security than for bot management.
This could be because CISOs are often seeking a single vendor approach to security, with a third (33%) having or planning to consolidate specialised solutions.
“AI is a means to an end. The attacker has an objective and will use any and all tools available to achieve it as quickly and cheaply as possible,” Cyril Noel-Tagoe, principle security researcher at Netacea said.
“However, we are still in the test and learn phase. And yes, that applies to both the attackers and the defenders. As attackers become more confident, and proven use cases emerge, we can expect an explosion of offensive AI. That will require a reciprocal explosion in defensive AI.”
A fifth (20%) of organisations admit that an employee at their company has exposed company data using AI tools such as ChatGPT, according to new research from cybersecurity provider RiverSafe.
A survey of 250 UK CISOs conducted by Censuswide detailed the intersection of AI tools and cybersecurity.
RiverSafe found that three quarters (75%) of security leaders believe that insider threats pose a more significant risk than external threats to their organisation’s cybersecurity.
On top of this, one in five (20%) identified AI as their biggest cybersecurity threat, pointing to more concerns over AI’s potential misuse in cyber-attacks.
These findings, revealed in RiverSafe’s report Underfunded and Under Reported: Threats Breaches and Budgets, spotlight the inherent risks associated with increasing insider threats and suspicion towards employee-led security concerns within organisations.
The exposure of data by insiders poses a profound danger, surpassing the threat posed by external actors.
Additionally, the escalating sophistication and prevalence of AI tools introduces new complexities and vulnerabilities, contributing to the ever-evolving landscape of cyber-threats.
“Our research has highlighted the prominent danger that insider threats are posing to businesses, both by unaware employees and malicious staff members,” CEO at RiverSafe Suid Adeyanju said. “This report sheds light on the intersection of AI and insider threats, where the increasing use of AI creates a wider concern for the potential for data breaches.”
“As the complexity of AI-Driven cyber threats continue to evolve, proactive measures are essential to safeguard sensitive data assets and mitigate the risks posed by insider threats. A revised and up-to-date cyber strategy should no longer be a second thought, but instead a priority for all organisations to mitigate the risks, especially when considering ever increasing use of AI.”
Oseloka Obiora, CTO at RiverSafe, commented: “Although AI presents enticing opportunities for businesses, it’s imperative to proceed cautiously, particularly concerning insider threats and data breaches originating from employees.
“Organisations must leverage AI for competitive advantage while strengthening cybersecurity defences to prevent potential vulnerabilities. The repercussions of a breach, compromising both customer and employee data, can inflict irreparable damage, underscoring the critical importance of comprehensive security measures.”
Zumo, the Edinburgh-based B2B digital assets infrastructure company, has announced a new strategic partnership with Crypto Carbon Ratings Institute (CCRI), which provides data on the carbon exposure of investments and business activities related to blockchain.
CCRI’s interdisciplinary team has built a multi-year research track record with a specific focus on cryptocurrencies and their environmental impact. The organisation uses the latest data sources as well as methods based on peer-reviewed studies published in leading scientific journals.
CCRI will now provide the data and methodologies to enable Zumo to further develop its Oxygen solution. The first of its kind, Oxygen uses blockchain technology and strategically sourced market instruments, including renewable energy certificates (RECs), to enable financial institutions to measure, mitigate, and report on the carbon footprint of their digital asset activities.
Last year, Zumo helped Jacobi Asset Management to deliver Europe’s first ESG-aligned Bitcoin spot ETF, listed on Euronext Amsterdam. Zumo will now work in partnership with CCRI to help more financial institutions address the carbon footprint of the new wave of Bitcoin ETFs and other financial instruments coming to the global market.
Research from Zumo and CCRI highlighted that as of March 2024, the annualised carbon footprint of all physically backed Bitcoin fund products stood at 4487.93 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide (ktCO2). To put this into context, this is equivalent to a person flying from London to New York and back over 1.5 million times.
Furthermore, the annualised carbon footprint of the US ETF cohort that went live in January 2024 following approval by the SEC was 2056.86 ktCO2, meaning this new cohort had captured nearly half (45.8%) of the market share – and correspondingly the carbon footprint – for physically backed Bitcoin funds within just a couple of months.
“As providers’ share of crypto holdings increases, so must their responsibility when it comes to ESG considerations,” Nick Jones, founder and CEO of Zumo said.
“We’re proud to be partnering with CCRI, which is recognised as the gold standard for sustainability data in our sector.
“Together, we can help responsible financial institutions to embed sustainability at the heart of their digital asset propositions, in line with investors’ growing ESG awareness and new regulations, such as the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), which requires companies to report Scope 3 emissions.”
Dr Christian Stoll, co-founded of CCRI added: “Transparency and data is key to measure and manage environmental impacts linked to financial products. Unfortunately, most funds are still not measuring or reporting on the carbon footprint of their crypto activities.
“We are happy that Zumo builds on our dataset and leverages our complementary capabilities to provide an end-to-end solution to help financial institutions to understand and mitigate their crypto-related carbon exposure.”
Ransomware attacks in March continued to break records for 2024, with global levels of ransomware attacks increasing from February. The total cases rose to 421 and 416 in the previous month, an increase of 1%, according to NCC Group‘s March Threat Pulse.
Year-on-year ransomware attacks in March have decreased in targeting by 8%, going from 459 to 421 attacks compared to March 2023, which was largely down to the mass exploitation of the GoAnywhere MFT vulnerability, which ransomware gang CL0P claimed responsibility for before going silent until its major MOVEit exploitation in May.
Despite the Year-on-Year decrease in targeting, the record-breaking 2024 monthly targeting increase indicates that we will likely observe a further activity increase in April as well as the remainder of the year.
New Faces
Continuing their eight-month reign, LockBit 3.0 was responsible for 57 attacks (20%), Play 40 attacks (14%), and RAGroup 33 attacks (11%).
Contrary to LockBit which experienced almost a 50% decline in activity between February and March, Play has experienced a surge in activity: going from 26 attacks in February to 40 in March, an increase of nearly 67%.
RAGroup also returned to prominence with a bang after no observable activity in either January or February of 2024. The group broke into the top three for the first time, with an increase of 300% from their last known attacks in December 2023.
Black Basta, Medusa and Cactus were in fourth, fifth, and sixth positions with 32 attacks (11%), 22 attacks (8%), and 20 attacks (7%) respectively.
North America and Europe are Top Targets
For the third time in 2024, North America and Europe continued to dominate the total number of regional ransomware attacks with over 82% of cases.
North America witnessed over 50% of attacks, Lockbit claiming 14$ (31) of these, down from 55 attacks in February. This is likely due to the law enforcement actions, which potentially impacted their operations.
Play delivered the same share of attacks to this region as Lockbit, bit, up from 8% in February.
For the remaining 18% we have Asia with 40 attacks, South America with 16, Oceania with 9, and finally Africa and Undisclosed with just 9 and 4 victims retrospectively. This is mostly consistent with last month with just a 1% difference between some of the regions.
Ransomware Groups Cause Sector Shake-up
March’s ransomware targeting by sector saw Industrials with 129 attacks (31%) and Consumer Cyclicals with 75 attacks (19%) remaining in first and second position.
Outside of the top two sectors, there has been a major reshuffle to the sectors’ positioning when compared with February. Healthcare moved from fourth in February to third in March with 45 attacks (11%), while Consumer Non-Cyclicals dropped from third to fifth with 35 attacks (8%).
Next, Technology jumped from sixth position in February to fourth in March, accounting for 41 attacks (10%), which also represents a 41% increase in the sector’s targeting (from 29 attacks). Due to a 64% increase in targeting (from 14 to 23 attacks), the Financials sector moved from eighth in February to sixth this month, accounting for 5% of the attack volume. Simultaneously, a 44% decrease in targeting (from 32 to 18 attacks) resulted in the Basic Materials sector falling from fifth in February to eighth in March.
The remaining three sectors (or Government Activity, Academic & Educational Services and Real Estate) experienced minor changes in positioning and together account for 32 attacks (8%) of the overall monthly output.
“It’s evident that ransomware attacks aren’t slowing down any time soon. We are seeing what were once less prominent ransomware gangs, like RAGroup, now increasingly getting closer to major players, such as Lockbit. This has not only led to a massive shake-up within the ransomware landscape but also an increasing number of attacks that the public needs to be vigilant about,” Matt Hull, global head of threat intelligence at NCC Group said.
“Whilst we’re seeing an increasing amount of law enforcement action taking down these major threat actors, our readers still need to be cautious of these groups making a comeback, just like Lockbit.
“As ever, we’ll continue to monitor these groups and the wider threat landscape, to make sure we’re sharing all the latest information as soon as we can.”
There is a stark contrast between the experiences of AI leaders and AI laggards, a new global report from NetApp has revealed.
Their 2024 Cloud Complexity report provided global insight into the readiness, challenges, progress, and momentum over the past year in AI adoption, and the critical role of a unified data infrastructure.
“AI is only as good as the data that fuels it,” said Pravjit Tiwana, general manager and senior vice president of Cloud Storage at NetApp. “Both the AI leaders and AI laggards show us that in the prevailing hybrid IT environment, the more unified and reliable your data, the more likely your AI initiatives are to be successful.”
AI Leaders vs AI Laggards
The report found a clear divide between AI leaders and AI laggards across regions, industries, and companies of different sizes.
Regionally, 60% of AI-leading countries, which include India, Singapore, the UK, and the USA, have AI projects up and running or at least at the pilot stage. This is in contrast to only 36% of what NetApp calls AI-lagging countries, including Spain, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, and Japan.
Across industries, technology leads with 70% of AI projects up and running or in pilot, while banking and financial services and manufacturing following with 55% and 50% respectively.
However, healthcare (38%) and media and entertainment (25%) are trailing.
Larger companies, those with more than 250 employees) are more likely to have AI projects in motion, with 62% reporting projects up and running or in pilot, versus 36% of smaller companies (with fewer than 250 employees).
AI leaders and laggards show a difference in their approach to AI, as well as their readiness.
Globally, 67% of companies in AI-leading countries report having hybrid IY environments, with India leading (70%), and Japan lagging (24%).
AI leaders are also more likely to report benefits from AI, including a 50% increase in production rates, 46% in the automation of routine activities and a 45% improvement in customer experience.
“The rise of AI is ushering in a new disrupt-or-die era,” said Gabie Boko, chief marketing officer at NetApp. “Data-ready enterprises that connect and unify broad structured and unstructured data sets into an intelligent data infrastructure are best positioned to win in the age of AI.”
Innovation Key
Despite the divide, there is notable progress among AI laggards in preparing their IT environments for AI, but the window to catch up is closing rapidly.
A significant number of companies in AI-lagging countries (42%) have optimised their IT environments for AI, including Germany (67%) and Spain (59%).
Further, some companies in AI-lagging countries already report seeing the benefits of a unified data infrastructure in place, such as easier data sharing and increased visibility.
Costs and Security
Rising IT costs and ensuring data security are two of the biggest challenges in the AI era, but they will not block AI progress.
Instead, AI leaders will scale back, cut other IT operations, or reallocate costs from other parts of the business to fund AI initiatives.
AI leaders are set to increase their cloud operations, data security, and AI investments throughout 2024, with 40% of large companies saying AI projects have already increased IT costs.
Year over year, “increased cybersecurity risk” jumped 16% as a top concern from 45% to 61%, while all other concerns decreased.
To manage AI project costs, 31% of companies globally are reallocating funds from other business areas, with India (48%), UK (40%) and US (35%) leading this trend.
As global companies, whether AI leaders or AI laggards, increase investments, they are relying on the cloud to support their goals.
Companies reported that they expect to increase AI-driven cloud deployments by 19% from 2024 to 2030, with 85% of AI leaders planning to enhance their CloudOps automation over the next year.
Increasing data security investments is a global priority as well, jumping 25% from 33% in 2023, to 58% in 2024.
Microsoft has introduced a small language AI model it says is cost-effective and can create content for social media using less data than larger models.
The model, called Phi-3-mini, can allegedly outperform models that are twice its size, according to Microsoft’s tests, including in language evaluation, coding, and maths.
According to a research paper released by the company, the new model is capable of running on smart phones and local devices, a step to providing an alternative to the data-laden cloud-powered LLMs which drive up costs.
Phi-3-mini is trained on a smaller data set than the likes of GPT-4, the underlying model of Chat-GPT. It measures 3.8 billion parameters, with capabilities Microsoft says is perfect for smaller businesses unable to run larger models for certain tasks.
Smaller AI models tend to be less expensive to run compared to larger models as they require less data inputs and less energy. This, however, usually comes with a compromise of less capability.
In December, Microsoft released an earlier version of their small AI, Phi-2-mini, which it said performed just as well as Meta’s Llama 2 model.
Phi-3-mini is set to be already available on Microsoft’s Azure AI model catalog, as well as Hugging Face and Ollama.
The capabilities of Phi-3 may suit smaller companies looking for more tailored AI customer applications, since their internal databases tend to be smaller than what is necessary to run all-encompassing AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.
According to the research paper, while it still does not perform as well as cloud-based model, it out performs other small language models, such as Gemma and Llama-3-In.
It’s main struggle is its range of ‘factual knowledge’ as it does have a smaller data set, but this should not be as much of a limitation for models that do not require a larger data set to function.
Next to join the mini are Phi-3-Small and Phi-3-Medium, both with increased parameters compared to mini.
New research shows that professional services are optimistic about growth opportunities and plan to invest significantly in technology to realise their ambitions.
This is according to a recent report by Deltek, the software and solutions provider, which found that the majority of project-based businesses (84%) expect to increase profits in 2024, compared to 71% saying the same in 2023.
However, on the road to growth, increasing profitability is a top challenge identified for firms’ financial leaders (38%). To address this, leaders also have ambitions to reduce expenses (29%), ensure people register their hours on-time (27%), and increase control of costs (26%).
The main drivers for realising growth targets have been identified as investing more in IT infrastructure and investing more in technology innovation (35%). This investment is seen as crucial, with 67% of firms stating they will lose market share within two years if they fail to make significant progress in digital transformation.
This tallies with an appetite to embrace new technology, as 79% of firms expect to increase investment in emerging technologies compared to last year, with 29% planning to invest significantly more.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a top technology being rolled out in professional services firms. The research revealed that nearly all firms (98%) are leveraging traditional AI/machine learning (ML) and 97% claim to be using generative AI. The hope for AI as a transformative technology is high, with 74% of firms confident that investing in AI will expand the services it can deliver to the market and 41% believe that successful implementation will increase profits.
As a result, around three-quarters believe that investing in, and successfully implementing, AI will give them a significant competitive advantage (74%). However, firms feel the need to act fast, with over two-thirds (75%) of firms stating they are extremely/somewhat concerned about competitors implementing tech faster.
Futurist and strategic business and technology advisor, Bernard Marr, cautions against rushing into AI investments: “In addition to the findings from Deltek highlighting the appetite to implement AI and the pressures to do so fast and gain first mover advantage, firms must not take a scattergun approach to their AI investment and sign up to the next new craze. It’s vital to set objectives and benchmarks to identify where new technologies will really move the needle.
“With the rate of evolution in the AI space, businesses could, in theory, be updating their strategies almost every week to incorporate new solutions. The key is to understand where inefficiencies are, where technology can aid people in their jobs to streamline operations, and frequently review the effectiveness of solutions against objectives and what is new in the market.”
Project complexity was also highlighted as a top challenge for firms (28%) in 2024, alongside information challenges including managing the quality of deliverables (46%) and project collaboration (42%). Despite this, many firms (87%) still rely on manual data entry, including over a quarter (27%) that are completely reliant to manage projects’ financial data.
This is concerning considering ambitious growth targets, with KPI tracking also decreasing in 2024. For example, in 2023, project profitability was tracked by 73% of firms, now tracked by 63%. Project KPI tracking has also declined in key areas, including client satisfaction (8% decline) and average billing rate (14% decline). Firms reported the need to improve tracking the monitoring of backlog (24%), utilisation rates (25%) and average collection period for A/R aged (24%).
Neil Davidson, VP EMEA and APAC at Deltek commented: “Despite optimism in growth opportunities, firms are at risk of not being able to accurately measure their success and understand where they are doing well and where changes need to be made. As projects become more complex, the metrics that firms need to track need to evolve.
“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 can demonstrate success confidently to key stakeholders.”
As projects develop, so do the requirements of the team. This is shown by more than a quarter (27%) of those surveyed reporting that developing the right knowledge/ upskilling staff to expand resources is a top challenge for project management over the coming three years. This is amplified by a strong intention to grow the workforce, with 61% of firms planning to increase the size of their workforce in 2024, building on the 54% that increased workforce size in 2023. Again, AI is seen as a key component of talent recruitment and retainment, 72% firms reporting that implementing AI successfully will improve job satisfaction.
Davidson concluded: “We are in an extremely exciting time for technological development. As AI becomes more integrated into our daily lives, we will start to see it become an enabler for our jobs, much in the same way as search engines revolutionised knowledge acquisition or video conferencing has advanced connections between multi-national teams.
“Not only is it a tool for productivity, it is seen as a must-have for advancing business capabilities and is fast becoming a key attraction for top talent looking to do more with their skills, without being hampered by administration.”
New digital health and wellbeing activities developed at the University of Stirling were trialled among the elderly in Stirlingshire.
A partnership between the University with Stirling Council, along with funding from Forth Valley and Lomond Community Led Local Development Programme, enabled the tech to be developed and trialed to benefit the older population.
Participants had the opportunity to get active by playing arcade-style video games linked to their body movements via a webcam, explore places through Virtual Reality, or get involved in online music and movement classes to help develop their balance and strength, in an effort to maintain independence.
The activities were trialled at a session held in the Smart Village Hub at Thronhill Community Hall, Stirlingshire, one of several sessions held thanks to the £10k grant from Forth Valley and Lomond CLLD Local Action Group.
The ‘Smart Village – Digital Health Technology in Health Promotion for Older People’ initiative gives older people in locations across the Stirling Council area the opportunity to try their hand at the new resources, with a further session planned in Cowie this May.
The resources on show were shaped with the support of older people through the Generating Older Active Lives Digitally (GOALD) project, co-led by Professor Anna Whittaker, of the University’s Faculty of Health Sciences and Sport, along with partners at the University of Plymouth.
The project used groups of older people of varying abilities, as well as staff and some younger people, to examine how to best design and deliver digital resources to engage older people in structured physical and social activity that aims to improve their health and wellbeing.
Professor Anna Whittaker said: “Digital technology can play a significant role in helping us all to stay connected and keep active. There are significant benefits for older people that digitally enabled activities can be a tool to support, but it’s essential these resources are fit for purpose for older users.
“By working with older people to help shape technologies that work for them, we can be confident that older users can make the most of these new or redesigned products and services.”
Professor Whittaker and colleagues hope that the taster sessions will lead to greater uptake of the new digital equipment, which can be used to support individuals and families at home as well as group activity in care homes and community groups.
Convener of Stirling Council’s Community Wellbeing and Housing Committee, Cllr Gerry McGarvey said: “Older people are increasingly using digital technology as part of their everyday lives and there is huge potential benefits in the use of this tech to improve the health and wellbeing of this age-group.
“We all want our older people to live healthy, fulfilling lives across our communities. This innovative scheme in Thornhill will ensure the needs of our older people are considered in the development of these digital activities that can help them stay physically and mentally active.”
A UK lawsuit has been brought up against the LGBTQ dating app Grindr after complainants alleged it shared users HIV status’s and other sensitive data to third-party advertisers.
Over 650 people have joined the lawsuit brought forth at the High Court in London by law firm Austen Hays but thousands of UK users were allegedly affected.
The lawsuit claims that Grindr breached its user agreement and UK data privacy law by sharing sensitive, personal data including HIV status, their latest test date, their sexual preferences, and location with analytics and third-party advertisers. While the information was added to public profiles by users, claimants say that selling the data to third parties was done without their consent.
Back in 2018, it was reported that Grindr was sending personal user information en mass to analytics companies, which users criticised as being a misuse of their trust in the app.
The data was shared by users to be open about their sexual health and their preferences with other individuals, the lawsuit said, and users claim it was a violation of their privacy to share it with third parties without their explicit consent.
Since the 2018 allegations, Grindr has updated their privacy policy, and has said that the current claim is a “mischaracterisation of practices from more than four years ago.”
According to the lawsuit, the sharing of personal data with third parties was in breach with UK data privacy laws, and names Apptimise and Localytics as two of the potentially many third parties that the data was shared with.
The lawsuit follows two formal data protection cases brought against Grindr since the 2018 revelation.
In 2021, the Norwegian data protection authority fined Grindr £5.5 million for violating GDPR by sharing user data without explicit consent.
Following this, the UK’s ICO issued a reprimand to the company for failing to provide enough transparency to users on how their personal data was processed.
“Our clients have experienced significant distress over their highly sensitive and private information being shared without their consent, and many have suffered feelings of fear, embarrassment, and anxiety as a result,” Chaya Hanoomanjee, managing director at Austen Hays and the lawyer leading the UK claim, said.
“Grindr owes it to the LGBTQ+ community it serves to compensate those whose data has been compromised and have suffered distress as a result, and to ensure all its users are safe while using the app, wherever they are, without fear that their data might be shared with third parties.
“Grindr users who think they may be affected by this breach should join the claim so that we can seek redress for them.”
A new UK government pilot scheme is set to launch next year to give organisations the opportunity to demonstrate that their new AI and digital innovations meet regulatory requirements so they can quickly bring them to market.
The new AI and Digital Hub will see a number of regulators develop a multi-agency advice service providing tailored support to businesses so they can meet requirements across various sectors while safely innovating – including through innovative technologies such as AI.
The service will be run by members of the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum (DRCF), made up of the Information Commissioner’s Office, Ofcom, the Competition and Markets Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority, and known as DRCF AI and Digital Hub.
Backed with over £2m in UK government funding, the service is intended to make it easier for businesses to get the help they need by bringing together the different regulators involved in the oversight of cross-cutting AI and digital technologies.
In turn, businesses will be set to take their new innovations to market responsibly and more quickly, helping to grow the UK’s economy.
“Digital technology and artificial intelligence are rapidly evolving, and regulation must keep pace – but we don’t want it to be at the expense of stifling the launch of new innovations that can improve our everyday lives,” technology secretary Michelle Donelan said.
“While safety is at the heart of our approach to regulation here in the UK, this new service will help businesses navigate the process of making sure they are compliant – supporting safe and responsible innovation.
“We are a nation that backs businesses both big and small, and we want to make sure that as they can quickly get to grips with rules and regulations around emerging technology.”
With digital technologies such as AI needing increasingly to demonstrate compliance with a range of regulatory regimes, there is a growing need for joined-up advice across the regulatory landscape. This pilot scheme aims to meet business demands for coordinated support and help innovators navigate regulations, so they can spend more time developing cutting edge new products.
The trial is expected to last around a year, and will assess industry take up, service feasibility and how innovators are interacting with it.
Innovators and businesses requiring advice will be invited to apply in due course with the DRCF expected to run a competition for innovators to outline where they need support from regulators to ensure innovative new technologies comply with cross-cutting regulatory regimes.
University of Glasgow researchers are testing the potential of augmented reality (AR) technology to improve drivers’ experience in autonomous vehicles, while maintaining safety precautions.
As self-driving cars become more common, a key question for future road safety is how to balance a passenger’s desire to relax during their trip whilst remaining aware of road hazards and being ready to retake control of the wheel.
Researchers therefore investigated if AR technology could be the answer following a simulation experiment at the University of Glasgow.
Their results suggest that placing attention-grabbing graphics over real-world views through car windscreens using augmented reality heads-up displays (HUDs) could help drivers to use entertainment apps while still maintaining awareness of the road.
However, their design needs to be carefully managed to avoid overwhelming users with information at critical moments.
Their findings hope to inform the development of safety features in future generations of self-driving cars as they move towards the full autonomous control planned by manufacturers.
“One of the main attractions of autonomous vehicles is that drivers will eventually be able take their focus off the road and place it on non-driving-related tasks like reading, playing games, or watching TV,” Thomas Goodge of the University of Glasgow’s school of computing science and a coauthor of the paper, said.
“Drivers can do that to some extent at the moment, but they still have to maintain an awareness of road conditions so they can take control in emergencies. It will likely be years before they’re capable of driving themselves entirely without human intervention.
“In the meantime, the people sitting behind the wheel are somewhere between drivers and passengers – not actively involved in steering but still required to supervise their vehicle to make sure they get safely to their destination.
“One big problem with that is that humans don’t deal very well with sustained supervisory tasks. They get bored, they get distracted, and when they do they lose their awareness of the road. That could be dangerous if they react too slowly to a sudden change of the road conditions around them.
“What we wanted to do with this study was explore whether attention-grabbing augmented reality systems could allow people to perform non-driving tasks but quickly switch focus at critical moments.”
The lab experience put study participants in a driver’s seat in front of a steering wheel and computer monitors to simulate their view out of a car window. The screens displayed a series of 40 video clips of real road situations and asked them to complete tasks on either a tablet screen, similar to the large dashboard displays of current-generation vehicles, or while using an augmented reality display overlaying tasks on top of the road scene.
One task was a simple game where users tracked and “collected” gems moving across the screen by gazing at them.
The second task presented the participants with a more complicated number pad app on which they had to correctly copy a phone number.
In both scenarios, the video stopped abruptly before a potentially hazardous situation like a pedestrian stepping into the road, to test situational awareness. The participants were asked to select from one of four predictions about what would happen next based on their understanding of the road conditions at the point the video cut off.
Their ability to correctly guess the outcome of the hazard was measured against an initial control experiment where they made predictions without performing a task. In both the heads-down portion of the task using the tablet and the heads-up section using the AR headset, participants were able to maintain some awareness of the conditions on the road. However, their ability to reliably predict what would happen next was significantly reduced in both setups.
“An important aspect of road safety is something called the ‘look but fail to see’ phenomenon, which happens when people fail to adequately process what’s right in front of their eyes,” study co-author professor Frank Pollick, of the University’s School and Psychology and Neuroscience said.
“This study aimed to replicate that in a simulated driving situation, where participants had all the relevant information on the screen in front of them but were being distracted to one degree or another, blurring their ability to judge the road conditions correctly.
“Augmented reality tech really does put information right in front of people’s eyes, so it could be a good fit for tackling the look but fail to see problem. The study shows that adding visual cues to draw drivers’ attention to situations does seem to improve their ability to quickly focus and understand situations. However, the level of demand on their attention is important – they were more able to read the road correctly in the less cognitively-challenging task.”
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is welcoming Richard Horne as its new chief executive officer in the autumn this year.
Horne is set to lead the UK’s national technical authority for cybersecurity as it continues in its mission to make the UK the safest place to live and work online.
He will join the NCSC from PwC UK, the quality assurance business services company, where he currently chairs the Cyber Security Practice.
Ensuring the NCSC delivers its vital contribution to the UK’s National Cyber Strategy will be central to Horne’s role.
This will include increasing the UK’s cyber resilience, keeping cybersecurity at the heart of the UK’s approach to future technology challenges like AI and quantum computing, and making sure the NCSC continues to be able to manage the most critical cyber incidents affecting the UK.
“I’m delighted that Richard Horne will become the next CEO of the NCSC,” Anne Keast-Butler, director of GCHQ said.
“He brings with him a wealth of experience working with major companies and organisations to help them understand and manage their cyber security – and respond to incidents when they occur.
“Richard’s experience will ensure the NCSC continues to drive cyber security up the boardroom agenda and develop its world-leading partnerships to address the cyber security threats that the UK faces.”
Prior to joining PwC, Horne was the managing director for Barclays PLC. While there, he was seconded from Barlcays to the Cabinet Office for 2011, to help shape and drive the government’s first cybersecurity strategy across both government and the wider economy.
Horne holds a PhD in Mathematics from Royal Holloway, University of London, and has served on a number of advisory boards for academic institutions and cybersecurity startup companies.
“It is an honour to become CEO of the NCSC,” Horne said.
“Over the seven years since its establishment, the NCSC has repeatedly shown its world-leading understanding of technology and its unparalleled knowledge of the cyber threat we face in the UK.
“I’m incredibly honoured and excited about leading a globally recognised organisation, its world class experts and leaders into the future whilst helping ensure that our mission is realised.”
Sixty-three percent of organisations worldwide have fully or partially implemented a zero-trust strategy, according to Gartner, Inc. For 78% of organisations implementing a zero-trust strategy, this investment represents less than 25% of the overall cybersecurity budget.
A survey of 303 security leaders by Gartner found that, while zero-trust is cited as an industry best practice, leaders are still not quite sure what best practices for achieving zero-trust are.
56% of security leaders are primarily pursuing a zero-trust strategy because it’s purported importance, but this does not equate to an understanding of just how secure zero-trust strategies really are.
“Despite this belief, enterprises are not sure what top practices are for zero-trust implementations,” said Watts. “For most organisations, a zero-trust strategy typically addresses half or less of an organisation’s environment and mitigates one-quarter or less of overall enterprise risk.”
To increase understanding, Gartner has released some top practice recommendations of implementing a zero-trust strategy.
1. Establish Scope Early
For successful zero-trust implementation, organisations need to understand how much of the environment they cover, which domains are in scope, and how much risk they can mitigate.
The scope of a zero-trust strategy does not typically include all of an organisation’s environment. However, 16% of survey respondents said it will cover 75% or more while only 11% believe it will cover less than 10% of the organisation’s environment.
“Scope is the most critical decision for a zero-trust strategy,” said Watts. “Enterprise risk is much broader than the scope of zero-trust controls, and only so much enterprise risk can be mitigated. However, measuring risk reduction and improving security posture is a key indicator of success for zero-trust controls.”
2. Communicate Success Through Zero-Trust Strategic Operational Metrics
79% of organisations that have fully or partially implemented zero-trust, have strategic metrics to measure progress, and of that 79%, 89% have metrics to measure risk.
Security leaders must also keep their audience in mind when communicating these metrics. Fifty-nine percent of zero-trust initiatives are sponsored by either the CIO or the CEO, president, or board of directors.
“Zero-trust metrics must be tailored for the zero-trust deliverables as opposed to rehashing metrics used for other areas, such as the effectiveness of endpoint detection and response,” said Watts. “Zero-trust efforts deliver on specific outcomes – such as reduction of malware’s lateral movement on a network – often not captured by existing cybersecurity metrics.”
3. Anticipate Increase in Staffing and Costs, but Not Delays
62% of organisations anticipate their cost will increase and 41% of organisations expect their staffing requirements will also increase as a result of a zero-trust implementation.
“The budget impacts of organisations who adopt a zero-trust strategy will vary based on the scope of the deployment as well as how robust the zero-trust strategy is early in the planning process,” said Watts. “Zero-trust initiatives inherently affect the budget as organisations take a systemic and iterative approach to mature their policies toward risk-based and adaptive controls, adding overhead to the organisation’s ongoing operational burden.”
While only 35% of organisations said they encountered a failure that disrupted their zero-trust strategy implementation, organisations should have a zero-trust strategic plan outlining operational metrics and measure the effectiveness of zero-trust policies in order to minimise delays.
The former chief executive and founder of Skyscanner, a Scottish unicorn company, will host and mentor a paid intern this year, as part of Saltire Scholars Programme, a flagship of Entrepreneurial Scotland.
The programme is actively recruiting organisations to host the scholars this coming summer, with a deadline for applications approaching at the end of April.
The initiative aims to play matchmaker between pre-vetted undergraduate students and organisations around the world. Once selected, students will be tasked with delivering commercially significant and impactful projects during their summer internship.
Skyscanner founder Gareth Williams will work directly with a chosen candidate for a ten week paid internship, where they will focus on a project using data and artificial intelligence.
“Future leaders need to be nurtured if we are to build a successful economy that can support the Scotland we all want to see,“ commented Williams. “I was impressed by the level of work that goes into uncovering these high potential young people and I know I can get useful work done whilst supporting their journey – I urge other business leaders to consider hosting an intern through the programme.”
Other participating organisations that have been confirmed to host interns over the summer include Network Rail and Sydney Airport.
Since its founding in 2007, Entrepreneurial Scotland says the programme has helped launch nearly 2,000 careers.
Sean McGrath, chief executive of Entrepreneurial Scotland, said: “We’re determined to ensure that the nation’s best entrepreneurial talent is discovered and given the opportunity to thrive.
“We’re excited that this year’s programme is set to be our biggest yet, with over 650 student interns ready and waiting to enter businesses this summer.
“Not only are we the largest programme of our kind in Europe, but unique opportunities like this to work directly with experienced entrepreneurs like Gareth truly sets us apart.”
Meta’s “pay or consent” model for Facebook and Instagram has been shut down by the European data protection watchdog.
Meta attempted to appease regulator’s concerns over how it harvested data for behavioural advertising by offering an add-free paid subscription offer to EU users, a model which immediately came under fire from data protection advocates.
The model arose after the EU said that Meta did not have a sufficient legal basis for the processing and sharing of user data for personalised advertisements and therefore must give users a choice to opt out of personal advertising.
Meta’s move introduced a completely ad-free experience to paying users, but those who opted not to pay would still have their data collected and sold to third-party advertisers.
The EU’s decision to disallow Meta to track users across platforms without gaining explicit consent would have dramatically shifted Facebook and Instagram’s business model, which mainly relied on ad revenue.
Privacy advocates immediately said the new pay or consent model was not consent at all. The original price for the ad-free experience was €12.99, which was eventually brought down to €5.99.
The EU Data Protection Board (EUDPB)unsurprisingly said that Meta’s system does not equal ‘freely given’ consent, free being the key word there.
“In most cases, it will not be possible for large online platforms to comply with the requirements for valid consent if they confront users only with a binary choice between consenting to processing of personal data for behavioural advertising purposes and paying a fee,” the EDPB said.
Unsurprisingly, Meta has contested the decision, saying that subscription models for ads are a valid option under EU law.
While paying to remove ads is an option, providing advertisements is not the key issue: the issue is that Meta forces users to surrender their data to third-party advertisers as a condition of using their service. This is what is key to the EU’s GDPR, and why Meta has been found, yet again, in breach of the law.
Privacy advocate and founder of NOYB applauded the decision, saying that: “Overall, Meta is out of options in the EU. It must now give users a genuine yes/no option for personalised advertising. It can still charge sites for reach, engage in contextual advertising and the like – but tracking people for ads needs a clear ‘yes’ from users.”
A syndicate of cyber-criminals have accessed a global database used by businesses around the world to verify the credibility of users.
The World-Check database is maintained by the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), and allegedly fell into the hands of GhostR group who claimed the attack on Thursday. LSEG later verified the claim.
The breach, though genuine, was said to have occurred at an undisclosed third party.
“This was not a security breach of LSEG/our systems,” said an LSEG spokesperson. “The incident involves a third party’s data set, which includes a copy of the World-Check data file.”
The spokesperson said this was illegally obtained, and that they are liaising with the third party to protect their data and notify appropriate authorities.
The World-Check database is used globally, maintaining data on money launderers, terrorists, sketchy politicians, and other individual banks and financial institutions would want to avoid working with.
The database is accessed typically during Know Your Customer (KYC) checks, typically by banks to verify the credibility of potential clients.
The subscription-only service usually pulls from open sources like sanction lists, government sources, media publications, and regulatory enforcement lists.
Allegedly, the database contains more than five million records, and GhostR is threatening to start leaking the database soon.
The group told The Register that their first leak would include the information of thousands of individuals, including members royal families.
The database includes full names and the categorisation of a person, such as their criminal status, but the information tends to range. Sometimes, job roles and birth dates are includes, while others have aliases, security numbers, and explanations on why the appear on the list included.
GhostR provided some of their stolen records to both The Register and TechCrunch, which included thousands of individuals, ranging from government official and diplomats, to high risk private company leaders.
World-Check has faced a data breach previously, in 2016, after a lapse in security at a third-party company.
World-Check’s labelling of individuals occasionally came under fire after the leak, as its branding of individuals as high risk can shut them out of opening bank accounts or applying for loans.
A new report from Egress shows that quishing, a phishing method using malicious QR codes, is exploding across the threat landscape in the first three months of 2024.
The practice has skyrocketed: in 2021, quishing only accounted for 0.8% of phishing email payloads, shooting to 10.8% in the past three months alone.
Egress analysts imagine that the trend will continue to proliferate until organisations implement effective countermeasures against this type of attack.
In terms of other phishing payloads, ransomware’s prevalence has doubled since 2021, but malware has seen a significant decline int he same period. Ransomware constitutes about 32.6% of attachment-based payloads, with malware sitting at 30.6%.
Technical evasion techniques appear to be improving: around 20% of phishing emails employed technical measures to evade Microsoft 365 security detection. Further, an unsettling 77.2% of impersonation attacks have been masquerading as well-known brands, including Microsoft.
But attackers are not stopping at just emails: threat actors are using multiple channels, moving from email to Microsoft Teams (30.8%), Slack (19.2%), and SMS (18.6%) after an initial attack.
The threat of AI in the hands of cyber-criminals is a mounting concern for cyber specialists, with nearly two thirds (63%) of cyber leaders concerned about th rise of deepfakes in cyber-attacks, and three fifths (61%) worried about cyber-criminals using generative AI chatbots to enhance their phishing campaigns.
“The one thing that won’t change in 2024 is cyber-criminals investing heavily in attacks that give them the highest rewards,” said Jack Chapman, SVP of threat intelligence at Egress.
“Some tactics will stay the same, but where returns diminish or disappear entirely, new tactics will emerge. Looking at the trends explored in the latest report, we can say with certainty that AI-powered attacks are here to stay.”
With new methods and technology proliferating across the threat landscape, who is being targeted?
Millennials are the primary target for phishing attacks, with GenX close behind. As far as roles go, CEOs are the most targeted, with financial and accounting professionals following.
Threats actors are targeting a range of industries, according to the report, including finance, legal, and healthcare sectors.
Cyber-criminals continue to take advantage of traditional working hours: the report showed that Sunday was the favoured data for phishing emails, with 22% of attacks sent out on this day, followed by Friday at 19%.
The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), part of the NatWest Group, is set to close 18 branches across Scotland, about a fifth of its 86 branches in total.
This equates to a total of 105 job losses, leaving only 69 branches of the bank left in Scotland.
Closures are set to take place accross the hole of Scotland, with three closures planned in Edinburgh and three in Glasgow.
Bathgate, East Kilbride, Helensburgh, Largs, and Abderdeen, will also see closures, while the two banks in Inverness will be created into a new flagship branch in the city.
For the remaining banks, RBS says they will invest over £10m in maintaining them.
More than 80% of active current account holders are using online services, more than ever before, according to the bank.
“While we are increasingly engaging our customers digitally, our branch network remains important to us,” read a statement.
“We are also significantly investing in refreshing our network – we are investing £10.5m in our network across Scotland, from 2023-24, as well as continuing to invest in shared solutions like the Post Office and banking hubs.
“Our customers appreciate the speed and convenience of digital banking for everyday transactions, and often, when it comes to making bigger, more complex decisions they value speaking to our skilled and experienced colleagues.”
The UK’s largest trade union body, the Trade Union Congress (TUC) has proposed a bill for the regulation of AI in the workplace.
As AI and automation continues to proliferate across the UK’s workforce, the TUC and other union bodies have raised concerns about how the burgeoning technology will affect the stability of workers across different industries, and how it may transform the workforce.
“AI is rapidly transforming our society and the world of work, yet there are no AI related laws in place in the UK, nor any current plans to legislate soon,” Mary Towers, policy officer, employment rights for TUC, wrote.
The TUC is therefore calling for “urgent action” to curtail the risks of using AI for decision-making in the workplace, such as hiring and firing decisions.
The AI Bill has several key considerations about controlling decision making, ensuring AI systems are used transparently and are explainable, and that workplace risks assessments are made as well.
Similarly to the EU’s AI Act, TUC’s bill classifies certain applications of AI as ‘high-risk’, this time when it concerns decision-making.
High risk here refers to decisions where there are “legal effects or other similarly significant effects.”
At the heart of the bill are provisions intended to keep workers fully consulted, informed, and involved in how AI is used in the workplace, centring on transparency, observability, and explainability. This includes algorithmic transparency to allow unions to better understand how these systems operate.
Also integral to the bill is ensuring workplace AI risk assessments are made every year, and that workers are included in a consultation process on how and where AI is used in their company.
Employers would also have to make a register of all applications of AI decision-making systems, as well as guaranteeing workers the right to a personalised statement explaining how AI was making high-risk decisions about them.
Union workers would also be able to request data about union members that is being used in relation to AI decision-making, in an attempt to redress the imbalance of power over data at work.
The Bill will also introduce a red line over the use of emotional recognition tech, and against discriminatory algorithms.
Ahead of World Earth Day, new research from employee benefits technology company Zest, finds that workers across the UK are increasingly focused on sustainability and expect their employers to do more – particularly younger generations.
Half (51%) of employees are keen to see their company invest more in sustainability, rising to 61% of younger workers aged 18-34.
The research from Zest also reveals that over half (53%) would like to see their company investing in more sustainable benefits such as electric vehicles and sustainable pensions, similarly rising to two-thirds (66%) of 18–34 year olds – and these demands are not going unnoticed.
More than four in ten (44%) businesses report an increase in the number of employees asking for sustainable benefits, and over half (53%) say that they have noticed an increase in the employees who care about sustainability over the last year.
Despite this, employees, particularly younger ones, believe that their company could be doing more.
Although half (50%) of young workers now say that sustainable benefits are the most important perks to them, a third (33%) of this age group believe that their employers do not care about sustainability.
Moreover, the research reveals the worrying impact of this disconnect, particularly as younger generations increasingly enter the workforce.
Two in five (42%) aged 18-34, believe that poor sustainability initiatives have a detrimental impact on their morale at work. This not only leaves existing employees demotivated, but businesses at risk of failing to attract fresh talent.
“It’s been a difficult few years for businesses, and the reality is that many – often not by choice – have been forced to put their sustainability initiatives on hold,” Matt Russell, CEO of Zest commented.
“Yet with the next generation increasingly populating the workforce, many of whom are naturally engaged in sustainability initiatives that will support their future, businesses must adapt to these changing demands. While many businesses will be focused on scope 1 and 2 emissions, a key area that can be overlooked in sustainability is benefits packages, for example electric vehicle schemes or sustainable pension funds.
“Not only will a greater focus on this better meet individual needs, improving overall employee proposition and the ability to attract and retain talent, but crucially it will assist with the UK’s broader journey to net zero.”
Unfortunately, at present just 29% of employees believe that their company’s benefits platform supports their individual needs and two in five (39%) employees would like their company to invest in their benefits platform more to increase accessibility.
Google is laying off an undetermined number of workers, the company announced Wednesday, as the company aims to lessen costs amid economic uncertainties.
The Alphabet-owned company left much to the imagination as it did not specify what departments or the amount of employees which would be effected by the cuts.
However, this is nothing new in tech nor for Google, as the new announcement comes after a flurry of layoffs across the company and the tech sphere. The tech giant laid off hundreds of employees just this January, across its engineering, assistant, and hardware teams.
“Throughout the second half of 2023 and into 2024, a number of our teams made changes to become more efficient and work better, remove layers and align their resources to their biggest product priorities,” a Google spokesperson said, as reported by Reuters.
A report from Business Insider, Google’s real estate and finance departments have been affected so far, including Google’s treasury, business services, and cash operations.
According to that report, the restructuring efforts include expansion in Bangalore, Mexico City and Dublin, which was communicated to staff by finance chief Ruth Porat.
2024 has already seen a swath of tech layoffs: according to layoffs.fyi, 74,672 tech workers have already lost their jobs just this year.
The Google lay offs simply signal that this pattern is likely to continue, partially to please investors amid turbulent global economics, and to usher in a new era of AI, requiring investment.
Students are turning to cyber-crime to support themselves, a new police sting shutting down a dark web cyber syndicate has revealed.
Police have shut down a site called LabHost where students could purchase cyber fraud capabilities to create realistic websites from household brands, including banks, to trick victims across the globe. In the UK, LabHost enabled the targeting of 70,000 victims.
A total of 37 suspects were arrested in connection with the fraud site, including the alleged ringmaster, and the site itself was disrupted as part of the takedown.
Victims ranged typically between 25 to 44, and typically entered sensitive information like usernames, passwords, and emails, which could be used to steal money or sold on the dark web.
The site, established in 2021, quickly gained traction, and by 2024, more than 40,000 fraudulent sites had been created and 2,000 users were registered and paying a monthly subscription fee for the services.
Those subscribing to the ‘worldwide membership,’ meaning they could target victims internationally, paid between £200 and £300 a month. The site was advertised as a “one-stop-shop for phishing,” making it easy for users to create fraudulent websites and trick their victims.
The user-friendly site even had tutorial videos for how to commit fraud using its services, even offering customer service if any problems with the software occurred.
In total, the site received just under £1m in payments from criminal users, but it is uncertain how much users made from targeting individuals with the site’s services. 800 users received a notification from the Police saying that the authorities know who they are and how much they have paid into LabHost.
With 70,000 individual UK victims alone, the site has amassed a massive 480,000 card numbers, 64,000 PIN numbers, and more than one million passwords globally.
“Online fraudsters think they can act with impunity. They believe they can hide behind digital identities and platforms such as LabHost and have absolute confidence these sites are impenetrable by policing, ” Dame Lynne Owens, deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service said.
“But this operation and others over the last year show how law enforcement worldwide can, and will, come together with one another and private sector partners to dismantle international fraud networks at source. Our approach is to be more precise and targeted with a clear focus on those enabling online fraud to be carried out on an international scale.”
Still, the LabHost shutdown represents just a small fraction of online fraud occurring, as pressure mounts for law enforcement to shut down the scourge of black market websites offering fraud-as-a-service proliferating online.
92% of enterprise PCs are left vulnerable amidst the AI revolution, according to new research from Absolute Security, a cybersecurity solutions provider.
The findings were revealed in the ‘Absolute Security Cyber Resilience Risk Index 2024’ report, where Absolute Security analysed data from over 5 million end point devices.
Despite the rush to leverage AI on endpoints, the report highlights that 92% of PCs have insufficient RAM capacity that leading industry groups say is needed to support it.
Organisations that want to take advantage of AI will need to replace entire devices, requiring them to ensure that mass deployments can remain secure against threats, and compliant with internal and external security policies.
The research also revealed that most industries continue to run weeks, even months, behind in patching software vulnerabilities, endpoints remain vulnerable to threats, and most enterprise PCs will need to be replaced to support AI-based technologies. All of these factors are creating numerous compliance and security challenges.
Education and government are the top sectors with the worst patching records, taking 119 and 82 days respectively to patch.
Another concern the report highlights is that when not supported by automated remediation technologies, PC Endpoint Protection Platforms (EPP) and network access security applications fail to operate effectively 24% of the time. On almost 14% of devices, unsupported EPPs are not even present, opening high-risk security gaps.
“As an industry we are intently focused on the inevitable attack coming, breach waiting to happen, and disruption around the next corner,” Wyatt said.
“Not enough attention is paid to the simple strategies that can dramatically increase your resilience to ensure you remain resistant to vulnerabilities and can recover quickly. The stakes continue to get higher as we face the urgent need to adopt AI and other innovations to remain competitive.
“Cyber Resilience is a paradigm that extends beyond traditional cybersecurity. It’s about ensuring that your digital operations, which are the heart of your organisation, can withstand and quickly recover from cyberattacks, technical malfunctions, deliberate tampering, and new deployments.”
Sophos X-Ops has discovered multiples of a new emergent ransomware variants proliferating across the dark web.
Junk gun ransomware, cheap independently produces and crudely constructed ransomware variants, are being used by threat actors to disrupt the traditional affiliate-based ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) model that has dominated the ransomware racket for nearly a decade.
Instead of selling or buying ransomware to – or as – an affiliate, attackers are creating and selling unsophisticated ransomware variants for a one-time cost, which other attackers sometimes see as an opportunity to target small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) or even individuals.
“For the past year or two, ransomware has reached a kind of homeostasis. It’s still one of the most pervasive and serious threats for businesses, but our most recent Active Adversary report found that the number of attacks has stabilised, and the RaaS racket has remained the go-to operating model for most major ransomware groups,” said Christopher Budd, director, threat research, Sophos.
“Over the past two months, however, some of the biggest players in the ransomware ecosystem have disappeared or shut down, and, in the past, we’ve also seen ransomware affiliates vent their anger over the profit-sharing scheme of RaaS. Nothing within the cybercrime world stays static forever, and these cheap versions of off-the-shelf ransomware may be the next evolution in the ransomware ecosystem—especially for lower-skilled cyber attackers simply looking to make a profit rather than a name for themselves.”
As detailed in the report, the median price for these junk gun ransomware variants on the dark web was $375 (£360), significantly cheaper than some kits for RaaS affiliates, which can cost more than $1000 (£801). The report indicates that cyber-attackers have deployed four of these variants in attacks.
While the capabilities of junk gun ransomware vary widely, their biggest selling points are that the ransomware requires little or no supporting infrastructure to operate, and the users aren’t obligated to share their profits with the creators.
Junk gun ransomware discussions are mainly taking place primarily on English-speaking dark web forums aimed at lower-tier criminals, rather than well-established Russian-speaking forums frequented by prominent attacker groups.
These new variants offer an attractive way for newer cyber-criminals to get started in the ransomware world, and alongside the advertisements for these cheap ransomware variants, are numerous posts requesting advice and tutorials on how to get started.
“These types of ransomware variants aren’t going to command the million-dollar ransoms like Clop and Lockbit but they can indeed be effective against SMBs, and for many attackers beginning their ‘careers,’ that’s enough. While the phenomenon of junk gun ransomware is still relatively new, we’ve already seen posts from their creators about their ambitions to scale their operations, and we’ve seen multiple posts from others talking about creating their own ransomware variants,” said Budd.
“More concerningly, this new ransomware threat poses a unique challenge for defenders. Because attackers are using these variants against SMBs and the ransom demands are small, most attacks are likely to go undetected and unreported. That leaves an intelligence gap for defenders, one the security community will have to fill.”
A new report has accused Meta of failing to moderate political ads after discovering a flurry of pro-Russian propaganda in Europe ahead of EU elections.
The new investigation by AI Forensics has explored a sprawling Russian influence operation exploiting the tech giant’s failure to moderate ads and delete propaganda in the EU.
“The systemic failure in moderating political ads by Meta is deeply concerning, especially with elections on the horizon. The surge of pro-Russian propaganda is a prime example; despite repeated warnings, Meta has acknowledged the issue, claimed significant investment in safety and security, yet neglected to effectively address it, casting doubt on their commitment to democratic integrity,” said Paul Bouchaud, the lead researcher of the study.
“While pro-Russian propaganda efforts in Europe intensify, Meta is not taking effective action, even against operations that have been repeatedly exposed and acknowledged. These elections are a critical first test of the EU’s new Digital Services Act, which finally gives the EU the tools to act on such oversight,” said Marc Faddoul, director of AI Forensics.
Investigating Meta’s Ad Library in 16 EU countries since August 2023, after the EU’s Digital Services Act was put in place, the study found undeclared political ads among the corpus of 30 million published in January and February 2024.
The study revealed that not only are less than 5% of undeclared political ads moderated by Meta, 60% of ads moderated by Meta do not even fall into their own moderation guidelines on political advertising.
Alarmingly, AI Forensics discovered a network of 3,826 pages disseminating pro-Russian propaganda in a coordinated Facebook campaign.
In France and Germany this campaign reached 38 mullion users between August 2023 and March 2024 – Meta only moderated less than 20% of these ads, typically well after the content had spread.
The investigation comes as the EU looks to implement more stringent regulations designed to strengthen oversight on advertising. These include the Digital Services Act, as well as new regulation on the transparency and targeting of political advertising, and the EU Commission’s recently published guidelines on election integrity, which compel platforms to clearly label political ads and enhance transparency.
“If there is one thing to celebrate, it is the fact that the new transparency requirements for platforms in the EU are proving effective: without those rules, which Meta diligently implemented, we would not have had access to the data which allowed us to expose this operation,” Faddoul.
The search for the top tech innovator in Scotland has been launched as part of an annual competition to highlight the next great technology business.
The competition – KPMG Private Enterprise Global Tech Innovator – is now in its 11th year and has seen previous winners such as What3Words, SafetoNet, FIDOTech and 2022 winner HiiROC who went on to win the global final during Web Summit.
The competition is open to scale-up businesses who are growing quickly.
Successfully shortlisted businesses will be invited to pitch their business and present their growth ambitions to panels of industry experts for a Scottish heat.
The Scotland winner will pitch again at a UK final. The UK winner will then pitch at the global final the be held in Lisbon during Web Summit later in the year. There they will pitch in front of an audience of industry specialists and global investors.
Almost 400 aspiring tech giants applied to the competition last year, which was ultimately won by St Helens based Inovus Medical for the technology they are using to provide a solution to the global surgeon shortage via their state-of-the-art digital surgery platform.
Aberdeen based Leap Automation, a robotics and AI business was crowned the winner of the Scotland heat in 2023.
Commenting on the competition, Amy Burnett, Head of KPMG Private Enterprise Access, said: “Our search for Scotland’s top tech innovators aims to shine a light on some of the country’s most exciting businesses and ideas.
“Over the few years, we have seen our competition go from strength to strength as our tech ecosystems in Scotland continues to mature, grow and develop.
“Innovation is now firmly on the agenda of businesses and policy makers as a vital contributor to the health and wealth of our economy. This competition is a great platform to help profile, recognise and celebrate the outstanding technology being developed across the Scotland, and the wider UK.”
The competition is open to pure technology, tech-enabled, tech-led, or tech-driven businesses. Shortlisted entrants will be invited to pitch their innovations and present their growth plans to a panel of judges across eight regional heats.
The winners of each regional stage will then go on to the national final to be held in London in July. The overall winner will then go on to represent the UK at Web Summit later in the year where a panel of global judges will crown the KPMG Private Enterprise Global Tech Innovator.
Investment scams were up 23% in 2023, accounting for a third of all money Barclays customers lost, according to data released by the banking group.
This coincides with data from the Financial Conduct Authority’s customer helpline that shows there has been a sharp spike in investment scam-related calls, up 193% in the last five years.
Of all scam types, investment scams made up the greatest share of total claim values, with the volume of investment scams increasing by nearly a third (29%).
Investment scam victims are claiming an average of £14,313, over five times more than the overall average scam claim.
Millennials and men are particularly susceptible to the scams, according to the data: men’s average investment scam claim increases to £16,306, while claims by young people aged 21-40 account for 48% of all investment scams.
Whilst scammers target potential victims in a number of ways, adverts purporting to offer high-return investment opportunities are a common tactic – which a quarter (23%) of young people saying that they’ve spotted what they believe to be an investment scam advertised on social media.
Almost one in five young people (17%) have been contacted on social media by an individual offering an investment opportunity and one in every ten people in the UK (11%) know someone who has fallen victim to an investment scam.
Scammers often trick their victims by convincing them at first to only invest a small amount. This then seems to return high rewards, which the scammers pay out from other victim’s money.
This tactic often convinces the victim that the investment is legitimate and in-turn leads to larger amounts being lost to the scammers, often over a long period of time.
Investors, however, have saved £2 million by identifying when purported investment opportunities were too good to be true – either by spotting, spelling, grammatical or formatting mistakes, or by realising that requests for personal information were suspicious.
However, with advancements in AI technology, the ability to produce convincing scam material is more accessible than ever
“It’s worrying to see such a rise in investment scams – with victims often heartlessly scammed out of large sums of money that they have been saving for their future,” Stephanie Mac Sweeny, head of fraud strategy at Barclays, said.
“The banking industry works hard to educate, identify and intercept scams, but the only way to drive real change is to target these scams at their source.
“With the majority of investment scams now taking place on their platforms, social media firms must take responsibility, act on their promises and deliver a robust verification system to protect innocent people from falling prey to fraudulent investment adverts.”
Worldwide IT spending is expected to total $5.06 trillion (£4.06 trillion) in 2024, an increase of 8% from 2023, according to the latest forecast by Gartner Inc.
This is an increase from the previous quarter’s forecast of 6.8% growth and puts worldwide IT spending on track to surpass $8 trillion (£6.4 trillion) well before the end of the decade.
“With spending on IT services on track to grow by 9.7% to eclipse $1.52 trillion (£1.22 trillion), this category is on pace to become the largest market that Gartner tracks,” said John-David Lovelock, distinguished VP analyst at Gartner.
“Enterprises are quickly falling behind IT service firms in terms of attracting talent with key IT skill sets. This creates a greater need for investment in consulting spend compared to internal staff. We are at an inflection year for this trend, with more money being spent on consulting than internal staff for the first time.”
Shift to GenAI Focus
Spending on data centre systems is expected to see a notable jump in growth from 2023 (4%) to 2024 (10%) in large part due to planning for generative AI (genAI).
“We are seeing a cycle of story, plan, execution when it comes to GenAI. In 2023, enterprises were telling the story of GenAI and in 2024 we are seeing most of them planning for eventual execution in 2025,” said Lovelock.
“Technology providers are required to be a step ahead of this cycle and are already in the execution phase. They are bringing GenAI capabilities to existing products and services, as well as to use cases being identified by their enterprise clients.
“There is also gold rush level spending by service providers in markets supporting large scale GenAI projects, such as servers and semiconductors,” said Lovelock. “In 2024, AI servers will account for close to 60% of hyperscalers total server spending.”
With the average lifespan for mobile phones is shortening and consumers and enterprises are replacing mobile phones earlier, device spending is projected to increase.
Gartner expects device spending to see a 3.6% growth rate in 2024, achieving $688bn (£552.11bn) during 2024, up from 2023 spending lows of $664bn (£516.80bn).
Female-founded fintechs are performing better than male-led ones, but are still making up less than a fifth across the UK.
This is according to Scaling UK Regional Fintech, a study conducted by Innovate Finance, Streets Consulting, and Whitecape Consulting.
From 250 fintech scaleups outside of London, the report found that female-founded forms achieved 30% more turnover growth than male-founded fintechs.
However, female-founded firms made up only 16% of the surveyed startups, showing a great gender disparity in quantity, not quality.
Further, the survey found that fintechs with multiple founded tended to perform better in terms of more revenue growth.
“The data on diversity from this report is bitter-sweet,” Julia Streets, CEO of Streets Consulting said.
“Once again we see the benefits of diversity and inclusion, since FinTechs founded by women significantly outperform those founded by men; but once again we see the size of the challenge, as fewer than a fifth of FinTech firms are founded by women.”
Outside of gender diversity, the report revealed some other trends of fintech success outside of London.
Nine out of ten firms that participated in an accelerator programme went on to raise funding, which could give credence to regional startup hubs.
Interesting, while 87% of fintechs in the study had a B2B element to their go to market strategy, compared to 30% with B2C (business to customer), B2C firms performed better on average, achieving double the revenue and employee growth of B2B only firms.
“The research highlights some fascinating and surprising trends, but also contains valuable advice from those founders who have ‘been there and done that’ in terms of creating and growing new FinTechs,” Julian Wells, director & fintech lead at Whitecap Consulting, said.
“The main message for us from this report is that in today’s world where you scale a business is nowhere near as important as how you scale a business.
He added: “What is not a surprise to us, is to see so many regional FinTech innovators succeeding outside of London – there is an extremely vibrant ecosystem of FinTech innovators across all four corners of our nation. These are exactly the kinds of data and insights which can help shape the UK’s effort to maintain its position as a true leader in global FinTech.”
Creating sexually explicit ‘deepfake’ images will be made illegal in a new UK law, the Ministry of Justice announced.
Under the new offence, those who create these images without consent will face a criminal record and an unlimited fine. If the ‘deepfake’ image is shared more widely, offenders could be sent to jail.
The new law will mean that if someone creates a sexually explicit deepfake, even if they have no intent to share it but purely want to cause alarm, humiliation or distress to the victim, they will be committing a criminal offence.
It will also strengthen existing offences, as if a person both creates this kind of image and then shares it, the CPS could charge them with two offences, potentially leading to their sentence being increased.
Deepfake images have become a public scourge, targeting everyday citizens and celebrities alike. The fake images and videos are made to look hyper-realistic with the victim usually unaware and unable to give their consent to being sexualised in such a way.
With the rise of AI technology, deepfakes have never been easier to generate and disseminate.
Last year, reforms in the Online Safety Act criminalised the sharing of ‘deepfake’ intimate images for the first time. This new offence, which will be introduced through an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill, will mean anyone who makes these sexually explicit deepfake images of adults maliciously and without consent will face the consequences of their actions.
“The creation of deepfake sexual images is despicable and completely unacceptable irrespective of whether the image is shared,” minister for victims and safeguarding, Laura Farris, said.
“It is another example of ways in which certain people seek to degrade and dehumanise others – especially women. And it has the capacity to cause catastrophic consequences if the material is shared more widely. This government will not tolerate it.
“This new offence sends a crystal clear message that making this material is immoral, often misogynistic, and a crime.”
Further to criminalising deepfakes, the UK government has introduced more changes to the Criminal Justice Bill.
Under the new bill, it will be a criminal offence to intentionally take or record an intimate image or film without consent or a ‘reasonable belief’ in consent, take or record an intimate image or film without consent with the intent to cause alarm, distress or humiliation or for the purpose of sexual gratification.
Over half (52%) of UK IT leaders believe the government cannot defend its citizens and enterprises against an act of cyber-warfare, new research from asset intelligence cybersecurity company Armis says.
This lack of faith in the government is higher than anywhere else surveyed in Europe, including Germany (40%) and France (42%). It also marks a significant change in sentiment compared to a year ago, when 77% of UK IT leaders had confidence in the UK government.
Ahead of a pivotal election year, 37% of UK IT leaders also believe cyber-war can impact the integrity of an electoral process – this spikes significantly when speaking to respondents from the government sector (60%), the medical, healthcare and pharmaceutical industry (67%) and financial services (71%).
In addition, 45% also say cyber-war can result in cyber-attacks on the media, outpacing concerns of respondents from the U.S., France and Germany.
“The IT industry’s overwhelming sentiment that the government will be unable to keep citizens safe and the country secure underscores a critical shortfall in defensive measures to date,” said David Critchley, regional director, UK & Ireland, Armis.
“In this pivotal election year, it’s imperative for the government and organisations to proactively rebuild national confidence by enhancing defensive cybersecurity strategies, coming together where they can to maximise forward strides. A robust investment in cybersecurity, coupled with the deployment of AI-driven tech, is our best chance to shield society from the threat of cyber-warfare.”
The research surveyed over 2,600 global security and IT decision-makers and included proprietary data from Amis Labs.
No Borders to Cyber-warfare
The surveyed revealed troubling statistics in cyber-warfare, showing that UK organisations are in the crosshairs of global adversaries.
Over two fifths (46%) of those surveyed in the UK say geopolitical tensions with China and Russia have created a greater threat of cyber-warfare, with 45% saying Russia poses a greater threat to global security than China.
Half of businesses (50%) also believe that North Korea’s cyber capabilities have the potential to instigate a full-scale cyber-war that could cripple critical infrastructure worldwide.
Unprepared to Face the Threats
43% of UK organisations reveal their company has experienced one to two cybersecurity breaches, the research has found.
When asked if IT leaders experienced more threat activity on their organisation’s network in the past six months, 54% noted it stayed the same, while 18% saw an increase.
However, these figures rise dramatically to 37% for utilities organisations seeing an increase in attacks and 42% for those in the medical, healthcare, and pharmaceutical sector.
Despite over half (56%) of UK IT leaders stating they are concerned about the threat of cyber-warfare, only 27% of IT leaders say they have a plan in place to handle cyber-warfare and that it is not validated. 19% of IT leaders are uncertain employees know who to speak to if they notice suspicious cyber activity.
Innovation Takes a Hit
UK businesses have halted innovation efforts amid rising cyber-threats, despite the increasing sophistication of hackers.
Armis Lab researchers have confirmed several threat actors from countries including Russia, Chine, North Korea, and Iran are using AI for advanced cyber capabilities.
Despite this, nearly two-thirds (64%) of IT leaders claim digital transformation projects have been paused or pulled owing to the threat of cyber-warfare.
Given about £27bn is spent every year on digital transformation in the UK, the impact is colossal.
One-fifth (21%) of UK organisations also say their company has not allocated sufficient budget for cybersecurity programmes, people, and processes.
“Make no mistake – we are in a cyber arms race against our adversaries and society as we know it is at risk,” said Nadir Izrael, CTO and co-founder, Armis. “Relying on legacy technologies and manual security processes is the equivalent of bringing a knife to a gunfight, given the threats we’re up against and the arsenal of nation-state actors.
“It is critical that security leaders fight fire with fire, leveraging AI-powered solutions that empower them with actionable intelligence before a vulnerability is announced, before an attack is launched and before their organisation is impacted. Forewarned is forearmed.”
Increasingly advanced technology has allowed fraudsters to increase the sophistication and efficacy of their malicious social engineering ploys, new research has found.
Cifas, a UK fraud prevention service, released its 2024 Fraudscape report, detailing the fraud trends seen in 2023 from more than 374,000 cases reported to its database.
In the report, Cifas members reported being increasingly concerned about the potential growth in AI generated fraud, enabling sophisticated phishing scams and synthetic identities.
Identity Fraud
According to the report, identity fraud accounted for 64% of overall cases in Cifas’ database, with over 237,000 cases reported in 2023.
Organisations were increasingly concerned about social engineering tactics, which have been sharpened with AI, and growing exploitation of cost-of-living pressures.
Cifas found that personal bank accounts were the most targeted, up 12% on the previous year, pointing to concerns that data harvesting techniques to open fraud and abuse accounts, steal identities, and takeover customer accounts are rising.
Facility Takeover
Facility takeover has increased by 13% since 2022, now representing one in ten cases recorded in the database.
Telecommunications were most impacted by this method, account for 41% of these cases. This increase partly reflects a shift in fraudulent methods, with criminals increasingly targeting existing accounts to obtain new products or upgrades.
In a similar vein, over 73,000 cases of misuse of facility were reported in 2023, a 5% increase from 2022. Loan products recorded a notable rise (+82%), followed by asset finance (+45%) and plastic cards (+17%). The overall misuse of facility data covered several industries, highlighting the impact of the cost-of-living pressures and individuals looking to avoid payments or financially fain from stealing assets.
“As our latest data shows, the impact of fraud and financial crime on people, companies and the public sector continues at epidemic levels,” Stephen Dalton, director of intelligence for Cifas said.
“Ongoing economic uncertainty and cost-of-living pressures provide a rich source of opportunity for criminals to exploit people at their most vulnerable. These circumstances may also be the catalyst for some individuals to commit fraud and supplement their income during difficult times.”
Mike Haley, CEO of Cifas, added: “Criminals are finding new and sophisticated ways to target consumers, such as through social media and AI and deepfake technology. We are committed to driving down these cases through the sharing of data and intelligence and building effective defences to prevent fraud.
“To achieve our goal takes a huge multi-sector, collaborative effort. That means having effective cross-government leadership in response to fraud, enhancing victim support, providing critical counter-fraud insight to social media and Big Tech companies, and educating young people about the serious consequences of financial crime.
“We continue to work closely with the fraud prevention industry and multiple sectors to stem the rising tide of fraud and financial crime.”
Digital poverty is a culmination of several disparities, including a lack of devices, inadequate connectivity, and deficient digital skills.
According to the Digital Poverty Alliance (DPA), about 13-19 million people over 16 years old are experiencing at least one form of this inequality.
One in two adults are in digital poverty, with one in five severely digitally excluded. Further, around 20% of children are disenfranchised in the digital space.
But what leads to digital poverty, and how can people in the UK escape it? To try and answer this, we interviewed Elizabeth Anderson, the CEO of the DPA, to gain insight into the scale of the issue, and how it can be tackled.
The Never-Ending Cycle
According to Anderson, digital poverty is a vicious cycle perpetuated by three main issues: affordability, the incessant push to online-only services, and a substantial and growing lack of public trust in an increasingly digital world.
Being in poverty is expensive, and digital poverty is but a subsect of socioeconomic inequality waging a war against UK households. The cost-of-living crisis has only exacerbated these issues.
“We often talk about the choices people have to make, choosing between data or dinner,” Anderson said.
These are real choices with real consequences. At the height of the energy crisis, a million UK households cancelled their broadband subscriptions in order to prioritise heating their homes during the winter months.
Connectivity issues are a major driver of digital poverty. Either there is a lack of infrastructure, such as in rural and coastal communities, driving geographic inequalities and digital isolation, or people are priced out of paying for broadband.
“What we often see is people going for broadband and data plans that are the lowest cost, which means that they often run out of data by the middle of the month, and they cannot afford to top up or get more data until their next paycheck,” Anderson said.
With more and more services, including HMRC and unemployment benefits, moving online, people are ever more reliant on digital connection.
“We often think that if something is put online, it is free to access for everyone, but that just isn’t true,” Anderson said. “You need a device, internet access, you need data, to apply for a job, to access benefits, and that costs money. Not everyone has that access.”
92% of jobs are exclusively advertised online, UK government skills training schemes require a stable device and connection to participate in – digital poverty is difficult to break out of without intervention.
A lack of digital skills and media literacy is also leaving people behind, and the demographics are often surprising to managers.
“We get managers expecting young people to be digital natives, but they are missing key digital skills,” Anderson said.
While elder populations are the most disadvantaged when it comes to digital poverty, 16 to 24 year olds are the next most impacted demographic, in terms of age. These young people are leaving home and entering the workforce, often with limited digital skills, the inability to afford a device or to pay monthly connectivity costs as well as rent, electricity, and food.
A lack of digital skills can severely impact confidence in applying for degrees, jobs, and in interacting with the digital world as a whole.
“With advancements in AI, we’ve seen a lot of push back from people who are afraid of fraud, afraid of scams, afraid of what it will mean for their information online,” Anderson mentioned.
“So a lot of people are also opting to not venture into the digital world. It’s an understandable choice, but it can really hurt them in terms of their long term economic stability.”
These three overarching, societally-ingrained issues, creates a vicious cycle of digital poverty affecting millions of people across the UK.
“Within society, and within government, there is this push for families and households to help themselves,” Anderson said. “And whilst there’s a lot to be said for that, if people don’t have the tools to be able to do that, how are they ever going to move themselves out?”
So what can be done? To provide devices, provide connectivity, to drive digital skills and digital literacy?
Direct Action, Advocacy, and Glimmers of Hope
As a charitable organisation, the DPA is taking direct action to combat digital poverty throughout the UK. Their Tech4Schools partnership with Amazon has delivered laptops to 23 schools throughout the UK, and has seen how one device can create a positive ripple effect for household outcomes.
“By just providing one device to a household, an older daughter is able to go home, do her homework from home rather than stay at school into the late hours, and also watch her younger sibling so the parent can get a few extra hours of work,” Anderson said.
This is not a heartwarming story – children should not have to stay at school all day to just complete assignments, and older siblings should not have to be parentified just so a parent can make enough money to support their family. More intervention is clearly necessary, but it does show that a device is key to bettering outcomes.
The Tech4Schools programme has seen better outcomes for students who can now complete coursework on a device other than a mobile phone, which is often ill-equipped to help students complete assignments in primary schools, let alone pass their higher education requirements and apply for university and college.
Providing one device to a household can have transformational effects, but this is only if they can also access broadband.
Broadband initiatives in the UK are controversial in their progress, to say the least. Geographically, rural and coastal communities are suffering the most from poor broadband connectivity – only 80% of rural households in the UK have standard broadband availability compared to 98% of urban households – but lower income families are consistently struggling to pay for connectivity in the form of wifi and data.
Without these connections, the benefits of devices are lost, and the ability for people to work from home, apply for benefits, and contact essential services, are often lost.
“Infrastructure is an incredibly important part of this, particularly in rural areas,” Anderson pointed out.
But infrastructure is not a quick fix – providing connectivity to rural and remote areas is difficult and costly, and these costs often trickle down to consumers.
New innovations, however, are showing promising economic benefits which could contribute to a solution to all broadband woes, without and outwith cities.
“We are particularly excited about initiatives such as opening roaming provisions and mesh networks, which can work incredibly well in small communities,” Anderson said.
OpenRoaming relies on cloud federations of interoperable Wi-Fi networks enabling automatic internet connection, allowing users to connect to multiple compatible networks without needing to select a specific network.
Mesh networks offer a similar solution, allowing multiple nodes to connect forming a ‘mesh’ of wifi connections that devices can connect to, lowering the number of installations necessary.
Both of these installations can lessen infrastructure costs and lower overall connectivity costs – Rochdale Council installed a mesh network, with monthly internet costs average out at 27 pence per household per month.
“So the opportunities that open roaming and mesh networks bring in terms of creating true affordability are actually something truly fantastic that we mustn’t ignore,” Anderson asserted.
Businesses appear to be waking up to this reality, according to Anderson, and once they understand the dire issue of digital poverty, they are keen to help.
But for the government, “there is a sheer lack of awareness around the scale of digital poverty, which is something that we are working to really increase,” Anderson said.
While the intersectionality of digital poverty has been explained, Anderson says the DPA needs to be practical in their approach.
The cost-of-living crisis has pushed families to the brink, and the government has a mix of priorities to address as far as rising energy, housing, and food costs.
Anderson is confident that advocacy, and leveraging funding from local authorities, is key to tackling the issue. Providing hubs, access to the internet for lower income families, and devices are key drivers to get families out of poverty.
From a business perspective, the case to lesson digital poverty is quite clear – “if six million people across the UK gained stronger digital skills, that would create a £17 billion earnings premium,” Anderson said
And even to struggling families, the barriers created by digital poverty are apparent.
“Being able to provide food, being able to heat the home, sits at the forefront of people’s minds,” Anderson said.
“However, what we know through the work that we do, talking to families, is that this access and ability, lets people not just be able to live their lives more easily, but actually to forge a future which you can really now only do so through online access.
“It’s one of these differentiations between the urgent and the immediate need, and the long term importance that really ranks incredibly highly in terms of how parents feel about providing for their children,” Anderson explained.
So if the social, moral, and economic case has been made, if industry is keen to participate and emerging technologies are able to help, then what are the next steps in ending digital poverty?
The UK government’s last digital inclusion strategy was published in 2014, and is now a decade old.
The DPA has released their own national delivery plan, which includes six key missions for government, industry, and charities to bring digital poverty to an end by 2030.
Anderson hopes the next government takes positive action and steps toward closing digital exclusion, and sees digital poverty as a perpetuating symptom of overall disparity, a cyclical fever running rampant across the UK, only worsening outcomes.
Interested industries can also get involved via the Industry Forum, where companies can offer old devices, skills training, and industry guidance to close the skills and devices gap.
From security to AI, Gartner has revealed its top technology trends in government for 2024, which can guide public sector leaders to deliver better, faster, and increasingly more cost-efficient citizen services.
“Escalating global turmoil, continual cyber threats and the adoption of AI are putting increasing pressure on governments to meet citizen demands faster and more creatively than ever before,” said Todd Kimbriel, VP analyst at Gartner.
“Government CIOs must find new ways to meet citizen demands for modern, accessible and resilient services, by focusing on sustainable and scalable technology.”
Below are the top five technology trends Gartner believes public sector leaders should consider the impact of and make a case for investments in to improve business capabilities, achieve leadership priorities and create a more future-ready government organisation.
Adaptive Security
Gartner predicts that by 2028, multiagent AI in threat detection and incident response will rise from 5% to 70% of AI implementations to augment, not replace staff.
AI is creating new cybersecurity adaptations and requirements, which presents new opportunities for government CIOs. An adaptive security model merges and continually adjusts cybersecurity tools, techniques and talent to the changing threat landscape.
“Government CIOs and leaders need to overcome any lingering resistance to the adoption of adaptive security by linking its value to broader organizational objectives, such as digital innovation and transformation, national security objectives and operational resilience,” said Kimbriel.
Digital Identity Ecosystems
Digital identity in government is expanding into larger ecosystems that include user authentication, unique citizen or organisation identifiers, and credential verification, such as smartphone-based identity wallets.
Gartner predicts at least 500 million smartphone users will regularly make verifiable claims using a digital identity wallet built on distributed ledger technology by 2026.
According to Gartner, government CIOs can strengthen their digital identity strategy by building on use cases and partnerships that break out of traditional sector silos to add greater value for citizens, government and businesses.
They have an opportunity to shape these emerging ecosystems by asserting government’s role as a potential federator, facilitator and regulator of digital identity.
AI for Decision Intelligence
Gartner predicts more than 70% of government agencies will use AI to enhance human administrative decision making by 2026.
According to the analysts, machine learning, analytics and generative AI will mature over the next two years and combine into a suite of tools set to support improved government service delivery.
“These tools will need to be subject to careful governance, so it’s important government CIOs drive AI adoption and governance policies throughout the organization,” said Kimbriel.
“They must develop a strategy that incorporates these policies with a focus on desired outcomes, then take a continuous assurance approach to ensure they are maintained after implementation.”
Government organizations are increasingly adopting platform-based solutions, such as industry cloud and low-code application platforms.
This enables them to quickly deploy business capabilities and address service delivery risks posed by antiquated systems, and easily flex and scale to citizen service demands. Cloud-native capabilities in these platform solutions provide greater cost control and faster time to value.
Platform cloud-based solutions will open new opportunities for innovation and transformation of business processes in government organizations. Gartner recommends government CIOs implement a multicloud strategy to maximize these opportunities and mitigate the complexities of incremental modernization across multiple systems.
Programmatic Data Management
As government leaders are demanding increased use of data for decision making and planning, Gartner expects investment in this arena to be prioritised.
Programmatic data management is the systematic and scalable approach to enable enterprise-wide use of data assets, which is being advanced by automation platforms and their ability to incorporate AI capabilities.
According to Gartner, more than 60% of government organizations will prioritize investment in business process automation by 2026, up from 35% in 2022.
“Data remains the basis of decision making in government, and the growing proliferation of AI re-emphasizes the need for government CIOs to enhance the quality and efficiency of data at scale by improving the rules and structures that govern it,” said Kimbriel.
Tesla, the electric car company, has announced it willy lay off 10% of its global workforce.
“There is nothing I hate more, but it must be done,” Elon Musk, Tesla CEO said in a memo first reported by Electrek.
He said the cuts would enable Tesla to “be lean, innovative, and hungry for the next growth phase cycle.”
Musk assured staff that the decision to lay off 10% of workers, which according to estimates from last December totalled at 140,473 people, was made after a thorough review.
Tesla is yet to reveal its quarterly earnings, which is due later this month, but has suffered a decline in vehicle demands in the first quarter of 2024.
Recently, the company decreased production at its factor in Shanghai, and shortened shifts of workers at its Cybertruck factory in Austin, Texas.
Sales of electric vehicles (EVs) are down across the globe, particularly hitting Tesla, as it solely produces expensive, high-end EVs. Competition from Chinese makers offering cheaper EVs has squeezed the California-headquartered purveyor further – its market share in China fell by 1.1% just in the beginning of the year.
Shares in Tesla fell by over 30% just this year, and it has performed worse than legacy car makers.
The job cuts should total around 14,000, but the distribution of these cuts remains uncertain.
Tech layoffs have already skyrocketed in 2024, following the scourge of cuts seen in 2023. According to layoffs.fyi, around 60,000 tech workers have already been laid off. Amazon, Snap, PayPal, EA Games have all announced major cuts.
Global people development company Insights Learning and Development has selected Gigged.AI’s Internal Talent Marketplace (ITM) software to leverage the skills of their associate consultants.
The new platform, developed by the Glasgow-based start-up, automates the process of matching skills to projects, helping Insights to streamline people operations and free up staff to focus on critical tasks.
In addition to detailing Associate Consultant skills and certifications, the platform shows availability and enables meetings to be booked into various calendar types, to quickly and efficiently accommodate client needs.
“We are thrilled to have been selected by Insights to help implement skill-based hiring across their Associate Consultant network,” Gigged.AI CEO and co-founder Rich Wilson commented.
“It is particularly exciting to be working with a successful global business who share our values in putting their talented people at the heart of their growth and success. Our Internal Talent Marketplace is a great way to unlock talent through skill-based matching.”
Jackie Kipps, finance and corporate services director at Insights added: “Following a thorough vendor selection process, we are delighted to have selected Gigged.AI to create a new booking platform to help us better manage our fantastic, global Associate Consultant network.
“We are excited by the potential of the new booking platform, which will support Insights in continuing its current growth trajectory, whilst placing customer needs at the heart of decision making.”
The partnership hopes to serve as an example of collaboration within the Scottish business ecosystem. Gigged.AI recently launched a first-of-its-kind free trial offer for its Internal Talent Marketplace, having completed successful pilots with organisations including The Data Lab, Scotland’s innovation centre for data science and AI.
Research from Gigged.AI found that nearly half of all IT firms are struggling in the ongoing skills shortage, making recruitment all the more important among companies aiming to find the best tech talent.
The EU’s landmark AI act “fails to effectively protect the rule of law and civic space,” according to the European Centre for Not-for-Profit Law (ECNL).
The group of civil society law experts are saying that the EU’s AI Act, which is the first major attempt to legislate the rapidly proliferating technology, prioritises industry interests above the public.
A study developed by the group says that while the Act creates high standards for the technical development of AI systems, it does little to protect what it deems as “fundamental rights, including key civic rights and freedoms.”
“They are riddled with far-reaching exceptions, lowering protection standards, especially in the area of law enforcement and migration,” ECNL said.
It is not the first group to say that the EU AI Act does not go far enough to protect fundamental rights, especially in terms of law enforcement and migration.
Amnesty International raised criticisms that, while the law restricted the use of biometric facial recognition in public spaces and in most law enforcement applications, it allowed the use of this AI technology for migrants and refugees in Europe.
ECNL says that the exceptions real time biometrics essentially undermine any prohibitions for the technology, as law enforcement are able to use it to search for missing persons, preventing terrorist attacks, or identifying suspects of serious crimes.
The exceptions, the law group says, are too far reaching and essentially negate the point of the Act.
Further, the AI Act allows companies to self-assess the risk level of their AI applications, the group says. Even if a company or public authority does fall into the high risk category, they are able to self-identify as not falling into the category of high risk, and therefore can continue to use their AI without the extra stipulations provided in the act.
“The final version of the AI Act is likely to lead to a fragmented application of the law, leaving it to Member States and national authorities to close the loopholes and monitor the self-assessment activities of AI developers and deployers,” the ECNL said.
One of the most glaring loopholes brought up by the ECNL is a blanket exception for national security to use AI, with AI systems developed solely for national security are protected from scrutiny of the law. This means that use cases of AI that have received blanket bans could still be used if there is a case for national security, which can be invoked by the government and law enforcement to justify otherwise banned uses of AI.
This leaves much of the AI Act up to the interpretation of governing EU bodies, but governments and law enforcement can largely exempt themselves from the laws scrutiny via these loopholes.
Also paramount to the Act’s shortcomings is its lack of commitment to the right to participation.
Public authorities and companies are not required to engage with outside stakeholders when addressing and assessing its fundamental rights impacts of AI. While civil society can participate in AI regulation via a membership to the advisory forum in the AI Office and AI Board, the set up of these will be integral in determining the direction of AI implementation.
Edinburgh Napier University has partnered with Women’s Enterprise Scotland (WES) to support more women getting into the business world.
In their new collaboration, called SDG5 Living, women looking to start a business or further their careers can find tailored training, resources, and networking.
The programme draw support from not only the university, but from WES Chair and entrepreneur in residence Lynne Cadenhead, who has expertise and experience as an entrepreneur, and is still the acting CEO of her third startup company, Immaculate Drinks.
Set up to advance the number of women in business, the initiative was designed to advance the fifth sustainability development goal set in 2015 by the United Nations, which is gender equality.
This wide-reaching goals sets out to end all forms of discrimination against women, ensuring that women have equal rights to leadership and resources.
In Scotland, women-led businesses already contribute £8.8bn to the economy every year, there is risk this progress could halt.
The number of women-led firms decreased from 20.6% in 2017 to just 14% in 2019. Now, just nine women-led scale-ups exist in the nation today.
“As an Edinburgh Napier graduate, and now a Royal Society Entrepreneur in Residence, I’m thrilled to bridge academia and industry, fostering a culture of innovation that empowers women in business,” Cadenhead said.
“The power of education and entrepreneurship will be pivotal in reshaping the narrative for gender equality.
“The SDG5 Living Lab embodies our commitment to driving tangible change for women, by combining research and innovation.
“The training delivered by Women’s Enterprise Scotland is informed by over a decade of research, which means that recipients benefit from world class expertise in the field of women’s entrepreneurship.”
Napier’s enterprise hub, Bright Red Triangle, will play host to the first sessions held later this month, with the first course aiming to develop skills around business creation and leadership.
Nick Fannin, head of enterprise at Bright Red Triangle, said: “The establishment of the SDG5 Living Lab marks a significant milestone in our commitment to gender equality and societal impact.
“This collaboration allows us to harness the collective expertise of Edinburgh Napier University and Women’s Enterprise Scotland to drive meaningful change.
“Our vision is to cultivate an environment conducive to entrepreneurial success among women, nurturing the next generation of women leaders and innovators.“
Meta is being urged to reverse its new age policy on WhatsApp by campaigners concerned about child internet welfare.
This Thursday, the social media behemoth announced that it would lower the minimum age required to have WhatsApp from 16 to 13 in the UK and the EU.
Most social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, have a minimum age requirement of 13, so the move is in line with Meta’s overall minimum age policy.
However, Smartphone Free Childhood, a campaign group, has said the new policy is “tone deaf,” and does not consider the potential negative side effects on children’s online safety and mental wellbeing.
In an interview with The Times, Smartphone Free Childhood co-founder Daisy Greenwell said: “WhatsApp is putting shareholder profits first and children’s safety second.”
She said that the move ignored the “increasingly loud alarm bells” that academics, doctors, teachers, and child safety experts have been ringing for years.
The campaigner went so far as the call the messaging app a “gateway drug” for all social media, as parents may be more open to their children using it as it functions like traditional texting.
“WhatsApp is far from risk-free,” she warned. “It’s often the first platform where children are exposed to extreme content, bullying is rife and it’s the messaging app of choice for sexual predators due to its end-to-end encryption.”
The recently passed Online Safety Act at certain points included stipulations that would essentially dismantle the integrity of end-to-end encryption by requiring platforms to scan messages for illegal content before they are encrypted. Ultimately, this was not included in the bill, and faced major backlash from messaging platforms including WhatsApp.
While the move does lower the age threshold, Meta has said that the move simply puts WhatsApp’s requirements in line with other similar platforms.
Recently, Meta has taken steps to protect people on Instagram from ‘sextortion’ and unsolicited nudity with new tools that will be automatically activated for underage users.
The UK public sector is reeling for a lack of AI skills in the workplace, according to research from Salesforce.
IT professionals in the public sector are about a third more likely to say there’s an AI skills gap in their organisation, compared to the industry average.
As AI continues to advance and more and more companies integrate the emerging technology into their stack, IT professionals across the board are struggling to stay afloat as the tech requires new skills.
Only 28% of public sector IT professionals say they’re experts in using generative AI as part of their job.
Further, only 32% say they’re experts in understanding generative AI use cases, such as content creation and data analytics, and just 30% say they are experts in implementing AI in their organisation.
This may be holding back frontline citizen services across the public sector, delaying advancements in public services.
“Training and skills development are critical first steps for the public sector to leverage the benefits of AI,” said Casey Coleman, SVP of Global Government Solutions for Salesforce.
“By investing in new skills like prompt development, public sector leaders can empower their workforce to use AI to increase productivity, build deeper relationships with constituents, and improve the quality of public services.”
According to Deloitte, AI could save hundreds of millions of government staff hours and billions of pounds annually, as departments scramble to level up their AI skills and capabilities.
Automating routine tasks, reduced risk and improved customer experience were named as the top benefits to the public sector if they improve their AI implementation.
“In the face of a growing skills gap hindering AI adoption in the public sector, organisations must take control and prioritise skills training for staff so they can understand and implement AI safely and effectively,” Sheila Flavell COO of FDM Group said.
“Balancing speed with mitigating risks is a central challenge for all organisations, but without proper skills training, the challenge becomes even more difficult. The public sector should implement training schemes to upskill and reskill staff, equipping them with the necessary specialist skills to lead innovations in AI and ultimately deliver the best results for frontline public sector projects.”
Elizabeth Anderson, CEO of Digital Poverty Alliance commented: “There is no doubt that AI is transforming the way organisations, including public sector departments, are operating and helping to drive efficiencies, but we must also remind ourselves that AI is at risk of worsening the digital divide.
“Everyone needs basic digital skills training to access essential online utilities, yet organisations are looking to run before the country can walk by chasing AI, leaving millions behind unable to access online services. The situation calls for immediate action, and digital skills training should be at the centre of the manifesto for the incoming government.”
After a lack of AI skills, 38% of public sector staff said that data quality was the second biggest pain point holding back their AI implementation, followed by 36% saying data security.
A new Centre for Doctoral Training in Green Industrial Futures (CDT-GIF) has launched at Heriot-Watt University to help secure the UK’s position at the forefront of the green industrial revolution.
The Centre builds upon the work of the £20 million UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre (IDRIC).
According to European Investment Bank research, over 80% of companies consider skills shortages to be a barrier to their net zero projects.
The CDT-GIF aims to play a key role in training the next generation of innovators and leaders to deliver the technologies, systems and solutions required to transition UK industry to net zero emissions by 2050.
With a research programme spanning carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), green hydrogen, CO2 removal, energy integration and whole systems design, the CDT’s graduates hope to develop the expertise and skills to tackle the biggest decarbonisation challenges facing industry.
Alongside a four-year research project, the CDT-GIF students will undertake advanced training in the social, environmental, economic and regulatory aspects of the net zero transition in industry, as well as professional development in areas like business strategy, commercialisation, responsible innovation and policy engagement. Students will also have the unrivalled opportunity to visit some of the world’s leading pilot and demonstration facilities.
Delivered by a consortium of four of the UK’s leading research universities – Heriot-Watt University, Imperial College London, University of Bath and University of Sheffield – the CDT-GIF represents a £18 million investment from UKRI through the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
Professor Mercedes Maroto-Valer, director of the CDT-GIF and UK industrial decarbonisation champion, said: “The outstanding research and cross-sector partnerships cultivated through IDRIC have paved the way for this ambitious CDT. By building directly on IDRIC’s foundations, we can hit the ground running to produce the doctoral talent and innovation pipeline that UK industry urgently needs to lead the global energy transition.”
This holistic approach will provide graduates with vital cross-disciplinary skills in systems thinking, industrial literacy, and the ability to contextualise and deploy decarbonisation technologies within the wider global system.
Professor Maroto-Valer added:“Our CDT graduates will emerge as true energy transition leaders, not only technical experts, but also multidisciplinary professionals who understand the complex societal implications of decarbonisation and can effectively engage with industry, policymakers and the public.
“Our program will also emphasise the importance of a just transition which accounts for the impacts on workers and communities affected by industrial decarbonisation. Ensuring fairness and creating high-quality employment opportunities will be key social considerations.
“With these future-focused capabilities, our graduates will be ideally positioned to drive the innovation and public acceptance needed for UK industry to remain competitive in a net zero world.”
Research opportunities are available now for prospective students across the CDT’s core themes through a range of funded positions offered through the CDT’s extensive industry partner network.
A taxi software company was discovered to have exposed the personal details of around 300,00 customers in the UK and Ireland.
The data exposure occurred due to a non-password protected database – personal details, including names, email addresses, and mobile numbers were left unsecure.
22,745 records and documents containing personal information, including user IDs, were in the exposed dataset from iCabbi, taxi software firm based in Ireland.
According to Jeremiah Fowler, who first discovered and reported the database, the exposed email addresses were from a range of providers and private domains, including: 117,231 Gmail, 65,060 Hotmail, 17,588 Yahoo, 18,099 iCloud, 12,798 Outlook, 7,484 Live, as well as others.
Intriguingly, Fowler also discovered email addresses from major media outlines like the BBC, as well as government agencies such as the NIH, HM Treasury, and Ministry of Justice. University email addresses were also included in the findings.
The database seemed to be a content management storage repository, according to Fowler, used for terms and conditions documents as well as customer data spreadsheets.
Within the folder, however, were other documents that were secured and could not be accessed publicly.
“The potential risk of cyber criminals knowing the file paths of where documents are stored could allow a targeted brute force attack against the wider network or identifying individual misconfigured documents. I am not saying iCabbi’s network was at imminent risk, but I am providing a hypothetical risk of exposing the file path where customer documents are collected and stored,” Fowler wrote for vpnMentor.
iCabbi has since responded to the disclosure notice, saying: “Thanks again for bringing this to my attention – we have deleted the records. Human error to blame here unfortunately… part of a migration of customers but we should not be using public folders. We are going to engage with customers to make them aware of this breach” as reported by vpnMentor.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has identified three key interlinked risks to fair, effective and open competition in the AI Foundation Models (FMs) market.
This follows the CMA’s initial report on AI Foundation Models last year, which proposed a set of principles to help sustain innovation and guide these markets toward positive outcomes for businesses, consumers, and the wider economy.
While AI is a burgeoning sector in its own right, and offers many open source opportunities for rapid adoption across various industries, the CMA is largely concerned that the emerging technology is already being domineered by a select few of tech powerhouses already dominating the market.
At the beginning of their investigation into the rising AI marketplace, the CMA was curious – now, the markets watchdog is concerned.
In a speech given in Washington DC, CMA chief executive officer Sarah Cardell highlighted the growing presence across foundational model markets of a small number of incumbent technology firms which already hold market dominance in many of today’s diverse digital markets.
The firms already have established strongholds, be it in search engines, browsers, cloud services, data, and productivity software. This gives these established firms not only strong positions to develop FMs, but in the deployment of them as well.
The CMA is concerned that some firms may have both the ability and the incentive to shape these markets in their own interests – both to protect existing market power and to extend it into new areas.
This could profoundly impact fair, open, and effective competition in FM-related markets, ultimately harming businesses and consumers, for example through reduced choice, lower quality, and higher prices, as well as stunting the flow of potentially unprecedented innovation and wider economic benefits from AI.
The CMA’s update paper identifies an “interconnected web” of over 90 partnerships and strategic investments involving the same firms: Google, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Nvidia (which is the leading supplier of AI accelerator chips).
These major companies hoard a huge wealth of resources, expertise and innovation capability which can have a major role in FM markets. However, partnerships and arrangements of this kind can play a pro-competitive role in the technology ecosystem.
For fair market competition, the CMA has illuminated three key interlinked risks.
First, the CMA is concerned that firms controlling critical inputs for developing FMs may restrict access to these in an effort to protect them from competition.
Powerful incumbents may further exploit their positions in consumer or business facing markets in order to distort choice in FM services and restrict competition in deployment.
The CMA’s update paper provides details on how each risk would be mitigated by its principles, as well as the actions the CMA is taking now, and considering taking in the near future, to address these concerns.
“The essential challenge we face is how to harness this immensely exciting technology for the benefit of all, while safeguarding against potential exploitation of market power and unintended consequences,” Cardell said.
“We’re committed to applying the principles we have developed, and to using all legal powers at our disposal – now and in the future – to ensure that this transformational and structurally critical technology delivers on its promise.”
Threat actors are manipulating the search functionality on GitHub, the opensource software sharing site, to distribute malware among unsuspecting developers.
“The use of malicious GitHub repositories to distribute malware is an ongoing trend that poses a significant threat to the open-source ecosystem,” Yehuda Gelb, a security researcher at Checkmarx. “By exploiting GitHub’s search functionality and manipulating repository properties, attackers can lure unsuspecting users into downloading and executing malicious code.”
According to Chekmarx, attackers are generating malicious repositories using popular topics and names on GitHub, employing methods like automated updates and fake stars to increase their search rankings, making them more viewable to unsuspecting users.
The malicious code is often hiding deep within Visual Studio project files such as .csproj or .vcxproj to avoid detection.
The code is embedded with a pre-build event of the file, and is set to be automatically executed during the build process.
Malicious scripts such as these contain two parts, a batch script which sets up the environment, and a base64-encoded PowerShell script that is decoded. Both are then executed.
The PowerShell script typically will retrieve the country code of the machine’s IP address, download the content from specific URLs based on the country code, and download encrypted files from each URL, extracting them with a password, and then executing the files.
According the Checkmarx’s coverage, an active GitHub campaign took place on 3 April, where an attacker updated a malicious script within a repository, redirecting to a new URL that downloads an executable file that was padded with zeros to make it too big for many security solutions to detect.
“The results of our analysis of this malware suggest that the malware contains similarities to the “Keyzetsu clipper” malware, a relatively new addition to the growing list of crypto wallet clippers commonly distributed through pirated software,” Yehuda Gelb wrote for Checkmarx.
The problem appears to be spreading, as Checkmarx recorded several instances of complaints of malicious repositories.
Gelb recommended watching out for red flags when interacting on GitHub, including checking if a repository have an unusual number of commits relative to its age, and if the accounts which gave the repository a star rating were created at the same time as the repository itself.
Many IT leaders in the UK are reportedly gearing up to exit their jobs, a new report has said. Nearly two out of five IT leaders are planning on jumping ship in the coming two years.
This is after more than a quarter changed jobs in 2023 alone, with over a third admitting they had interviewed for a different role in the last six months.
This is according to a survey commissioned by Auxilion and Hewlett Packard Enterprise tracking the plans of IT leaders in the UK.
The constant reshuffling may be driven by the urge to work with emerging technologies, with over half of UK IT leaders reporting that they would leave their post if their company did not invest in up and coming technologies like AI.
“The movement of senior decision makers, and especially in business-critical roles like IT, creates huge demand and pressure on organizations,” said Niamh Cray, chief people officer at Auxilion, as reported by ITPro.
“Such gaps also have a wider impact in terms of their ability to maintain operations, complete projects and deliver services.
“When it comes to talent and recruitment, we believe businesses should adopt a hybrid approach where they incorporate contractors and resourcing partners. A more flexible model like this means organizations can move swiftly to plug any skills gaps that arise and minimize disruption.”
Tech workers as a whole are dissatisfied, with specialists facing burnout, especially in the cybersecurity sector.
While the report hinted that IT leaders may be changing their job to reach for higher technological aspirations, this could also point to a toxic workplace culture, causing even leadership to jump from job to job.
LawtechUK, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) backed initiative, has published an Ecosystem Tracker Report, detailing the growth and dynamism of the UK’s lawtech sector and positions Scotland as a region with legal technology innovation potential.
Amid a sector predicted to attract £2.2 billion in investment annually by 2026, the report charts the sector’s impressive growth from 37 companies in 2002 to a thriving ecosystem of 356 companies in 2023, affirming the UK’s leadership in the global lawtech arena.
Minister Mike Freer, in the report’s foreword, said “The tracker highlights our home-grown talent with 254 of those being UK-founded, whilst also showing the continuing attraction of the UK as a destination for international businesses. The UK is a uniquely supportive environment for lawtech innovation due to its flexible regulatory framework, world-class legal services sector, deep technological expertise, and entrepreneur-friendly business environment. Alongside LawtechUK, our rich network of innovation labs, law firms, universities and businesses have all played an important role in establishing the UK as a globally recognised leader in lawtech.”
With 13 lawtech companies actively contributing to the sector, Scotland demonstrates a vibrant and forward-looking approach to legal technology, underscoring the geographical diversity and depth of innovation within the UK’s lawtech sector.
The lawtech sector in the UK has experienced remarkable growth, the report found, evolving from a niche industry with only 37 companies in 2002 to a thriving ecosystem comprising 356 companies by 2023.
The report shows that in lawtech companies, there is an emphasis on B2B solutions, with 68% of UK lawtech companies focusing on catering to the needs of businesses. This trend highlights the sector’s role in transforming traditional legal process and operations, providing tools and platforms that enhance efficiency, reduce costs, and improve the quality of legal services for businesses.
From automating mundane tasks to offering sophisticated analytics for better decision-making, the focus on B2B solutions is a testament to the sector’s incessant need to meet the complex requirements of modern businesses.
The UK lawtech sector is thriving, with 254 of the 356 companies being founded in the UK, showcasing a strong environment for domestic innovation. These UK-founded companies have collectively secured at least £1.38bn in investment, underlining the sector’s potential.
Further, while London remains the hub for lawtech enterprises hosting 60% of UK founded companies, the growth narrative extends far beyond the capital.
Scotland and the South East of England are rapidly emerging as significant players, holding 5.1% and 9% of lawtech companies respectively.
The National Cyber Security Council (NCSC) has released new cloud platform guidance urging cloud adopters to protect the use of legacy management protocols, like RDP and SSH.
RDPs, or Remote Desktop Protocol, allow users to access and control a remote device from another device via a network, whereas an SSH, or secure shell, refers to the ability to remotely access and manage virtual machines in a cloud environment, which it can do over an unsecured network.
While these traditional cloud connection methods are relatively well understood in the tech sphere, the NCSC is giving special attention to improving the security infrastructure of cloud administration.
In the cloud, management interfaces are often exposed directly or accessed via public internet, meaning that customers have an easy route to administer their infrastructure. But this also transforms the attack surface, making it easier for bad actors to target these cloud-based resources.
The NCSC has seen attackers consistently target exposed cloud management interfaces, exploiting weaknesses such as insecure interface configurations and management protocol vulnerabilities to first gain access. Once this is successful and the infrastructure is compromised, attackers move laterally or try to steal data, deny service, or deploy ransomware.
“Unfortunately, due to the prevalence of exposed infrastructure and the potential gains from successful attacks, exposed management interfaces remain an enticing target for many attackers,” Elliot L, cloud security research at the NCSC, said in a blog post.
To mitigate these risks, the NCSC continues to recommend that management interfaces are protected from untrusted networks.
While traditional protections often include administration proxies, this method can be error prone and resource intensive at scale.
Many organisations offer cloud administration proxy services, and organisations should seek those that are provided as a managed services and prevent interfaces from needing to be exposed directly to untrusted networks. It should also integrate with the cloud’s identity and access management (IAM) mechanisms, and include broader security-enabling features such as session logging or browser-based connectivity.
Other options pointed out by the NCSC include adopting a serverless compute platform to reduce management burdens, as well as minimising the amount of interactive access required to workspaces via automated alternatives.
Whatever methods organisations choose to adopt, the end goal should be to restrict routine access to sensitive workspaces, use manages services where possible, and have no legacy management interfaces publicly exposed.
Large businesses find it significantly more difficult to manage their cybersecurity than their smaller counterparts, new research from IDEE has revealed.
The cybersecurity firm commissioned an independent survey of more than 500 IT and cybersecurity professionals within UK businesses.
It found that nearly three quarters (74%) of respondents from large businesses (more than 500 employees) believe it has become far more challenging to defend against cyber-attacks since the Covid-induced rise of remote and hybrid working.
However, only half (50%) of respondents from small businesses, of less than 50 employees, said the same thing.
Just over a third (36%) of small businesses said that a lack of skills and knowledge is a major cybersecurity challenge – but this figure rose to over two thirds (68%) among large businesses.
Meanwhile, 54% of large businesses said they need to simplify their cybersecurity solutions so that staff can properly engage with them, but this figure drops to 36% among small businesses.
Further, while about three in four (74%) large businesses said human error is the greatest threat to their cybersecurity, only 41% of small businesses agreed with that same statement.
However, while evidently struggling more to protect their IT systems, large businesses were found to be far more aware of the risks they are facing and the implications of them.
For instance, 92% of respondents from large businesses said they understand the financial costs that are associated with a cyber breach, compared to 73% of respondents from small businesses.
The survey also found that 32% of respondents from small businesses are unaware of the reputational cost of a cyber-attack, but only half as many (16%) respondents from larger organisations were similarly unaware.
“The lyrics ‘mo money, mo problems’ spring to mind when looking through these statistics,” Al Lakhani, CEO of IDEE said. “On the one hand, cyber security professionals in large businesses clearly have a better grasp on the cyber threats they face and the damage that can be done, but they still struggle much, much more to defend against them.
“More employees, more systems, larger supply chains, reliance on legacy IT – there are numerous reasons why cyber security becomes more challenging the bigger a business gets. But recent headlines of breaches involving the Bank of America breach underline that enterprises are also a victim of their own outdated, backward approach to cyber security.
“Account takeover is only possible in three ways – credentials compromise, vulnerabilities, and backdoors. Shockingly, more than 80% of attacks occur due to credentials compromise. But too many blue chips still rely on detection methods that have consistently fallen short in foiling account takeover attacks, rather than embracing preventative solutions. So, I hope that now marks the turning point in eliminating credentials-based attacks and that, as an industry, we turn to a digitally secure future built on transitive trust and identity proofing.”
The banking and finance sectors are being pushed into the 21st century due to tech-savvy competition, with both traditional and challenger banks ramping up their fintech recruitment.
Fintech hires are up among finance firms in London, the UK’s largest Fintech hub, according to an upcoming hiring trends report from Robert Walters, a recruitment agency.
In the last 12 months, job listings seeking fintech skills among London banking firms were up 75%, with technology job vacancies up by 88% in London’s financial services sector when comparing 2024 and 2023’s monthly average.
Job listings seeking employees with machine learning skills were up 107%, the report also found.
While finance has been a beacon of tradition, digital transformation, spurred on by the pandemic’s online requirements as well as zeal to jump on the AI bandwagon, has fully taken hold of the sector.
Challenger banks and payment services, such as Monzo, have also been a hit with the younger generation pushed into the gig economy, with these firms regularly beating traditional banks in customer satisfaction, according to research by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).
Banking and financial services are also on the defensive as new sophisticated scams and fraud regiments proliferate across the fintech landscape. Cyber skills are evermore essential as banking services move online, only increasing the potential threat vectors bad actors can take advantage of.
Further, 5,934 bank branches have closed since January 2015, averaging at 54 closures per month – traditional banking is dying, potentially giving banks more room to invest in fintech capabilities and staff.
The boom of tech recruitment comes at a tumultuous time, with both advantages in terms of numbers, and potential obstacles in terms of regulation.
Already, 2024 has kept apace the massive tech layoffs seen in 2023, with 60,000 jobs lost just this year. Finance firms could be looking to snatch up the talent in the UK before workers look further afield.
However, new regulations in AI are coming into effect in the EU, the closest market to the UK, which may confound some of the rapid adoption of AI tools already happening across sectors.
For tech workers looking to find a future-proof industry, fintech may be an attractive offering, as the UK’s fintech market is predicted to grow to £19bn by 2029.
The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) has made a breakthrough in optical viewport technology improvements which could be vital to improving capabilities in fusion energy and quantum physics research.
The agency has delivered on a government grant to reduce optical distortion by up to 75%, which was pointed out as an important aspect and barrier to measuring trapped atoms for the purposes of fusion and quantum research.
As a vital part of its research into fusion energy, UKAEA’s Special Techniques Group (STG), has built expertise in producing high-performance optical viewports used on fusion machines.
UKAEA’s Special Techniques Group, supported by the UK Government Office for Technology Transfer (GOTT) – Knowledge Asset Grant Fund – recently completed Project Solace, to further enhance viewport performance for other sectors such as quantum physics.
Project Solace focused on gathering expert feedback from optical viewport users about what parameters are important to them and developing new modelling tools to optimise new viewport designs to meet these requirements.
The feedback from quantum physics customers was that optical flatness of viewports was most important to reduce distortion of measurements coming from trapped atoms. Customers also appreciated UKAEA’s Special Techniques Group’s custom engineering which enables customisation of viewport shapes to fit microscopes, magnets and other instrumentation.
Following the development of the new modelling tools, the Group engaged Frazer Nash Consultancy to evaluate multiple viewport design options and identified opportunities to reduce optical distortion by up to 75 percent compared to baseline design.
Commenting on the funding, Alison Campbell, CEO of the UK government Office for Technology Transfer, said: “I’m delighted that the Knowledge Asset Grant Fund has been able to support UKAEA to expand the application of its unique technology, delivering value to its customers.
“The fund, and our work in GOTT, is focussed on helping organisations across government, such as UKAEA, realise the value and impact from exploiting their expertise and Knowledge Assets. We look forward to continuing to support the project as it develops.”
Tim Bestwick, deputy CEO for the UKAEA, said: “The unique technical challenges posed by fusion research has driven UKAEA’s Special Techniques Group to develop optical viewports that operate under extreme conditions with minimal optical distortion, and we have been able to prove these in fusion experiments.
“The team now plans to design and produce ultra-low distortion optical viewport designs for the next generation of quantum computers and sensors.”
These designs will be available for different sectors and global markets, including aerospace, beam-line science and high-power laser applications, to provide solutions to manufacturing challenges.
The UK is falling behind in protecting its people from dangerous AI-generated misinformation, and the Online Safety Act is doing little to mitigate the damage, a new report from Full Fact claims.
With the next general election looming, quelling the spread of misinformation and disinformation is increasingly vital, especially as emerging technology like generative AI makes it even harder for people to tell what is real and what is fake.
The rise of AI has improved the ability of threat actors and fraudsters to create genuine-looking misinformation and spread it like wildfire online, with deepfakes proliferating across social media impersonating celebrities and politicians alike.
Classic misinformation, such as false statistics, are still apparent as well, and the UK government appears to be failing at filtering both.
The fact-checking charity found several instances where UK politicians did not correct false or misleading claims despite Full Fact calling on them to do so, and found that the statistics regulator had to write to the UK government at least ten times in the past year to challenge its use of statistics or other data.
The Online Safety Act, which passed just last year, leaves several gaps in combatting misinformation online, Full Fact claims.
While the Act does stipulate against harmful content, it does not have specific guidance or regulation geared to harmful misinformation outwith normal libel laws. It focuses primarily on content that is harmful in a physical and psychological sense, rather than content that is harmful to society and democracy.
Mitigating misinformation, then, is still largely left up to platforms, which can set up their own set of guidelines to combat, remove, flag, or keep up misleading content.
Further, Full Fact’s report calls out the UK government’s lackluster and already out of date position on AI regulation ahead of the election, calling out the UK’s 2022 White Paper that does not address generative AI and its associated risks.
“In the multi sector and jurisdiction space like generative AI we need citizen-supporting initiatives on a new scale and opportunities for the public and civil society to shape related policy in the UK, including on misinformation and disinformation,” Full Fact’s report said.
It is calling on the UK to explicitly approach generative AI and its associated risks, and form its conclusive steps in consultation with experts and civil society.
Edinburgh is well-known as a festival city; a bustling and beautiful hub where creatives flock to try out innovative new material, join an extensive art community, and enjoy the many art galleries, open mic nights, and comedy gigs packed into every nook, cranny, and close of the city.
But Edinburgh is also one of the largest tech hubs in the UK, with a burgeoning startup scene bolstered by four universities. It also boasts a thriving business and funding community, making it an attractive place for innovation.
Edinburgh’s, and Scotland’s, two sides, much like Old Town and New Town, needed a bridge to more closely bring its creative industries and tech sector together, however.
“You need a designer to make art for a website, or you need a tech expert to make a website to sell your art, that’s often where the intersection starts and ends,” explained Nicola Osborne, project manager of Creative Informatics, to DIGIT at the National Museum of Scotland on 4 April.
“The perception can be that you get a designer or creative in to make something look good, and you get a tech expert to build things, but that oversimplifies these areas of expertise – and combining creative and tech expertise can create much more interesting work” explained Nicola Osborne.
At the National Museum of Scotland, as well as renowned arts venue Summerhall, is Unleashing the Power of Data; exhibitions which celebrate the existence and culmination of Creative Informatics—a five-and-a-half year programme that’s helped to bridge the gap between the creative industries and the tech sector.
While the current exhibits—which offer numerous interactive pieces—are a celebration of what can be achieved when you combine some of the best minds from art and technology in Scotland, it’s ultimately but a snippet of what Creative Informatics has achieved throughout the last half a decade.
Creative Informatics’ Journey
Creative Informatics began when the people behind it were told that they were receiving a substantial amount of funding—£10 million—from AHRC, the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
“When we got the call for the funding, I knew then that what we were building was a community,” Melissa Terras, the director of Creative Informatics told DIGIT.
And it’s done good on its mission of building community, as well as much, much more: Creative Informatics has over the course of the last few years funded 47 new companies, 212 new products and services, created 454 new jobs, and brought about £53.2m in economic returns.
Conceived just before the pandemic, Creative Informatics started by reaching out to already-developed communities in Edinburgh and the South of Scotland, aiming to bring together tech experts and artists to collaborate on ideas and products.
It then hosted social mixers, hands-on workshops, and developed a product, service, and startup accelerator programme with CodeBase.
However, in 2020, COVID-19 began to change how we both lived and worked. In response, and by partnering with Visual Arts Scotland, Creative Informatics brought its pursuit for community and engagement online, allowing the artistic and tech communities in Scotland to meet virtually while navigating unfamiliar territory.
At this critical time, the lockdowns meant many people turned to creative pursuits and hobbies, while also relying on technology to maintain connections and communities.
Also in response, Playable Technology, an accessibility tech firm, applied its focus accessibility and technology to create a way for people—not least children—to easily create music at home using, of all things, digital Lego-like blocks.
In 2024, and by using data and AI, Playable Technology created another tool for the creative pursuit of music-making which is currently being displayed at an Creative Informatics exhibit.
For the exhibition, the team put together four different ‘instruments’ to allow collaboration between people to create musical compositions complete with drums, bass, synth, and guitar, all through the plastic block toys.
Art and AI Intersect
Creative Informatics’ journey has also transformed amid the recent rapid development of AI.
Not too long ago, AI was an exciting tool that could help artists trial new ideas faster.But now, AI is everywhere, and considered by some as the asan enemy lurking to take creative peoples’ jobs.
Creative Informatics’ aim is to “future-proof” artists for a data-driven digital world, Osborne said, but she also noted that perceptions and conversations around technology have shifted since the project’s inception.
“The conversation used to be about how we can use AI in this project,” she said. “Now, more often than not, people ask if a project actually needs AI.”
People look to emerging areas so the conversation used to be about how technologies like blockchain would form part of a project,” she said. “More recently creatives have been exploring AI – but for any new technology we’ve queried why that’s the right choice, and what it will add.”
At its start, Creative Informatics did not have to grapple with data and AI ethics outside of GDPR compliance, but now artists and technologists alike are concerned about copyright infringement, ethical and responsible AI, and if there are other ways to harness data without the use of AI.
But for Ben Schogler, founder and creator of Playable Technology, AI is just another tool for artists.
“Technology has always played a pivotal role in creation,” he said. “People used to get up in arms about sampling in music, and now it’s seen as a valid tool. We feel the same about AI.
“It’s just another tool; we’re finding our feet with it, but it is something that can help people experience music that otherwise wouldn’t be able to. It facilitates creation for people who otherwise don’t have the skills or ability,” he said.
The Finished Projects
While Creative Informatics’ journey is difficult to sum up in just one exhibit—the varied intersections of art and technology are myriad and diverse—the Edinburgh Science Festival played host to 15 finished creative informatics projects, all utilising data for artistic expression.
The projects ranged from educational, such as a foraging video game using local data on flora and fauna to teach users about edible plants in their local region, and artistic renditions of climate data to better communicate the impacts of climate change.
Creatives are great at making data feel tangible, engaging and to communicate and connect with people in meaningful and sometimes emotional ways,” Osborne explained.
And data can help bring stories to fruition, and give new life to the past. Using digital innovation and physical modelling, Edinburgh’s lost Empire Palace theatre was brought to life, allowing people to explore the historic theatre which has been revamped into the Edinburgh Festival Theatre.
Artists took climate and environmental data to create communicative and beautiful designs expressing the changing ecosystem. Geospatial data was used to describe different environments in colourful displays.
Data was also used to render new quilt designs based on a range of different sets, such as star sign alignments, birth charts, and constellations, but these are just the start of the possibilities.
Using data can also make art more accessible, as a number of the exhibits showcased.
Beat Blocks Live, developed by Playable Technology, allows people to create music with a four piece band using lego blocks, harnessing data and AI to render sound.
Similarly, Ray Interactive’s IMP allows people to use an app that transforms smartphones into musical instruments, allowing them to control sound and create music via movement.
My Kind of Book, developed by Ailie Finlay, uses data and material science to create different sensory motifs so children with disabilities can experience stories in an accessible way.
The culmination of art and science was multifaceted, leading to new education tools, accessibility games, and better communication of data.
“We want creatives to not be afraid to use data in their work,” Osborne said.
“Data can be a playful, fun, interesting, beautiful, and critical thing,” she said. “If we use bring creativity, data and tech together from the start, then we can create really interesting new concepts and products.”
To catch some more from Creative Informatics, you can visit Summerhall on Friday 12 April at 7pm for a Let’s Play event, featuring AI-generated beats, interactive experiences, tech demonstrations and quick-fire presentations.
Failure to design public charge points to work around Britain’s patchy mobile signal coverage means that EV drivers could be facing problems when they seek to charge their vehicles at thousands of locations.
Out of the 53,667 public charging devices in the UK at the start of 2024, 31,910 are Type-2 chargers with speeds up to 8kw, and therefore are not required to provide contactless payment options.
Instead, the majority of Type-2 chargers require drivers to pay via a mobile phone app, which would subsequently rely on an adequate mobile signal to connect.
Further, the RAC Foundation found that most of these chargers need a mobile signal to function, only driving the issue further.
If not all of the four major UK mobile network providers don’t have a signal at each charging point, drivers could be at risk of having no way to charge their EV.
Based on a random sample of 2,059 Type-2 public chargers, the RAC Foundation found that the majority of these chargers do not have enough mobile coverage to guarantee they can be activated 100% of the time.
Outside of London, only a third (33.4%) of the Type-2 chargers analysed are in locations were there is adequate all-network 4G coverage that would enable not just payments, but functionality.
Two-thirds (66.4%) are in spots where a signal from one, two, three, or even all the providers is absent or too weak to work.
“Drivers of vehicles fuelled by petrol and diesel are used to reliable and hassle-free filling up at any of the 8,400 forecourts across Britain,” Steve Gooding, the director of the RAC Foundation said. “The same cannot yet be said of topping up the battery of an electric car at a public chargepoint.”
“In many instances the mobile phone has become the key to unlocking the potential of the electric car. Unfortunately, that key does not always work.
“Where signal connectivity at a chargepoint is a problem drivers might conclude that the charger is at fault hence undermining the confidence we should be building in the reliability of public charging options for electric vehicles.”
Businesses are being advised to brace themselves as a new study reveals more than half (55%) of employees are planning to make a new request for flexible working when new rules come into UK law this weekend.
The changes introduced by the Flexible Working Bill on April 6 – allowing workers to ask for flexible working from day one of their employment (previously six months) – look set to lead to a sharp increase in flexible working requests even though 74% of employees report already having some degree of flexibility.
The research conducted among 1,000 UK desk workers by Slack is designed to help businesses anticipate what the rule changes could mean to them and better understand employee expectations when it comes to work.
Currently, many UK employees regularly work from home (56%), have flexible working days (54%), or work a four-day week (30%). Yet a quarter of people (25%) are not currently offered flexible working.
Repercussions of Not Offering Flexible Work
The majority of workers believe the ability to work flexibly boosts their productivity (80%) and will help their company grow quicker (74%). Yet the top reasons for employees believing their employers have declined requests for flexible work, are due to concerns it may negatively impact productivity (17%) and work quality levels (17%).
Businesses that do not meet employee expectations when it comes to flexibility risk losing talent. 70% of workers are more likely to apply for a job based on the company’s flexible working policy – increasing to 76% for those aged 18-34.
Worker Demands
Despite over three quarters (78%) of managers and above understanding what the Flexible Working Bill means for them and the organisations they work for, many (57%) are concerned about receiving new and more requests for flexible working.
And a staggering 72% of businesses have not yet proactively shared information on the latest rules with their employees.
Right now, employees are most comfortable making a request for flexible hours (76%), working from home (70%), and compressed hours (65%).
However, the study also reveals that employees feel least comfortable requesting working from outside of the UK (45%), job sharing (40%), and working a four-day week (33%).
Technology’s Role
Flexible working – whether businesses are currently offering it already or not – need not be a worry if organisations have the right tools and processes to enable effective alignment, information sharing and asynchronous work.
According to the majority of workers (83%), technology is an enabler of productive flexible working – rising to 95% for employees who work from home.
Almost three quarters (73%) say flexible working is possible thanks to communication and collaboration tools that help enable synchronous and asynchronous work, and help reduce the need for meetings.
The data also reveals that two in five (40%) companies are using AI to support flexible working by using it to improve productivity and eliminate labour intensive tasks, like finding and recapping information.
“The way we work, and employees’ expectations about work, have fundamentally changed over the past few years and flexibility is a key part of that,” Chris Mills, global head of customer success at Slack, said.
“The research shows it’s an important consideration for people today, and the Flexible Working Bill has brought it back into focus for employees and management. Success hinges on more than just granting employees the freedom to work when and where they want.
“It requires creating intentional in-person moments alongside thoughtful approaches to technology that enables seamless collaboration, connection and access to information.
“Businesses are right to look at AI as helping in this area as well – we’re already seeing customers save 97 minutes a week on average using Slack AI – which is time that can be deployed elsewhere or unlock greater flexibility.”
The Trade Union Congress (TUC), the largest trade union body in the UK, has said that the gender pay gap is closing ‘painfully slowly’ and the UK can no longer drag its feet on guaranteeing equal pay.
The TUS general secretary even called for bosses to be fined if they do not implement actions to close existing gender pay gaps.
Companies with more than 250 employees were required to report their gender pay gap today (4 April), prompting the TUC to comment on the state of gender equality in the UK.
“Working women deserve equal pay. But the gender pay gap is still a huge issue,” TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said.
“At current rates of progress, it will take more than 20 years to bring men and women’s pay into line.
“That is not right. We cannot consign yet another generation of women to pay inequality.
“It’s clear that just requiring companies to publish their gender pay gaps isn’t working. Companies must now be required to implement action plans to close their pay gaps. And bosses who don’t comply with the law should be fined.”
In 2023, the gap for full time employees was 7.7%. Research from Hired shows that the tech pay gap sits at around 4%, but this is just based on women being offered a lower starting salary than male counterparts.
A report by Verdict in 2022 shows that on average, 91.1% of UK tech companies pay female workers less than their male counterparts.
Across tech, men’s average hourly pay was 16% higher than woman, putting the tech sector’s gender pay gap at a higher rate than the national average, which Verdict determined to sit at 11.6%.
Welcome to the March edition of DIGIT Movers and Shakers this year.
Movers and Shakers gives you the low-down on recent news in the Scottish tech ecosystem, from recruitment and partnerships to expansions and awards.
This month’s column features a mix of cutting-edge organisations and key players doing exciting things — read on to find out what’s been happening!
Recruitment
Three Glasgow Uni Researchers Appointed as Turing Fellows
Three researchers from the University of Glasgow have been appointed as Turing Fellows by The Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s national institute for artificial intelligence and data science.
Professor Alison Heppenstall, Dr Yiannis Giannakopoulos, and Dr Dezong Zhao are part of a new cohort of 51 Turing Fellows joining from universities and research centres across the UK.
The Turing Fellowship scheme aims to grow the data science and AI ecosystem in the UK by supporting, retaining, and developing the careers of the next generation of leading researchers, whilst contributing to the Turing’s overarching strategic goals.
Dr Giannakopoulos is a senior lecturer in algorithms and complexity at Glasgow’s School of Computing Science, whose research interests lie in the general area of algorithms, complexity, and optimisation.
STAC Launches Fourth Cohort and Appoints New Chair
The Smart Things Accelerator Centre (STAC) has launched its fourth cohort, with 20 companies joining Scotland’s first smart things and IoT accelerator, and also appointed a new chair.
The new companies joining STAC are: Zephyrus Labs, Orchyio, BennuAI, Hycean, FocaliseAI, Konpanion, Deep Sym, Audio Mitto, Lu Innovations, Mix Innovations, MyFarm, Dr Little, Kyobit, Ufarms, RfIoT, Vuabl, Atypical, Lowtek Games, Curious Chip, and Thistle Rocketry.
Paul Wilson, CEO and co-founder of STAC, said: “STAC had evolved rapidly into what we describe as a full wrap-around accelerator, around four main pillars – scaling mentorship, space, investment and talent acquisition.”
“What’s also notable”, continued Wilson, “is that with over 50 companies now at STAC, sector clusters are emerging, for example in sustainability, robotics, drones, health and wellbeing, and creative tech.”
Scots Crypto Firm Zumo Appoints Non-executive Director
Zumo, the B2B digital assets infrastructure that prioritises compliance and sustainability, today announces the appointment of Ashwath Mehra as a non-executive director.
An economist by training, Mr Mehra is CEO of the ASTOR Group, a private investment and advisory business, working across mining, technology, biotech and real estate. He has over 30 years’ experience in debt and equity capital markets and is a respected figure in the global business community.
He is also a director of several private and public companies in both executive and non-executive roles, and devotes much of his time to non-profit activities in education and healthcare.
Edinburgh Innovations (EI), the University of Edinburgh’s commercialisation service, has announced a new interim CEO in Dr Andrea Taylor in light of Dr George Baxter’s upcoming departure.
Currently serving as director of strategic partnerships, Taylor will take the helm of Edinburgh Innovations at the end of March.
In her partnerships role, Taylor led the university into high-profile collaborations such as NEURii, which aims to explore the use of data and digital solutions to complement treatment options for dementia patients, and beLAB1407, which looks to advance drug discovery opportunities.
Speaking on the appointment, Taylor said: “I am delighted to take on the opportunity of interim CEO of Edinburgh Innovations. We have a fantastic team at EI that has already supported the university to achieve record levels of innovation and commercialisation under the leadership of George Baxter.”
BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, Announce New President
Alastair Revell FBCS has been announced as the new President of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT.
Alastair has held senior volunteer roles in BCS for a decade and runs a successful professional services and IT consultancy firm.
He takes over from Gillian Arnold FBCS, who remains an active leader at BCS as immediate past president. Daljit Rehal FBCS, chief digital & information officer for HMRC, has been named as deputy president.
Alastair said: “Ethics and professionalism in the development and use of technology are more important than ever in the wake of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal. I thank Gillian Arnold for her commitment to establishing these themes during her presidential year and I hope to continue that outstanding work.”
Microsoft Hires DeepMind Co-founder Mustafa Suleyman
Microsoft’s newly-formed consumer AI department will be headed up by British artificial intelligence entrepreneur and co-founder of DeepMind, Mustafa Suleyman, its been announced.
Suleyman is best known as the co-founder of DeepMind, an AI research lab that was bought by Google in 2014. He’s also the co-founder of Inflection AI, a company that’s been developing machine learning and generative AI hardware and apps since 2022.
Following his appointment to Microsoft, the entrepreneur will now lead on all of the Big Tech company’s consumer AI products and research—which includes Copilot, Bing, and Edge.
To take on the role, Suleyman will be moving away from his role as CEO at Inflection AI, a position he’s held since the company was first founded.
Inflection’s new chief executive has been named as Sean White, who has previously served in high-profile roles such as chief R&D officer for Mozilla.
AND Digital Grows Scottish Data Team Following Contract Wins
AND Digital, the tech consultancy, is expanding its data teams in Scotland following a string of contract wins from Google, Nationwide Building Society, and British Airways-owner IAG.
Initially, between 10 and 15 of the 100 roles being created throughout the UK will be based at the company’s offices—or “clubs”—in Edinburgh and Glasgow.
The firm will be training around 75 existing staff—or “ANDis”—to increase its existing data capabilities, as well as hiring a further 25 senior members of staff to help lead the new data business unit.
AND Digital aims to treble the turnover from its data work in 2024.
Tim Hatton, the newly appointed head of data at AND Digital, said: “Scotland is a major focus for our new data business unit, and so we’ll be creating up to 15 data roles in two of our clubs north of the border.”
New Deputy Chair for Scotland’s Digital Economy Skills Group
The opportunities of a digital future are front of mind for the new Deputy Chair of the Digital Economy Skills Group (DESG), the industry and public sector partnership which aims to enhance Scotland’s digital capability.
Skills Development Scotland (SDS), the national skills agency, has appointed Lesley MacRury, Chief Information Security Officer at NEOS Networks.
A Chief Information Security Officer with extensive experience in Global Energy and Telecommunications, Lesley said: “I believe the digital future holds many opportunities for women and will be the basis for a more inclusive technical workforce, and a leveller for inclusion across the board.
“It’s an honour to take on the post of Deputy Chair, and I look forward driving Scotland forward as an international leader in digital technologies which delivers for the economy, employers and the workforce as a whole.”
Partnerships
ISACA Joins Forces with Erasmus+ for SHE@CYBER Project
ISACA (Information Systems Audit and Control Association), a global association advancing individuals and organisations in the pursuit of digital trust, has announced its participation in the Erasmus+ program’s SHE@CYBER project.
This initiative, under the EC Cooperation partnerships in vocational education and training, is a concerted effort to address the cybersecurity skills gap in Europe, with a particular focus on empowering women and underrepresented groups in the field.
The SHE@CYBER project, coordinated by Vernian RTI – Research, Technology and Innovation, is a strategy aimed at enhancing Europe’s cybersecurity resilience and championing diversity within the sector. The project’s objectives include developing a roadmap for vocational education and training (VET) in cybersecurity, creating open-access professional training programs, and promoting a cybersecurity mindset across Europe.
UK to Deepen Tech, Science, and Research Links with Germany
A new UK-German agreement to boost tech, science, and research ties—and plans for a joint group of experts—are a part of shared measures being announced today (12 March 2024).
The UK science and technology secretary, Michelle Donelan, and German federal minister of education and research, Bettina Stark-Watzinger, will announce the plans later today where they will sign a Joint Declaration of Intent committing both countries to broadening and deepening their tech, science, and research links.
Today’s meeting also brings together a forum featuring leaders and organisations from both countries to share and agree opportunities for R&D teamwork, ranging from quantum and AI to clean technology and research security. Moving forward, the UK and German governments are to establish a Strategic Working Group to match high ambitions with plans for delivery.
Scottish LawTech Firms Join Forces to Offer Workers Access to Legal Help
Edinburgh-based lawtech companies Valla and Amiqus have announced a new partnership, enabling simple and easy access to legal support for hundreds of thousands of workers across the UK.
The agreement will see Valla’s legal platform – which uses generative AI to help workers identify legal issues and manage their own Employment Tribunal case – available as a service through Amiqus’s staff and client onboarding platform.
With Amiqus powering over 60,000 onboarding journeys every month for new hires in the NHS, civil service and more, Valla anticipates that these job movers will be the prime candidates to benefit from its employment law support service.
Valla will be highlighted as the featured partner for Amiqus’ new ‘wallet’ functionality which is due to be released later this year for their existing network of clients, enabling use of reusable digital identity credentials, evidencing digital right to work and seamlessly connecting people through joiner, mover and leaver processes within regulated sectors.
Techscaler and FinTech Scotland Partner to Accelerate Sector Growth
Techscaler, the Scots government’s tech startup support programme awarded to CodeBase, and FinTech Scotland, the cluster body driving Scotland’s fintech innovation, have announced a strategic partnership to drive forward Scotland’s fintech sector development.
Fintech SMEs now employ more than 10,500 people across 226 enterprises in Scotland, with around 38% of fintechs having reached scale-up stage.
FinTech Scotland’s affiliated scaling firms will now be able to access the comprehensive benefits offered by Techscaler membership, opening the door to a network and support system of mentorship, educational courses, community events, and more, enhancing collaboration opportunities and fostering growth for fintech innovators.
Innovation Node for Time-critical Tech Launched at Strathclyde Uni
The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) has launched, at the University of Strathclyde, the first of three innovation nodes focused on the application of accurate and precise timing for new technologies and products in sectors such as quantum and fintech.
The nodes have been developed in partnership between NPL and the host organisations Strathclyde, the University of Surrey, and Cranfield University.
The innovation nodes are part of NPL’s National Timing Centre (NTC) programme, the UK’s first nationally distributed time infrastructure that provides secure, reliable, resilient, and highly accurate time and frequency data.
UK-Ukraine TechBridge Launches Tech Skills Training
The TechBridge Skills and Development Programme, a UK government initiative, is offering free skills training from top tech companies to Ukrainian citizens.
The programme aims to help Ukrainian citizens access training and opportunities to continue professional development despite disruption caused by Russia’s invasion.
Launched this January, the TechBridge provides a connection to both UK and Ukrainian to access skills, business opportunities, and technological advancements as Ukraine’s tech sector continues its resistance.
“The training programmes offered through TechBridge will directly support Ukrainians’ continued professional growth,” Leo Docherty, minister for Europe, said. “This training will strengthen a key sector and provide Ukrainians with more economic resilience, a strong foundation for continued recovery.”
Scots Spacetech Krucial to Lead Global Water Monitoring Project
Krucial, the Scottish scaleup which uses space tech to provide digital solutions anywhere on Earth, has been awarded a contract from the European Space Agency (ESA) to develop a new water monitoring solution.
This comes following an initiative launched by the ESA in 2023, called “Digitising Water Resilience — Acting on Water Stress in Basins.”
Krucial, which recently raised further funding of £3 million, will lead a consortium for the project, which includes the University of Strathclyde, Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC), agtech startup Deep Planet, and analytics and artificial intelligence firm SAS.
The new water-resilience monitoring and analysis solution will combine multiple data sets, including in-situ ground sensor data, weather data, and space-based data, moving this data from river basins to a cloud-computing platform via Krucial’s hybrid connectivity tech.
Premier League Club Uses DeepMind AI to Help with Corners
In a new collaboration with Liverpool Football Club, DeepMind has developed an artificial intelligence model aimed to improve football tactics.
The tool, aptly named TacticAI, leverages data from Premier League matches to predict the outcome of corner kicks and assist coaches in devising strategic plays.
TacticAI was spearheaded by DeepMind researcher Petar Veličković during a three-year research partnership with Liverpool FC. The model analyses various factors, such as player positions, height, weight, and historical data from corner kicks in past seasons.
TacticAI identifies patterns and trends from real-life corner kick scenarios, providing recommendations to coaches on optimising player positioning and movements. Impressively, in tests, the AI accurately predicted the recipient of the ball after a corner kick in 78% of cases.
Clarus Equips Arctic Research Vessel with Satellite Connectivity
The Royal Research Ship RRS Sir David Attenborough has been equipped with connectivity by Scotland-based Clarus Networks Group. The ship, operated by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), is currently stationed at the King Edward Point Research Station on the island of South Georgia, approximately 860 miles southeast of the Falkland Islands.
The RRS Sir David Attenborough plays a crucial role in carrying out scientific exploration in one of the most remote and harsh regions on Earth. However, the extreme remoteness of the area has posed significant challenges in terms of communication infrastructure, leaving the vessel isolated for extended periods.
This partnership aims to connect the advanced research vessel to high-speed internet for the first time, revolutionising the way scientific research is conducted in the extreme environments of Antarctica, according to them.
Glasgow Uni Academics Support Two Major 6G Research Projects
Two major UKRI-funded projects aiming to build the 6G communications systems of the future are receiving help from academics at the University of Glasgow.
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) recently announced £40 million in new funding to support the ongoing work of three Future Telecoms Research Hubs – called CHEDDAR, TITAN, and HASC – which together will form a new Federated Communications Hub. The funding will also facilitate the creation of a national infrastructure for future telecoms testing and development, named JOINER.
Researchers from Glasgow are lending their support to CHEDDAR, led by Imperial College London, and JOINER, led by the University of Bristol.
Aberdeen’s £9 Million National Floating Wind Innovation Centre Opens
Located in the heart of Aberdeen’s Energy Transition Zone, ORE Catapult’s £9 million National Floating Wind Innovation Centre (FLOWIC), delivered in collaboration with ETZ Limited, is designed to help supercharge the development of floating offshore wind technology in the UK, with funding from both the Scottish Government and Innovate UK.
The FLOWIC facility hosts and array of state-of-art equipment, including a large-scale dynamic cable flex fatigue rig, specifically designed for testing and validating the strength, performance, and reliability of dynamic subsea cables crucial for floating offshore wind farms.
Additionally, there’s a large-scale anchor test rig dedicated to testing dynamic anchoring systems, essential components of floating wind technology. The facility also houses a floating offshore wind scale motion simulator, also known as a Hexapod, capable of dynamically testing scale structures and electrical & mooring connections in a simulated marine environment.
StrathCyber Receives Academic Centre of Excellence Status
StrathCyber, the Cyber Security Research Group at the University of Strathclyde, was credited the award by the Government’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and EPSRC, signifying the exceptional quality and impact of Strathclyde’s cybersecurity research endeavours.
Joining only 21 universities across the UK to hold this title, Strathclyde’s designation as an Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research (ACE-CSR) follows a rigorous evaluation process of the research conducted by 17 esteemed members of academic staff across the university’s four faculties.
StrathCyber’s research ethos is characterised by its interdisciplinary approach, focusing on resilience and digital harms. With expertise spanning human factors, infrastructure security, privacy and regulation, system security, and formal methods, the group stands at the forefront of cutting-edge cybersecurity research.
With an awards ceremony taking place in Edinburgh on June 21st, WeDO Scotland has launched its annual search for the country’s most trailblazing, innovative and transformative entrepreneurs, business leaders and SMEs.
The Awards, this year in their 12th year, will honour the resilience, creativity and success of the Scottish business community, in what is widely perceived to be the most challenging economic times for over a decade.
A new Award, SME Business of the Year has been introduced to add to the existing seven Awards including Eco Entrepreneur, International Entrepreneur and Employee Owned Business of the Year.
The Awards are free to enter and open to non-members, as well as the 180-strong WeDO membership community. A panel of judges will evaluate applications based on their innovation, impact, sustainability and business acumen, culminating in in-person interviews for the two finalists in each of the eight categories.
A founder of a globally successful Scottish health tech firm has won a major life sciences award recognising outstanding business leadership.
With a career spanning more than 25 years, Gary Beale, co-founder of health technology leaders Emblation, has led the company through a series of impressive milestones.
From modest start-up roots, he has delivered global sales for the firm’s flagship Swift device, attracted eight-figure investment, and significantly grown the headcount, while masterminding delivery of a showpiece new HQ.
Gary was awarded the prestigious Business Leadership Award at Scotland’s Life Sciences Annual Awards and Dinner last Thursday (14 March) the pinnacle event for the sector celebrating its key contributors for over 20 years.
Speaking after the awards ceremony, Gary said: “From the outset, our mission at Emblation has been driven by a commitment to create superior treatments that provide solutions to patients suffering from a range of debilitating skin conditions.
Quorum Cyber recognised as a Microsoft Security Excellence Awards Finalist
Quorum Cyber announced it is a double award finalist for both the Security MSSP of the Year as well as the Security Customer Champion in the Microsoft Security Excellence Awards. The company was honoured among a global field of industry leaders that demonstrated success across the security landscape during the past 12 months.
“We are thrilled to be shortlisted as finalists in two incredible categories at the upcoming Microsoft Security Excellence Awards 2024,” said Federico Charosky, Quorum Cyber’s founder and CEO.
“To be recognised as a finalist for Security MSSP of the Year affirms our vision of providing our customers with unparallelled cybersecurity, identity and risk management solutions globally. To also be a finalist as a Security Customer Champion further cements our core belief that, in the end, it’s all about the customers. Quorum Cyber is a proud Microsoft partner and MISA member, leveraging cutting-edge Microsoft technology in the fight against cybercrime across the globe and in the efforts to help good people win.”
At the Microsoft Security Excellence Awards on 6th May 2024, Microsoft will celebrate finalists in nine award categories honouring partner trailblazers, solution innovators, customer and technology champions, and changemakers.
Expansions
Heriot-Watt Supports Six New Doctoral Training Centres
Heriot-Watt University is to help train a new generation of researchers in critical technologies through six new centres.
The new centres are part of an investment of more than £1 billion in 65 Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs) led by universities across Britain that is being announced by the UK government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
The centres are being funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) – the main funding body for engineering and physical sciences research in the UK – and will train more than 4,000 students studying Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degrees in areas of national importance including artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, semiconductors, telecoms and engineering biology.
Spearheaded by Scottish Government’s minister for small business, innovation, tourism and trade, Richard Lochhead, the money is poised to improve the landscape for bio-based businesses across the nation.
The capital will be channelled through Scottish Enterprise to the Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre (IBioIC), and at the heart of the investment is the acquisition of a 300-litre fermenter slated to find its home at FlexBio – IBioIC’s scale-up facility nestled within the precincts of Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.
According to IBioIC the equipment marks a turning point for Scotland’s innovation ecosystem, bridging a critical gap in infrastructure for biotechnology enterprises. Unlike anywhere else in the UK, Scotland has been lacking in accessible ‘open access’ facilities crucial for businesses aiming to upscale their operations.
Edinburgh-Based Ticketing Platform Expands With International Deals
Citizen Ticket, the Scottish ticketing and bookings platform, has announced a number of new international and UK client wins, including with a major sporting team in the US.
Recent wins range from various large-scale events, venues, and visitor attractions, including Giants Enterprise the events arm of the San Francisco Giants, a California baseball team.
The team has appointed Citizen Ticket to enhance their ticketing experience and streamline access for their clients’ events. This collaboration is set to bring the company’s technology to Oracle Park, a stadium with the capacity for 42,300 viewers.
Founded in 2013, the Edinburgh-headquartered company provides a ticketing and booking platform for events, venues and visitor attractions.
Scotland’s reputation as a beacon of manufacturing and engineering innovation has been strenghtened with the launch of an industry scale, fully digitally enabled, forging research platform at the University of Strathclyde’s Advance Forging Research Centre (AFRC), part of the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS).
The new facility, FutureForge, aims to put the country at the forefront of modernising and future-proofing the $75 billion global forging sector.
Based in Renfrewshire, FutureForge is a new platform that will see the 100-strong AFRC team of engineers and researchers work directly with the biggest forging companies around the world, thanks to the facility’s digital and connectivity capabilities.
Forging is a traditional manufacturing process dating back thousands of years and is vital to nationally important such as aerospace, defence, marine and energy.
Glasgow Uni Launches New Computing Science Innovation Lab
Glasgow Computing Science Innovation Lab (GLACSIL) is aimed at bridging the gap between research and real-world application. The innovation lab’s mission is to capitalise on existing partnerships with companies, spanning SMEs to multinational corporations across various sectors.
The official launch for the new lab is taking place today, 22 March, and will bring together researchers from the School of Computing Science with representatives from six leading companies, including Bell Nokia Labs, BT Research, Thales, Moodagent, International Data Flows, and DotPhoton.
By fostering closer ties between researchers and industry partners, GLACSIL aims to stimulate new research collaborations, capitalise on joint funding opportunities, and drive the development of innovative commercial products.
UK Space Agency to Open Regional Scottish Office in Edinburgh
To help support the space sector across the country, the UK Space Agency is opening a number of regional offices, with one being in the Scottish capital.
The Scottish regional office for the agency, which is responsible for the UK’s civil space programme, will be at Queen Elizabeth House in Edinburgh. Two further regional offices will be opened in Wales and the Midlands, while new headquarters will also be located in Harwell, Oxford.
The government said that the expansion will enable the agency to collaborate more closely with the UK’s space sector, while promoting regional skills and job opportunities to deliver increasingly ambitious missions and capabilities.
Cybersecurity Firm Acumen Enters UK Market With Glasgow Office
Cybersecurity services provider Acumen has announced its entry into the UK market, pledging to deliver ‘unparalleled expertise and cutting-edge technology to assist organisations in maintaining security in an increasingly hostile digital landscape.’
Headquartered in Glasgow, Acumen offers clients a fully managed 24/7 Security Operations Centre (SOC). Its roster of technology partners includes CrowdStrike, Elastic, Fortinet, and Barracuda.
“Our 24/7 Security Operations Centre strives to combine the right people, technology, and methodologies. We set ourselves an ambitious goal – there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to cyber security challenges, but we believe we have assembled an impressive package tailored to our clients’ needs,” said Kevin Robertson, co-founder and chief operating officer (COO) at Acumen.
Strata, a delivery-focused consultancy specialising in BlackRock’s Aladdin and eFront platforms, has opened a new office in Edinburgh – it’s first outside of London – at One Lochrin Square.
Strata has been a key figure in major global implementations, catering to a diverse clientele comprising asset managers, wealth managers, insurers, asset owners, and asset servicers.
The consultancy’s expertise is built on detailed knowledge of the investment lifecycle, including front office and trading, middle office (including outsourced arrangements), accounting and client reporting, risk and regulation, compliance, and technology, data, and infrastructure. With a strategic focus on Aladdin and eFront, Strata is well-positioned to streamline implementations, optimise the value obtained from the applications and drive adoption of these platforms.
DataKirk Announces Expanded Event to Bolster Diversity in Scottish Tech
DataKirk, a leading advocate for diversity and innovation in Scotland, has unveiled its Scottish Ethnic Minority Talent Summit & Festival (SEMTSF) 2024, marking a significant evolution in its continued commitment to inclusivity and empowerment.
In response to the dynamic landscape of Scotland’s workforce and economy, SEMTSF hopes to revolutionise the narrative surrounding talent, diversity, and opportunity.
Embracing a fresh perspective, SEMTSF will extend over a 5-day period, from October 28th to November 1st, 2024, spanning across the major cities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, and Aberdeen.
SEMTSF is poised to address the critical challenges facing Scotland’s demographic fabric and economic vitality. Amidst evolving UK Government Immigration regulations and talent dynamics, SEMTSF stands as a pivotal platform to cultivate innovative solutions for attracting and retaining skilled ethnic minorities in Scotland.
FOR:EV continues expansion with new charging sites at Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Toolstation
FOR:EV, the Edinburgh-headquartered provider of electric vehicle charging infrastructure, is rolling out its rapid charging stations at four further retail locations across Scotland.
The four sites – at Sainsbury’s Inverkip in Inverclyde, Toolstation Montrose, Tesco Express on Great Northern Road, Aberdeen and South Harbour Road retail park in Fraserburgh – are all run by Cedarwood Asset Management Ltd and David Samuel Asset Management Ltd.
Installation of three dual charging points (with 6 connectors) at Inverkip and two dual charging points (4 connectors) at Montrose is now complete, with work due to start at Aberdeen and Fraserburgh (both 3 dual charging points, 6 connectors) in the coming months.The rapid chargers at all four sites could charge a typical EV from 20% to 80% in 30 minutes.
FOR:EV has established an ongoing relationship with Cedarwood Asset Management Ltd, which owns or manages around 17 sites across Scotland, creating the potential to develop EV charging hubs at other locations in the future.
Par Equity expands Edinburgh team following fund launch
Leading venture capital firm, Par Equity, has today announced three new appointments to its Edinburgh team – Patricia El-Jichi as Investment Manager, with Clara Baltay and Oliver Johnston-Watt as Investment Analysts. Working from Par Equity’s Edinburgh office, the new hires promise to bring a diverse set of expertise and bolster the existing investment strategy in Scotland.
Patricia El-Jichi joins Par Equity from SIS Ventures. She previously worked at Ada Ventures, gaining invaluable experience screening and investing in tech start-ups in sectors including healthcare, climate, and financial inclusion. She is a CFA Charterholder accumulating over a decade of experience working with international institutions such as Citigroup and J.P. Morgan, where she provided ultra-high net worth clients with institutional service, advice, and execution across asset classes.
Clara Baltay joins Par Equity from Hive Energy where she worked as an Investment Manager. Having graduated from UCL, where she studied MSci, Biochemistry, Clara specialises in biochemistry, exploring and evaluating new technologies and business opportunities in the sustainable technology sector.
Also joining as an Investment Analyst is Oliver Johnston-Watt, who comes armed with several years of experience founding and growing businesses. He was Co-Founder & Advisor at BTP, before becoming a Co-Founder and Non-Executive Board Member at OneCommerce. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Ancient and Modern History from the University of Oxford.
Glasgow-based digital marketing agency GRA as it sets its sights on international expansion
Glasgow-based digital marketing agency GRA has embarked on an ambitious international expansion phase with a series of significant contract wins from new players in the dynamic US tech sector.
While Scotland remains the dominant market for the full-service agency, the move into the US arena – and the associated reputational boost – opens up major new opportunities for GRA as part of its longer-term strategy of taking on more big-brand business.
The new deals will also further enhance turnover, which has already increased by 75% this year and is likely to add to the staff complement of five within six months to a year as workload increases.
GRA – started as Guy Robertson Advertising in 1986 – is now run by the eponymous founder’s daughter, Jemma Robertson, 26. She said: “While Scotland is very much our home turf, we are aware that there are increasing opportunities in the US, I think simply because it has a more entrepreneurial culture.
“Brands out there are not afraid to give something a go and experiment, which is exactly our philosophy too. Testing, learning and optimising is one of the best approaches there is so when we find clients that have those similar values as ourselves, it feels a match made in heaven and a relationship that is destined to flourish.
“For our part, we have demonstrated that we have an attractive proposition, despite being UK-based. We have a successful track record and have the flexibility and agility which allows us to respond in the way our clients want and most importantly need.”
Amazon has announced that it will cut hundreds of jobs at its cloud computing sector, Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Despite making up 14% of Amazon’s total revenue, as per its latest financial report, Amazon is shifting its strategies to focus on its physical Amazon Fresh stores.
The latest round of layoffs are set to effect hundreds of roles across global services, sales, marketing.
Several hundred roles in the technology teams of its physical stores will also be cut, as the company phases out its self-checkout system, Just Walk Out, from its stores.
While the cuts will be global, the majority of AWS roles are based in Seattle – employees based in the US can expect 60 days of pay and benefits, aid in finding alternative employment, and access to health care during their transition, and can also be eligible for severance.
The new round of layoffs follow a recent bout of cuts in January, in which Amazon cut hundreds of jobs across Twitch, Prime Video, and MGM studies. A third of Twitch’s workforce were cut, equalling about 500 employees losing their jobs.
According to layoffs.fyi, there have already been 57,505 tech employee layoffs in 2024 across 229 companies globally.
In 2023, Amazon cut 27,000 jobs in what was potentially one of the largest rounds of layoffs in history.
Despite Amazon’s continued growth, its sales in data storage and cloud computing slowed last year to a record low as budgetary constraints halted cloud adoption and digital transformation initiatives.
Microsoft and Quantinuum, a quantum computing firm, have claimed to reach a seminal step in quantum computing, in what could be the most reliable quantum capabilities yet to be seen.
The machine boasts the ability to correct itself, using Microsoft’s qubit-virtualisation system – Microsoft says it ran the computer on 14,000 individual experiments without a single error.
Quantum computers can solve computational problems that could take millions of years to solve on a traditional silicon-based computer, with unprecedented speeds.
But quantum relies on qubits as their fundamental component, which, despite their speed, can produce many errors if the environment is not optimal. To combat this, quantum computers often have error-correction techniques built in so that more reliable results are produced.
“Breakthroughs in quantum error correction and fault tolerance are important for realising the long-term value of quantum computing for scientific discovery and energy security,” Dr Travis Humble, director of of the Quantum Science Centre at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory said.
Microsoft researchers wrote an algorithm to correct the errors produced by Quantinuum’s qubits, resulting in “the largest gap between physical and logical error rates reported to date,” Microsoft announced.
From 30 qubits, researchers were able to retain four ‘logical’ qubits, which could generate solutions and errors that could be fixed without the qubits being destroyed.
The error rate of these four logical qubits were also 800 times lower than the error rate of the physical qubits.
“Today’s results mark a historic achievement and are a wonderful reflection of how this collaboration continues to push the boundaries for the quantum ecosystem,” Ilyas Khan, founder and chief product officer at Quantinuum said.
“With Microsoft’s state-of-the-art error correction aligned with the world’s most powerful quantum computer and a fully integrated approach, we are so excited for the next evolution in quantum applications and can’t wait to see how our customers and partners will benefit from our solutions especially as we move towards quantum processors at scale.”
The major step has yet to be investigated by the wider scientific community however. Further, quantum computers will likely need 100 ore more logical qubits to tackle the most relevant scientific problems currently facing us. Still, the results are promising to wider quantum computing research.
Startup funding in the UK faced a 19% drop in 2024’s first quarter, with late-stage investments taking the hardest hit.
This is according to new research from Tracxn which found that British startups as a whole raised $2.5bn in the year’s first quarter, a drop from Q4 2023’s $30.9bn (£24.57bn).
Late-stage startups took the largest hit, according to the data, and only managed to gain 33% less funding than at the end of 2023.
Early-stage startups funding also dropped, but only 7% from last quarter, but this also represented a 24% year-on-year decrease in funding.
When looking specifically at seed investments, however, there were signs of growth. Seed investments were up 12% compared to 2023’s last quarter, pointing to some potential germination among innovators in their earliest stages.
However, the $288m (£229.03m) of seed funding raised in the first quarter of 2024 do represent a drop of over a quarter (27%) from the beginning of 2023.
The mixed bag results could spell problematic for the UK’s ambitions to become a scale-up powerhouse as startups compete to stay afloat.
Despite the drop off from 2023 in investment, the UK still the third most funded tech industry in the world, falling only behind China and the US, making it the most funded tech industry in Europe.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is calling on social media and video-sharing platforms to improve their data protection practices so children – and their data – are safer online.
Since the introduction of the children’s code of practice in 2021, the ICO has been collaborating with online services to create better privacy protections for children, aiming to ensure their personal information is used appropriately within the digital world.
In the UK and the EU, the digital world is held to a higher standard when it comes to the processing of children’s data, with stricter rules for personal data collections and transfers.
The ICO has said it has seen significant progress in this arena, with many organisations beginning to assess and mitigate potential privacy risks to children on their platforms.
The new Children’s code strategy builds on the progress to date and sets out the priority areas social media and video-sharing platforms need to improve on in the coming year, as well as how the ICO will continue to enforce the law and drive conformance with the code by industry.
“Children’s privacy must not be traded in the chase for profit. How companies design their online services and use children’s personal information have a significant impact on what young people see and experience in the digital world,” John Edwards, the UK information commissioner said.
“Seven out of ten children told us that they trust our Children’s code to make the internet better and safer for them. That’s why our determination to ensure online services are privacy-friendly for children is stronger than ever.
“I’m calling on social media and video-sharing platforms to assess and understand the potential data harms to children on their platforms, and to take steps to mitigate them.”
For the 2024 to 2025 strategy, the ICO has laid out four key priority points of focus for children’s online data protection.
1. Default privacy and geolocation settings
The ICO is recommending that companies make children’s profiles private by default and turn off geolocation settings on apps by default as well. The ability to track the location data of a child can create risk, including potentially having their information misused to compromise the child’s physical safety or mental wellbeing.
2. Profiling children to targeted advertisements
Children’s profile information should by default not be used for targeted advertising, the ICO says, “unless there is a compelling reason.” The stipulation that there is an exception to this rule could leave room to interpretation by major social media services and games used by children.
Children my not be aware that their personal information is being collected or that this is used to tailor the adverts they see. This may impact children’s autonomy and control over their personal information, and could lead to financial harms where adverts encourage in-service purchases or additional app access without adequate protections in place.
3. Using children’s information in recommender systems
The ICO plans to take special consideration of recommender systems which can steer users toward certain content, which for children may be considered harmful or inappropriate. These feeds, generated by algorithms, can create pathways to harmful content like self-harm, suicidal ideas, misogyny, or eating disorders.
The algorithms themselves may also lead children to spend more time on the platforms, causing them to share even more personal information.
Restrictions on harmful content for children have come into effect via the Online Safety Act, and Ofcom is currently setting out guidance on how these rules will be rolled out and enforced. The ICO will play a role in this online safety regime by protecting children’s data online as well.
4. Using information of children under 13 years old
Children under the age of 13 can’t consent to their personal information being used by an online service, and parental consent is required instead.
The ICO plans to take into consideration how services gain consent, and how they use age assurance technologies to asses the age of the user and apply appropriate protections, are important for mitigating potential harms.
“Children’s privacy is a global concern, and businesses around the world need to take steps to ensure children’s personal information is used appropriately so it doesn’t leave them exposed to online harms,” Edwards said.
Cyber-criminals are abusing remote desktop protocol (RDP) – a common method for establishing remote access on Windows systems – in 90% of attacks, according to a new report from Sophos.
The security solutions provider released an Active Adversary analysis which analysed over 150 incident response cases handed by Sophos in 2023.
The report detailed the rise of the RDP frontier in cyber-crime, with 2023 seeing the highest incidence of RDP abuse since Sophos began its active adversary reports in 2021.
In addition, external remote services such as RDP were the most common vector by which attackers initially breached networks; they were the method of initial access in 65% of IR cases in 2023.
External remote services have consistently been the most frequent source of initial access for cyber-criminals since the Active Adversary reports were launched in 2020, and defenders should consider this a clear sign to prioritise the management of these services when assessing risk to the enterprise.
“External remote services are a necessary, but risky, requirement for many businesses. Attackers understand the risks these services pose and actively seek to subvert them due to the bounty that lies beyond. Exposing services without careful consideration and mitigation of their risks inevitably leads to compromise. It doesn’t take long for an attacker to find and breach an exposed RDP server, and without additional controls, neither does finding the Active Directory server that awaits on the other side,” said John Shier, field CTO, Sophos.
In one Sophos X-Ops customer case, attackers successfully compromised the victim four times within six months, each time gaining initial access through the customer’s exposed RDP ports.
Once inside, the attackers continued to move laterally throughout the customer’s networks, downloading malicious binaries, disabling endpoint protection, and establishing remote access.
Compromised credentials and exploiting vulnerabilities are still the two most common root causes of attacks. However, the 2023 Active Adversary Report for Tech Leaders, released last August, found that in the first half of that year, for the first time, compromised credentials surpassed vulnerabilities as the most frequent root cause of attacks.
This trend continued through the rest of 2023, with compromised credentials representing the root cause of over 50% of IR cases for the entire year. When looking at Active Adversary data cumulatively over the years from 2020 through 2023, compromised credentials were also the number one “all-time” root cause of attacks, involved in nearly a third of all IR cases.
Yet despite the historical prevalence of compromised credentials in cyberattacks, in 43% of IR cases in 2023, organisations did not have multi-factor-authentication configured.
Exploiting vulnerabilities was the second most common root cause of attacks, both in 2023 and when analysing data cumulatively from 2020 through 2023, accounting for the root cause in 16% and 30% of IR cases, respectively.
“Managing risk is an active process. Organisations that do this well experience better security situations than those that don’t in the face of continuous threats from determined attackers. An important aspect of managing security risks, beyond identifying and prioritising them, is acting on the information,” said Shier.
“Yet, for far too long, certain risks such as open RDP continue to plague organisations, to the delight of attackers who can walk right through the front door of an organisation. Securing the network by reducing exposed and vulnerable services and hardening authentication will make organisations more secure overall and better able to defeat cyberattacks.”
A tech firm based in Glasgow has become employee-owned in a commitment to the company’s collective future.
In it’s announcement of the landmark transition, Coefficient Ltd said the decision to go employee-owned was based on extensive research and discussions with the team, and aimed to make the company more inclusive and empowering.
“Employee ownership means that everyone at Coefficient has a stake in the success of the business,” Alison Grant wrote in a blog post about the company’s transition. “It’s about more than just financial investment; it’s a commitment to our collective future, to driving growth, and to delivering excellence to our clients.”
Having a stake in the company can drive better performance outcomes as staff are directly invested in the outcomes of their work.
But when deciding to become employee-owned, Coefficient also highlighted the business model’s other benefits.
Employ ownership can be an incentive in attracting and retaining talent, presenting enduring and sustainable growth opportunities.
It also can offer the opportunity for a more equitable workforce which considers employee well-being, something the company claims they have always prioritised. For all these reasons, Coefficient elected to become company-owned.
Coefficient’s directors and co-founders, Paul Grant and Paul Tindal, see the transition in a positive light as it aligns with the company’s core values.
“We’ve always believed in putting our people first. Employee ownership is a perfect fit for our vision,” said Grant, as reported by Insider. “It empowers our team and allows them to share directly in the rewards of their hard work and dedication.”
Tindal added: “We’re incredibly optimistic about what lies ahead. Together, we’re ready to take Cofficient to the next level, continuing to provide exceptional service and innovative solutions for our clients.”
Businesses have gotten better at detecting fraud, but fraud is becoming accessible to more people, a new report has revealed, with emerging technologies ramping up the arms race between threat actors and defences.
Yoti’s Identity Fraud Report delved into the trends in fraud over the last two years, noting the transformative influence AI has had on the threat landscape.
Fraudsters have become more effective and efficient in committing scams and producing fake identity documents thanks to AI. The rise of deepfakes and the quality of fraudulent documents has widened access, allowing less-skilled threat actors to exploit the system.
The widespread ease of creating fraudulent documents has also driven prices down on the dark web, with sophisticated national IDs and driving licenses produced in seconds for as little as £12.
The study also highlighted the difficulty in tracking the rise and fall of fraud throughout the years – as detection gets better, and therefore more fraud is reported, this does not necessarily equate to a larger mass of fraud being committed. It is therefore difficult to truly track the rate of fraud increase as we can only measure what is detected.
It did point out, however, that as low-level fraud becomes increasingly accessible, it is more likely to grow in volume as more people take advantage of new tools.
The landscape has also evolved in the last two years: in 2022, Yoti’s security centre saw more impersonation attempts, but in 2023, it saw an increase in the number of fraudulent documents in use.
STEM Returners, the return-to-work specialists, are seeking participants to take part in their annual survey, launched to understand the experiences of re-entering the workplace after a career break.
The 2024 STEM Returners Index is open to all STEM professions who have had a gap in their career of any length, or who are attempting to return to work, or who have recently returned to work.
The anonymous survey asks a range of questions including reasons for a career break and what challenges were faced when attempting to return to work.
The results will enable STEM Returners to further understand the barriers people face, track the progress UK STEM industries are making, and shine a light on the change needed to create fair opportunities for all.
This is the fifth Index launched by STEM Returners, which facilitates paid short-term employment placements with firms like Wates, BAE Systems, EDF, Leonardo and Boeing to help return highly qualified and experienced STEM professionals back to work after a career break.
Returners can be any age, ethnicity, come from any background and importantly, can have any length of break on their CV.
STEM Returners, based near Southampton, Hampshire, was set up by Natalie Desty in 2017 after she saw the challenges STEM professionals who had been out of employment for a period of time faced when trying to re-enter their profession.
Natalie said: “Sadly, there is a misconception that a career break leads to a deterioration of skills, but in our experience, that’s simply not true. Most people keep up to date with the latest developments in their field, undertake training while on a break and develop new, transferable skills that would benefit an employer.
“But recruitment bias in the system means, when they are ready to return to work, they face an uphill battle.
“We want to get more detailed insight into these challenges and use this valuable information to help employers improve their recruitment processes. I would like to personally encourage any STEM professional who has had a career break, of any length, to take part in the survey and tell us about their experiences.”
More than 1000 people completed last year’s survey, which showed women who were trying to return to the engineering industry after a career break were more likely to experience recruitment bias than men. Nearly a quarter (24%) of women said they felt they have personally experienced bias in recruitment processes due to their gender compared to nine percent of men.
Professionals from minority ethnic backgrounds represented a large proportion (39%) of candidates attempting to return to work in 2023. They were twice as likely as all other ethnic groups (34% vs average of 17%) to feel they have experienced bias in a recruitment process related to race or ethnicity, according to the report.
Both men (29%) and women (25%) said they felt they have personally experienced bias in recruitment processes due to their age. As a result, 30% of returners said their personal confidence has been affected by the recruitment challenges they face, and their low confidence remains a barrier.
The STEM Returners’ programme aims to eliminate barriers, by giving candidates real work experience and mentoring during their placement and helping them to seamlessly adjust to life back in work. More than 475 candidates have joined programmes across the UK since 2017.
Mena Maowed struggled to find a role after he came to the UK to seek asylum in 2016, despite 15 years of experience as a Civil Engineer in the construction industries of Egypt and UAE. However, following a STEM Returners programme with Balfour Beatty Vinci Systra JV in May last year, he was offered a permanent position as an Undertakings and Assurances Engineer at HS2 Old Oak Common station, and he has not looked back.
Mena said: “After facing challenges in finding a job that matched my career in the construction industry, discovering this programme felt like a beacon of hope. It’s been instrumental in restarting my career and has provided a structured path back into the industry, helped me regain confidence, and offered opportunities to apply my skills in meaningful ways.
“BBVS’s support has also been outstanding. From the starting stage, where I received exceptional guidance and advice, to the ongoing support post joining, the company has shown a genuine interest in my development.”
To settle a US lawsuit, Google has agreed to delete billions of data records after plaintiffs accused the tech giant of tracking users who thought they were privately browsing the internet.
The lawsuit, which was brought up in California, US, claimed that Google’s analytics and cookies improperly tracked users even when they were using ‘Incognito’ or ‘private’ browsing mode.
The lawsuit sought $5bn (£3.98bn) in damages, seeking recompense for breaches of user privacy.
Google is already beginning to update its disclosures about what it collects in ‘private’ browsing modes, but the lawsuit will allow users to block third-party cookies for five years when they are in Incognito mode.
Despite these concessions, Google has maintained that the lawsuit is meritless.
“We never associate data with users when they use Incognito mode,” Google spokesman Jose Castaneda said. “We are happy to delete old technical data that was never associated with an individual and was never used for any form of personalization.”
However, documents revealed in the court case showed conversations between Google employees calling Google Chrome’s Incognito mode “effectively a lie,” according to the court filing.
The new disclosure reveals that Google does track user data even when they use private settings, but the mode means that browsing activity is not saved to the machine being used.
While Google did try to get the case dismissed, Judge Yvonne Rogers kept the company in court, saying that it did not seem users consented to the tracking of their data in private browsing mode.
Google has also said they are trailing a tool that would automatically block third-party cookies for all Google Chrome users, which would change the data tracking landscape as a whole.
This block is currently in place for incognito users, and the limit will stay in place for at least the next five years, as decided in the settlement deal.
A lawyer for the prosecution David Boies, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, in a statement called the settlement “a historic step in requiring honesty and accountability from dominant technology companies.”
Over half of private sector companies experienced a cybersecurity incident in the past year, and their cybersecurity posture might be weakening, according to a new report from Cisco.
Their new Cybersecurity Readiness Index also revealed that only 3% of organisations they surveyed had a mature stage of cybersecurity readiness in 2024. Further, 71% of organisations have fallen in the two least prepared categories.
This lack of robust posture is troublesome, especially since around three quarters (73%) of businesses believe a cybersecurity incident will disrupt their businesses in the next 12 to 24 months.
Despite this actual lack of readiness, 80% of companies feel moderately to very confident in their ability to stay resilient.
Readiness and resiliency was higher among larger and medium sized organisations. Small organisations tended to struggle more, likely due to budgetary constraints and the inability to attract more digitally skilled talent.
Industries boasting the most robust cybersecurity posture were financial services, technology services, media and communications, and manufacturing. Industries requiring the most improvement are personal care, education, and wholesale.
While confidence is high, posture remains low for a number of reasons: nearly half (46%) of organisations have more than ten unfilled cybersecurity roles on their team at the time of the survey.
This points to the devasting toll the cyber skills gap has on the globe as industries struggle to attract and retain those with the essential skills for cyber safety.
Evolving and emerging threats, spurred on by advances in AI technology, has cyber teams confused by their own complex stacks, with 80% of companies admitting that having multiple point solutions is slowing down their team’s ability to detect, respond to, and recover from incidents.
How is the Threat Landscape Evolving?
Besides AI advancements, an interesting trend revealed in the survey was the shift from internal to external threat factors.
The majority (62%) of companies now see external actors as their biggest threat, as opposed to 31% saying the same for internal actors. This is a marked shift from 2023, where the two were seen as equal threats, and could be driven by the increased sophistication seen in external threats.
Malware (76%) and phishing (54%) were the top types of attacks experienced in the past year, followed by credential stuffing (37%), supply chain and social engineering attacks (32%), and cryptojacking (27%).
The continuation of hybrid working is also a factor stressing cyber specialists out. 82% of organisations cite remote logins as a heightened threat vector, and nearly one in three (29%) employees move between at least six networks weekly, only increasing the danger.
With these dangers, and a shocking lack of security readiness, it is no wonder that Cisco also found that 97% of companies expect to increase their security budgets, with over half (52%) planning to increase these by 11-30% in 2024.
With the rise of AI, this question has weighed heavily among workers, employers and economists as automation and machine learning promises to make our everyday and working lives easier.
But for many, automation can mean the total replacement of jobs, and if technology does not offer or create alternative jobs, this can be disastrous for people who are unable to reskill.
Furthermore, reskilling may not be enough if the net number of jobs decreases due to the introduction of proliferation of new technologies.
All of these questions and considerations have confounded debate on the positives of technological advancements on society as it stands – less work should equal more free time, the ability to pursue creative undertakings, and the ability to foster greater community. But as it stands, less available work means that more and more people may be unable to afford basic necessities as the cost of living crisis continues to squeeze people’s incomes.
So, where does technology stand, a net positive or a net negative? Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) tried to quantify if the net impact technology has had on jobs since the 1940s, at least in the US.
The study balanced the jobs that have been lost to machine automation against those that had been generated by augmentation – when technology creates new tasks and jobs.
Researchers revealed that automation has been outpacing augmentation since around the 1980s – technology replaced more jobs than it created in the US since the tech boom.
Still, the study developed a way to measure how many jobs technology generated since the 1940s by tracking US patent records and by analysing US census job categories.
This revealed that around 60% of jobs in the US are new kinds of work which were developed since 1940. A computer scientist, for instance, would be a completely novel job that simply would not exist in the 1940s.
From 1940 to 2018, there were two time periods which experienced automation and augmentation differently.
From the 1940s to 1980, many jobs were automated, such as typesetters and elevator operators, but with this, emerging technology created a need for more employees in new positions in engineering, department heads, and clerks in shipping.
From the 1980s, however, machinists and other traditional makers were often replaced by automation. Still, systems and research analysis, as well as engineers, enjoyed further growth in different industries.
According to the research, the negative effects of automation on jobs was more than twice as great from the 1980s to 2018 as in the four decades prior.
There was a still a positive growth in the amount of new jobs from 1980 to 2018, though this was more modest than from 1940 to 1980.
“AI is really different,” MIT economist David Autor told MIT News. He co-authored the paper with Caroline Chin, Anna Salomons, and Bryan Seegmiller.
“It may substitute some high-skill expertise but may complement decision-making tasks. I think we’re in an era where we have this new tool and we don’t know what it’s good for. New technologies have strengths and weaknesses and it takes a while to figure them out. GPS was invented for military purposes, and it took decades for it to be in smartphones.”
Past patterns do tend to show that new work often squeezes from the middle, creating jobs for the well-educated, and lower-paying jobs, exacerbating the already vast wage gap.
“The new work is bifurcated,” Autor said. “As old work has been erased in the middle, new work has grown on either side.”
Microsoft has announced that it will sell Teams, its video and chat app, separately from the rest of its Office bundle globally, following it doing the same in Europe just six months ago, in a bid to appease antitrust laws in the EU.
Competitors such as Slack have been complaining about Microsoft’s bundling of Teams with its other applications since 2020, sparking an EU Commission investigation into whether the practice breaches anti-trust laws.
Teams was originally bundled with Office 365 in 2017, replacing Skype for Businesses and rocketing to popularity during the pandemic with its chat interface and videoing capabilities.
Soon, however, Salesforce, which owns Slack, and other rivals said that the bundle gave Microsoft an unfair advantage in the video and chat app market.
Last year, Microsoft elected to sell Teams separately from the rest of Office 365 in a bid to assuage anti-trust fears.
“To ensure clarity for our customers, we are extending the steps we took last year to unbundle Teams from M365 and O365 in the European Economic Area and Switzerland to customers globally,” a Microsoft spokesperson said, as reported by Reuters.
“Doing so also addresses feedback from the European Commission by providing multinational companies more flexibility when they want to standardise their purchasing across geographies.”
Like its current EU offering, Office 365 will be sold in bundles that do not include Teams, which will be sold separately for an additional fee.
From April 1, customers outside of the EEA will be able to continue with their current licensing deal, renew it, or update to a new offer.
The global move may not be enough to keep antitrust watchdogs off Microsoft’s back, however, as rival companies scrutinise their price levels and the lack of interoperability offered to other chat and video services.
In a world with ever-shifting threats on a personal, professional, and even national scale, cybersecurity professionals scrape and fight just to keep up with adversaries.
Advancements in technology like AI have made it easier for bad actors to create more sophisticated social engineering attack vectors, and even generate pernicious malware.
Digital transformation, the rapid adoption of cloud technologies, and the growing presence of IoT devices, is also doing its part in exacerbating the situation.
Cyber-criminals are staking their war on every front, relying on old methods of email phishing with updated techniques, to exploiting connected devices left unsecure in the age of hybrid work.
The Burden of Cybersecurity is Only Getting Heavier
Katie Ralph, director of solutions engineering EMEA at SonicWall, began her talk at Dynamic Earth highlighting the cacophony of alarm bells cybersecurity specialists deal with on a daily basis.
CISOs, CIOs, CTOs, and IT managers are “constantly baffled by all these different vendors, products, regulations, concerns, and audits coming along,” she lamented.
“You cannot open up a newspaper or a news website without hearing about something to do with cyber or a hack or something like that.”
The inescapable tsunami of cyber, it’s easy to feel burnout, overwhelmed, and ultimately alone.
“You’re not alone,” Ralph reassured. “No one actually fully knows what they’re doing in cyber. It is a cat and mouse game. It’s just figuring out how you map yourself to try and follow these trends, keep the fundamentals there, and then you should be able and be resilient against other things that come along.”
SonicWalls’ threat report revealed trends by of the continued invigoration of ransomware attacks, increased sophistication in malware, and newer exploits such as cryptojacking and threats to encrypted data.
Security concerns from executives and IT managers included cloud security, as more and more turn to cloud data storage capabilities, sometimes without enough knowledge of how this data is stored, transferred, and the data governance that comes along with it.
One of the most shocking statistics in the report, though, according to Ralph, is that 4% of cyber professionals who say they had not observed any incidents – including ransomware, phishing attempts, data breaches – in the past year.
“Burying your head in the sand won’t actually help,” Ralph said. “Perhaps they’re not seeing anything because they’ve got no tools or data to show them these types of events or threats,”
“If you’re not seeing anything, that’s not right either.”
So, admitting there is a problem is the first step, but then what can companies do to combat threat actors and keep their businesses and data secure?
Ralph suggests keeping it simple to start, beginning with the basics and fundamentals of security. Patch management, anti-malware, updating software, and anti-phishing training should all remain important.
But as threats transform and change, the basics shift and priorities need to be realigned.
“So, how do you secure yourselves with the world and the ever-changing threat landscape when you need to state your budget at the start of the fiscal year?” Ralph queried.
Cybersecurity’s prioritisation has doubled, according to SonicWall’s threat report. Ralph expects this statistic to continue growing.
“It will be exponential, especially as businesses are moving new operations into the cloud.”
But the cybersecurity world is varied, and budgets are constrained.
“How do you prioritise when it’s all just chaotic? And that is cybersecurity. It will always be chaotic,” Ralph said. “Anyone who says it won’t be is probably lying.
“We are living in a real environment. We are always catching up with the attackers, and we are behind them.”
What Should Your Cybersecurity Priorities Be?
To keep up with attacks, Ralph went into the top seven priorities for CISOs and CIOs, delving into what they mean, and what they may have forgotten.
Securing the cloud came in first: “We all love taking about the cloud and its a great thing to say, but if you’re using it, are you actually looking at security it, maintaining it, where it is hosted, or do you just sign a contract and forget about it and it becomes someone else’s problem?”
Ransomware came in next, and continues to baffle cybersecurity experts as scammers utilise new technologies to steal data. Ensuring that encrypted backups are made is a vital step in avoiding paying ransoms.
Ransomware had its third most prolific year on record, Ralph said, and sticking to the fundamentals is vital in preventing a costly reputational fallout.
Protecting user identities from attack and compromise was next on the list – this could be related to insider threats, but is also just related to all the data a company holds.
“Do you have a 24/7 threat model that’s looking at your intel pieces, or are you just looking at it Monday to Friday,” Ralph challenged.
Securing third party software and applications developed internally came further down the list, having Ralph question people’s budgetary scrutiny and consider the products they currently have for security.
Rounding out the list were endpoint security and email security. While these may seem like less complex tasks, recent advancements and expansions in technology have made these even more of a priority.
Cryptojacking is a relatively new form of cyber-attack, where hackers gain access to any type of IoT device and use its energy for crypto-mining. This can be done on a laptop, a smart speaker like an Alexa, or even a smart washing machine.
“It’s not a spray and pay with cryptojacking. It’s much more involved, but it is still a low cost,” Ralph explained. “So its very very lucrative and it is preferred.”
2023 saw about a billion cryptojacking hits, and this is expected to grow exponentially as more and more IoT devices are introduced into homes and businesses without proper security.
The year also saw 240k intrusion attempts per second.
“That’s not a typo. That’s not a lie. That is what we see,” Ralph said.
So with all these advancing threats, how do companies begin to build resilience?
“It will never be fully managed,” Ralph conceded. Threat actors will continue to develop their assault tactics, without taking holidays or weekends, and they only have to be lucky once.
“So you have to remain resilient and become resilient. Look up the definition of resilient if you want to think how you should be securing your business and your customers and your staff’s data.
“It means you can weather the storm. So no, no one is fully protected, but at least with some level of resiliency, you are protected to certain types of attack and only the worst ones will get through or be successful.”
But with 51% of organisations only planning to increase cybersecurity investments when there has already been a breach, cybersecurity professionals are left a further step behind attackers.
“There is room for improvement, “The B word, budgeting, needs to be for resilience.”
Budgeting, and convincing a board to maintain or increase a solid cyber budget, is vital to ensuring a robust security posture. Presenting the economic and reputational consquences of a data breach or crypto-jacking attack may be necessary to educate the board on the real risks of a small budget.
Maintaining fundamentals, understanding your network concerns, delving into how vendors protect your assets, and proper data governance are all core to keeping up with the ever-evolving threat landscape.
But for Ralph, the main takeaway is simple: “Don’t be in that 4% who had their head buried in the sand thinking everything was fine.”
Nearly half (48%) of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the UK have lost or lost access to company to company or customer data in the last five years.
This is according to new research from Beaming, which also revealed that up to a quarter of businesses make no effort to back up their company’s data, revealing a severe gap in their cybersecurity posture.
The rate for SMEs far exceeds the average, with 15% of UK businesses as a whole losing data in the last five years due to hardware theft or failure, cyber-crime, data management errors, flooding, or other factors.
Shockingly, 12% of company’s surveyed keep only one copy of their data, either on individual users’ computers or a single server in the office.
The fallout of losing data can be catastrophic, costing businesses over £5.3 bn since 2019 from recovering data, financial penalties, lost productivity, and the cost of replacing people’s assets.
And this does not factor in the reputational damage that comes along with data loss, which can hurt a company’s future prospects
Despite the economic loss associated with data loss, only about one in four UK businesses are pursuing good backup practices, which includes daily backups of mission-critical data, the use of encryption to secure data, and systematic offset backups.
The research also found that, while around half of businesses are backing up their data, their methods are flawed, leaving the data vulnerable to loss. Flaws in data backup protocol include relying on manual processes, keeping backups in the same location as the originals, and failing to encrypt backup data.
More alarmingly the research revealed the ignorance of companies to the importance of data backup hygiene, with one in four businesses either not knowing good data practices or making no effort to back up their data whatsoever.
Startup companies supported by the Scottish Government’s Techscaler programme attracted investment of more than £52 million in 2023, according to the project’s first Annual Report.
The initiative supported more than 500 companies in its first year and now has nearly 2,500 members.
Techscaler is delivered by tech incubator Codebase, launched to help fledging companies and entrepreneurs start and scale-up their businesses through education programmes, expert mentoring and a growing network of physical hubs.
More than a third of those enrolling on one of the programme’s education courses were women, compared to the startup industry average of 20%.
“By empowering startups, we are creating a strong economy built on entrepreneurship, innovation, and sustainable growth,” wellbeing economy secretary Mairi McAllan said. “The Techscaler programme continues to be one of our most ambitious economic initiatives. Indeed, there is no other programme of its kind in Europe.
“Entrepreneurship is at the heart of our National Strategy for Economic Transformation. We are creating one of the finest state-funded entrepreneurial systems in the world dedicated to the creation of high-growth businesses and the first annual report shows we are already seeing a return on our investment.
“Scotland has the potential to become a leading start-up nation and this government’s clear aim is to unleash innovation and entrepreneurial talent from all walks of life and in all parts of the country. That Techscaler participants have raised a combined £301 million in lifetime capital so far shows the enormous economic potential of our startup community, and we will continue to help them capitalise on this success.”
Techscaler also launched 11 hubs in its first year, and has 56 network partners in place since its founding in November 2022.
“At its heart, Techscaler aims to make Scotland the best place in the world for founders to launch and grow a tech startup,” CodeBase CEO Stephen Coleman OBE said. “At CodeBase, we’ve been privileged to propel this groundbreaking ecosystem-building programme into existence for the Scottish Government. We can’t wait to build on this foundation in year two.”
Advancing AI and quantum computing, as well as the expanded reliance on cloud data, is set to increase the energy usage of data centres six-fold in the next ten years.
This is according to John Pettigrew, chief executive of the National Grid. In a speech at the Aurora Spring Forum, shared on LinkedIn, Pettigrew lamented how the current energy system was “constrained” as demand grew for energy.
As more people rely on advanced, power-hungry technology in their daily lives, and turn to heat pumps and electric vehicles, the energy sector is transforming, and infrastructure must keep up.
While Pettigrew celebrated some of the National Grid’s environmental achievements, such as the reduction of coals contribution to energy to just 1% in 2023, he is “in no doubt about the distance still to go to deliver the energy transition.”
But the UK is facing an energy crisis similar to what if faced in the 1950s, when the UK’s original grid was at capacity. Technology engineers designed the ‘supergrid’ in response. 70 years on, the grid is still powering the UK to this day.
“Demand on the grid is growing dramatically, and forecast to double by 2050 as heat, transport, and industry continue to electrify,” Pettigrew said.
With demand on data centres to increase six fold in the next ten years, and more homes opting for electric heat and vehicles, the demands on this already constrained network is set to increase.
The International Energy Agency has predicted that that global electricity demand is set to double by just 2026, largely driven by the growth of AI.
“As we look towards the strategic spatial energy plan, do we also need to take a collective step back, and consider whether there are alternative long-term approaches to build a grid that is fit not just for the next 20 years, but for the next 60,” he said.
Potential approaches include building an ultra-high voltage onshore transmission net for of up to 800 thousand volts, which would be added to the current supergrid – “a super-supergrid if you like.”
Transitioning from a network of hundreds of individual connection projects to more centralised capacity hubs is also be part of the transition, using existing infrastructure, to create “a capacity rich network designed for growth.”
Pettigrew said that this new outlook does not change current priorities, the need for “The Great Grid Upgrade,” or energy transition targets.
“But what I’ve set out is a vision for the future and how we can transform our electricity network to make the country’s economic growth ambitions possible. And the time is right to think beyond tomorrow,” he said.
Following the release of its new generative AI video production model, Sora, OpenAI has revealed a series of short films which took advantage of the technology.
Sora’s realistic depictions of mammoths and cityscapes took the internet by storm when it was first released, and studios have already adopted the technology to rapidly take ideas from conceptualisation into creation.
The videos range in subject matter, from advertisements to fake animal documentaries, to music videos.
Creators cite different reasons for adopting the technology, saying its advantages in development speed, as well as budget constraints are already creating fast fans.
“As great as Sora is at generating things that appear real, what excites us is its ability to make things that are totally surreal,” remarked Walter Woodman, a co-creator a “Air Head” which is shared below. “A new era of abstract expressionism.”
And the short films seemed to truly embrace the surreal – Air Head follows a person with a balloon for a head, and Beyond Our Reality, created by Don Allen Stevenson III, creates animal hybrids thriving in their natural environment, including the girafflamingo and the bunny armadillo.
But this creativity was not the only reason people were excited to use Sora.
“Working with Sora is the first time I’ve felt unchained as a filmmaker” Paul Trillo, a director who used Sora said, citing his liberation from timelines, budget constraints, and people’s expectations and permission.
Budget constraints were cited by several artists featured in OpenAI’s blog post which shared some initial use cases of Sora.
This could, however, stoke continued fears from artists, authors, actors, designers, and crew workers who have already fought against AI’s use in the arts, most notably in the Hollywood Actor’s strikes of 2023.
The technology does remove several barriers from production, and can take prompts as simple and as unrealistic as two dogs hosting a podcast and turn it into an actual video.
While the technology is certainly impressive, the choice of using indie filmmakers to showcase the technology’s prowess is a calculated one. The implications of Sora will be far-reaching, for better or worse.
Ahead of World Backup Day on 31 March, Sophos has highlighted the impact compromised backups can have on the outcomes of ransomware attacks.
If an organisation’s backup data is compromised as part of a ransomware attack, it leaves little room for negotiation. The only other way an operation can retrieve their data is through cooperation with the threat actors, often by paying a ransom.
Research also shows that paying out to ransomware criminals only leaves organisations more susceptible to future targeting, and it is also no guarantee that they will retrieve all their data.
Sophos surveyed 2,974 IT and cybersecurity professionals across many sectors whose organisations were hit by a ransomware attack in the last year.
In short, the impact of compromised backups is immense in terms of ransomware attacks. They essentially force a firm’s hand to pay out, and can result in the ultimate loss of encrypted data.
The research found that almost all (94%) of ransomware attackers tried to compromise backups as part of their assault.
For state and local government, as well as the media, leisure, and entertainment sector, the figure rose to 99%.
Even the sector with the lowest rate of attempted compromise – distribution and transport – still factored in at 82%.
Overall, 57% of backup compromise attacks were successful, but this ranged greatly across different industries, with energy and education facing the most successful attempts.
IT and telecoms and retail had the lowest rates, at 30% and 47% respectfully.
Impact
The impact of a successful backup compromise can be devastating, as ransom demands and payments tend to double. The median ransom demand for those whose backups were compromised came in at $2.3m, with those with uncompromised backups ringing in at $1m.
Despite the rise in cost, those with compromised backups were almost twice as likely to pay the ransom than those whose backups remained safe.
Further, organisations with compromised backups were 63% more likely to have their data encrypted than those with uncompromised backups.
Ransomware has other hidden costs, however, besides the actual ransom. Attacks can lead to outages, and often require expensive and complex IT system restoration.
Recovery from ransomware is eight times higher for those with compromised backups, with a median cost of $3m, and also incurs a longer recovery time.
This could be because it is difficult to restore decrypted data, or that less backup protection would mean weaker defences across the board.
Which?, the consumer watchdog, is warning consumers to be wary of fraudulent banking websites after finding a myriad of scam sites.
Its research found more then 2,000 websites imitating UK banks were reported just in 2023 alone.
These copycat websites can play a crucial role in scamming unsuspecting users. Fraudsters can use the fake websites to collect personal banking details like account numbers and sort codes, which they can later use to con those same people into sending them money, often posing as bank staff.
Though banks do attempt to get lookalike websites taken down, the sheer number of registered websites, and sometimes the inadequate response from firms, means that these sites are up long enough to find and exploit victims.
Which? partnered with the DNSRF, a non-profit that performs data-driven policy research on domain names and internet governance, to delve the scale of the pernicious practice.
By consulting industry blocklists – lists of websites that have been reported as hosting illegal content – and cross-referencing these with the names of common bank brands, the team could discover potential copycate domain names.
For instance, by searching for domain names containing HSBC, the researchers could find fraudulent websites that attempting to pose as the bank, such as helphsbc.net
Researchers did this method with a number of banks, including: AIB (Allied Irish Banks), Barclays, Bank of Scotland, The Co-Operative Bank, Danske Bank, First Direct, HSBC, Halifax, Lloyds, Metro Bank, Monzo, Nationwide, NatWest, RBS, Santander, Starling, TSB, Ulster Bank and Virgin Money/Clydesdale.
This is how the partnership discovered more than 2,000 URLS masquerading as UK banks, including Barclays, HSBC, Halifax, Lloyds, Monzo, Nationwide, NatWest, Santander and Starling.
Further, the majority of the sites in the raw data appear to be blatant attempts to lead bank customers astray, sometimes only containing minor mis-spellings that could go unnoticed.
DNSRF also examined another blocklist, run by Scamadviser.com, this time also finding more than 2,000 URLs containing the names of the bank brands. This group included the same brands as the phishing blocklist, with the addition of Clydesdale.
Across both blocklists, the words Santander and Barclays appeared the most.
Which? did provide some concessions to their data – for instance, TSB was excluded from the results as the string of letters was too common.
Further, they could not check if the websites were actually fraudulent as they have already been taken down; equally, their research could have missed many copycat websites which were not already flagged in blocklists.
In the fight against fraud, it seems like the existence of a plethora of scam websites is a battleground that has been largely left for fraudsters to exploit.
Which? did confirm with several banks mentioned in the study, including Barclays, Lloyds, HSBC, and NatWest, to confirm that they employ monitoring tools to scan for malicious scam sites, and issue takedown requests when they find evidence of tehse sites.
The domain name industry itself, remains largely self-regulated. Users can create domain names, and it is up to consumers to contact a web hosting company to take down one suspected of being fraudulent.
While the UK government is currently consulting on how to seize control of domains being used for criminal purposes, the complexity of the industry, and its many stakeholders, makes regulation difficult.
“It’s an industry where consumers’ voices aren’t strong, even though it’s consumers who are badly hurt by rogue sites,” Emily Taylor, founder of DNSRF said.
NatWest said that their process takes down around fraudulent sites 15,000 sites per month, which has peaked at 37,000.
DataKirk, a leading advocate for diversity and innovation in Scotland, has unveiled its Scottish Ethnic Minority Talent Summit & Festival (SEMTSF) 2024, marking a significant evolution in its continued commitment to inclusivity and empowerment.
In response to the dynamic landscape of Scotland’s workforce and economy, SEMTSF hopes to revolutionise the narrative surrounding talent, diversity, and opportunity.
Embracing a fresh perspective, SEMTSF will extend over a 5-day period, from October 28th to November 1st, 2024, spanning across the major cities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, and Aberdeen.
SEMTSF is poised to address the critical challenges facing Scotland’s demographic fabric and economic vitality. Amidst evolving UK Government Immigration regulations and talent dynamics, SEMTSF stands as a pivotal platform to cultivate innovative solutions for attracting and retaining skilled ethnic minorities in Scotland.
Through engaging discussions, interactive sessions, and collaborative workshops, SEMTSF will explore avenues for economic mobility, cultural inclusion, and response strategies to the cost of living crisis. By harnessing the power of diverse skill sets, SEMTSF endeavours to foster positive disruption and drive sustainable innovation across sectors.
Manira Ahmad, chief officer of Public Health Scotland, will act as the Chair for the five-day conference.
The event hopes to unite stakeholders from across sectors to catalyse transformative action and forge enduring partnerships, to create a more united Scotland.
Recent reports into the diversity of the UK tech sector has left much to be desired: according to Tech Talent Charter’s survey, 18% of tech workers in the survey are Asian or British Asian, with 5% being Black, African, Caribbean or Black British, and 2% being mixed or multiple ethnic groups.
Diversity numbers, however, are skewed towards London, leaving an even starker picture for the rest of the UK, including Scotland.
DIGIT attended DataKirk’s landmark event, The Scottish Black Talent Summit, last year, which highlighted the opportunities Scotland’s diverse talent pool had to offer.
“It is clear that it’s us people that makes this country what it is: it’s not the weather, it’s not the accent, it’s not the landscape,” Abel Aboh, data management lead at the Bank of England .said at the Scottish Black Talent Summit last October. “It is people.”
The event highlighted the barriers ethnic minorities face in entering the Scottish tech sector, as well as the many benefits a diverse workforce can have for companies.
This year’s expanded event hopes to invigorate this message, while developing a community and beneficial ecosystem to Scotland’s diverse talent pool.
Following revelations about the national security of elections in the UK, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has released guidance for individuals and organisations to safeguard the democratic process.
The guidance was released just a day after the UK parliament linked the Electoral Commission cyber-attack of 2021 to China state-affiliated hackers.
The 2021 cyber-attack breached the electoral register and internal emails, but the UK government assured the public that the election and people’s registration status were not impacted.
“Democratic events such as elections are attractive targets for adversaries, and organisations and individuals must be prepared for threats, old and new,” the guidance said.
“Defending UK democratic institutions and processes is a priority.”
The NCSC provided specific adice for high-risk individuals, organisations coordinating elections, and political organisations.
High-Risk Individuals
Here, high-risk individuals are defined as those whose work or public status means they have access or influence over sensitive information. This typically includes those working in politics, academia, journalism, and the legal sector.
Individuals will likely be targeted via spear-phishing or another form of social engineering. To combat this, the NCSC recommends what can essentially be boiled down to good cyber hygiene: strong passwords, enabling two-step verification, and installing updates.
High-risk individuals would also benefit from replacing old devices, knowing how to erase data from devices, or using Lockdown Mode for Apple devices or S mode for Windows devices.
Suspicious links and emails should be reported to an IT department, even if the person has already accidently clicked on it.
Valuation joint boards in Scotland, local authorities in England and Wales, and the Electoral Office in Northern Ireland, should take heed of this advice.
Securing Electoral Management System (EMS) software, including the data it processes, is vital in maintaining the integrity of elections.
Risk assessment, gaining assurance from EMS suppliers, securing and backing up EMS data, are all paramount steps in securing elections.
Organisations should also ensure the security of their entire electoral supply chain, so that no data is lost or at risk at any step of its journey.
The network EMS depends on should also be audited for its safety and security.
Political Organisations
This guidance is aimed at the staff managing the IT networks, systems, and data of political organisations.
These organisations should protect their cloud services by following previously given NCSC guidance, set up multi-factor authentication, and protect websites from denial of service (DoS) attacks.
IT staff should also make a concerted effort to defend against spear-phishing, which requires educating other staff on safe email practices, as well as implement anti-spoofing controls.
UK SMBs experienced a 37% surge in daily cybersecurity warnings over the last year, according to research from cybersecurity provider, Censornet.
The volume of cybersecurity warnings rose from 597 in 2013 to 815 in 2024, leaving security professionals with just 87 seconds to review each security incident and decide what is a genuine threat.
Private sector organisations were hit harder by the tsunami of cyber threats, receiving 18% more alerts than their public sector counterparts. As threat levels rose, IT teams also showed signs of shrinking – the mean size of each security team at the beginning of 2024 was 2.63 people, slightly down from 2.7 people in 2021.
The findings based on insights from 200 UK-based IT and security leaders revealed that a SMBs are surrounded by cyber incidents, with security professionals taking the brunt of the stress.
Cyber Incidents Hit from All Sides
SMBs are suffering from a variety of cyber incidents, ranging from data breaches to ransomware.
Two in five (41%) SMBs had to take their systems and applications offline due to an incident over the last year. For one in seven of those, (14%) the outage lasted more than a day.
Data loss affected nearly two in five (39%) of SMBs due to a cyber-attack in 2023, a 13% jump since 2021.
Nearly a third (30%) of SMBs also lost data due to user error in the last 12 months and 27% lost data due to disgruntled employees.
Further, one in five fell victim to ransomware, with the pace of attack remaining consistent over the last three years.
The research also showed that 34% of SMBs paid out after a ransomware attack, with the average pay-out standing at £139,368. One if five were subjected to a regulatory fine as a result of paying out.
Human error is also plaguing SMBs, with nearly a quarter (23%) experiencing an email attack, with employees opening a suspicious or malicious email that led to a serious attack.
Security Professionals Paying the Price
Security professionals are bearing the brunt of cyber incidents, often working overtime.
44% of private sector security professionals have been called in the middle of the night to investigate a cyber alert, compared to 28% in the public sector.
Further, 34% have had their holiday interrupted, with 40% of private sector professionals handling a security alert during annual leave, compared to 23% in the public sector.
32% feel unable to cope with the unsustainable workload risk UK SMs suffering from significant financial, operation, and reputational damage with only 60% of alerts fully investigated.
Security professionals also feel stuck – around a third (29%) think their career prospects have been negatively impacted because of a cyber-attack, jumping from 18% last year.
“Cybersecurity professionals are working hard to discern genuine threats from noise – sacrificing sleep, holidays, and career stability,” commented Ed Macnair, CEO of Censornet. “With SMBs forming the lifeblood of the UK economy, it’s imperative to simplify and bolster their resilience against rising cyberthreats, leaning into new technologies, such as AI, to help.”
SMBs Struggle to With Sprawling Security Solutions
Despite the rising intricacy and persistence of threats, the ability of SMBs to protect against some of the most common attack vectors is on the decline.
Over two thirds (69%) of SMBs list the number of point products needed to protect against the entire threat spectrum as one of their biggest challenges in 2024. And the patchwork of multiple solutions SMBs are turning to are weakening defences.
Defence adoption appears to be down. 30% can protect against cross channel attacks, down from 37% in 2021. Similarly, 47% of SMBs can block ‘dangerous attachments from reaching the inbox of users, down from 51% in 2021.
Further, only a third (33%) can quarantine suspicious emails, down from 35% in 2021. While 47% have data loss prevention, which is up one percent from last year, this is still less than half of surveyed SMBs.
SMBs Look to AI With Hope
To manage their risk, SMBs are turning to cyber applications that are easier to set-up, manage, and maintain.
Overwhelmed private sector professionals are more hopeful about the opportunities that AI will offer to automate everyday tasks and combat AI generated threats.
Over half (56%) of private sector SMBs will use AI to fight threats, but only a quarter (26%) of public sector SMBs will use AI to combat threats despite the opportunity it offers to automate everyday tasks.
Over half (51%) of private sector SMBs hope that AI will alleviate workloads by responding to security alerts. While 49% think it will boost cyber defences by freeing up team time to proactively investigate risks.
A third (32%) of public sector SMBs think AI will respond to security alerts and 35% think it will boost their cyber defences by freeing up time to proactively investigate threats.
Neil Langridge, marketing & alliances director, e92plus said: “The rapid growth of AI, the increasing complexity of cloud environments and the expanding potential attack surface creates additional openings for security vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and exploits. Adopting a cybersecurity perspective that emphasises controls rather than merely tools will be essential for effectively managing technology estates.”
Scotland’s financial services industry is grappling with a significant skills shortage, particularly in the realms of data analysis and software development. As big data becomes increasingly integral to daily business practices, the demand for these specialised digital skills continues to outpace the available supply of talent.
The 2023 Scotland Technology Industry Survey, conducted by ScotlandIS, revealed that over 70% of employers require more software development talent, while at least 60% need additional data skills.
These skills are similarly needed in the financial services sector and mirrors the broader UK trend, where a 2021 study estimated that the supply of data scientists from universities was unlikely to exceed 10,000 per year, despite potentially 178,000 unfilled data specialist roles.
To address this widening fintech skills gap and ensure Scotland’s future prosperity, it is crucial to explore diverse learning pathways for both new and existing members of the national workforce. One highly effective solution lies in Scotland’s successful graduate apprenticeship (GA) programmes.
These innovative degrees, offered across various universities including Heriot-Watt, combine practical work-based learning with theoretical study, producing well-rounded graduates equipped to excel in their chosen fields.
The unique structure of graduate apprenticeships offers numerous benefits for students and employers alike. Apprentices can complete their fully-funded degrees with minimal time away from the office, as most of their learning is completed in the workplace.
This arrangement not only supports the development of a highly skilled workforce but also provides graduates with direct access to industry leaders and top academics, fostering invaluable networking opportunities and mentorship.
graduate apprenticeships are playing a vital role in helping Scotland’s financial services sector produce graduates that have developed critical skills for highly desired roles such as Auditors, Actuaries and Forensic Accountants.
However, as the UK Government’s recent Data Science Skills in the UK Workforce report highlights, efforts to reduce the skills gap can be hindered by inconsistent definitions of data skills. The report states that there is no agreed definition of a data scientist role, and practitioners in different organisations may have different skills profiles.
Additionally, role requirements also change over time.
A 2020 Microsoft report highlighted that upskilling is often under-utilised as a way to increase AI talent within firms. The same report found that UK business leadership focused on implementing AI tools before considering their employees’ ability to work with it.
To overcome these challenges, universities must work in close partnership with industry-leading organisations to tailor their programmes to the specific needs of employers, ensuring that graduates possess the exact skills that are in high demand.
Scottish Financial Enterprise (SFE), a prominent industry body, has been a strong supporter of graduate apprenticeship programmes. Rachel Kennedy, a recent graduate of Heriot-Watt University’s Business Management GA programme and current Events and Relationship Manager at SFE, credits the programme with providing her with the tangible skills that she uses in her workplace every day, such as the ability to navigate corporate hierarchies, implement innovative problem-solving techniques, as well as gaining valuable insights into different industry sectors.
The GA programme has also empowered Rachel to stay up-to-date with the latest trends in artificial intelligence and data, enabling her to actively contribute to future-proofing Scottish Financial Enterprise’s business as they navigate the next wave of technological advancement. Her positive experience underscores the effectiveness of graduate apprenticeships in bridging key skills gaps and boosting productivity across Scotland’s industries.
To mitigate the persistent digital skills gap in financial services and beyond, businesses and educational institutions must continue to collaborate through initiatives like graduate apprenticeships. By working together to identify emerging trends, anticipate challenges, and promote diversity, these stakeholders can develop innovative programmes that drive Scotland’s growth and secure its future prosperity.
The evidence is clear: with a staggering 70% of employers seeking more software development talent and at least 60% requiring further data skills, graduate apprenticeships are uniquely positioned to provide the precise expertise that industry demands. As Scotland navigates an increasingly growing financial services industry, these programmes will undoubtedly serve as a vital pathway to bridge the skills gap and ensure that the nation’s workforce remains at the forefront of innovation
Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly being used to create chatbots, according to data cloud company Snowflake, as more and more companies seek to leverage the technology.
Chatbots have grown from being approximately 18% of the total LLM apps available, to now encompassing 46% as of May 2023 – and that metric is only climbing.
In addition, after surveying the developer community of Streamlit, an open-source hub for machine learning data science web apps, it was found that nearly two thirds (65%) of respondents noted that their LLM projects were for work purposes. This could signal a shift in the importance of harnessing generative AI to improve workforce productivity, efficiency, and insights.
These results are based on usage data from more than 9,000 Snowflake customers, and summarized in Snowflake’s new Data Trends 2024 report.
The report focuses on how global enterprise business and technology leaders are leveraging resources such as AI to build their data foundation and transform future business operations. The new data shows a shift from LLM applications with text-based input (2023: 82%, 2024: 54%) to chatbots with iterative text input, offering the ability to have a natural conversation.
“Conversational apps are on the rise, because that’s the way humans are programmed to interact. And now it is even easier to interact conversationally with an application,” explains Jennifer Belissent, principal data strategist at Snowflake.
“We expect to see this trend continue as it becomes easier to build and deploy conversational LLM applications, particularly knowing that the underlying data remains well governed and protected. With that peace of mind, these new interactive and highly versatile chatbots will meet both business needs and user expectations.”
Over 33,000 LLM Applications in Nine Months
The report also shows that 20,076 developers from Snowflake’s Streamlit community of developers have built over 33,143 LLM apps in the past nine months.
When it comes to developing AI projects, Python is the programming language of choice due to its ease of use, active community of developers, and vast ecosystem of libraries and frameworks.
In terms of where application development is taking place, the trend is towards programming LLM applications directly on the platform on which the data is also managed.
This is indicated by a 311% increase in Snowflake native apps between July 2023 and January 2023. Developing applications on a single data platform eliminates the need to export data copies to third-party technologies, helping develop and deploy applications faster, while reducing operational maintenance costs.
With the adoption of AI, companies are increasing analysis and processing of their unstructured data. This is enabling companies to discover untapped data sources, making a modern approach to data governance more crucial than ever to protect sensitive and private data.
The report found that enterprises have increased the processing of unstructured data by 123% in the past year.
The International Data Corporation (IDC) estimates that up to 90% of the world’s data is unstructured video, images, and documents. Clean data gives language models a head start, so unlocking this untapped 90% opens up a number of business benefits.
“Data governance is not about locking down data, but ultimately about unlocking the value of data,” said Belissent. “We break governance into three pillars: knowing data, securing data and using data to deliver that value.
“Our customers are using new features to tag and classify data so that the appropriate access and usage policies can be applied. The use of all data governance functions has increased by 70 to 100 percent. As a result, the number of queries of protected objects has increased by 142 percent. When the data is protected, it can be used securely. That delivers peace of mind.”
“Taken individually, each of these trends is a single data point that shows how organizations across the globe are dealing with different challenges. When considered together, they tell a larger story about how CIOs, CTOs, and CDOs are modernizing their organizations, tackling AI experiments, and solving data problems — all necessary steps to take advantage of the opportunities presented by advanced AI,” says Belissent.
“The important thing to understand is that the era of generative AI does not require a fundamental change in data strategy. It does, however, require accelerated execution of that strategy. It requires breaking down data silos even faster and opening up access to data sources, wherever they may be in the company or across a broader data ecosystem.”
