Get the most out of CIO Influence’s comprehensive daily IT news roundups to stay ahead in the information technology sector. Get current news in the IT sector about key domains such as cloud computing, data management, cybersecurity, and information security. Our curated updates include IT breaking news, tech partnerships, innovative IT solutions, and evolving security policies, keeping you informed on current industry happenings.
#1 OneTrust Announces Expectations to Surpass $500 Million in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)
OneTrust, a leader in trust intelligence, announced it expects to exceed $500 million in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) later this year while maintaining positive free c*** flow. This growth is fueled by its expanding customer base of over 14,000, including 75% of the Fortune 100, who rely on OneTrust for secure and responsible data and AI use. The company aims to scale to $1 billion in ARR, driven by its comprehensive platform that bridges data activation and risk management, providing organizations a competitive edge.
Customer Success and Industry Recognition
OneTrust’s solutions are trusted by leading organizations like TitanOS and PUMA, managing over one billion daily consent transactions. The company has received industry accolades, including two gold awards from the Globee Awards for Cybersecurity and the top spot in the KuppingerCole Data Governance Report. OneTrust is also active in shaping AI policy, joining the Responsible Artificial Intelligence Institute.
Partnerships and Program Enhancements
OneTrust recently partnered with Adobe to help marketers navigate data changes and announced enhancements to its Partner Program, providing new benefits, resources, and incentives starting August 2024. These enhancements include advanced training, certification benefits, and improved partner support to accelerate ecosystem success.
Leadership and Governance
To support its growth, OneTrust appointed David Obstler, CFO of Datadog, as its first independent board member and Audit Committee Chair. Obstler brings over three decades of financial expertise, particularly in tech companies, to guide OneTrust’s strategic direction.
#2 Trend Micro Reports 79% of Cybersecurity Leaders Pressured to Downplay Risks by Boardroom
Trend Micro, a global cybersecurity leader, announced that 79% of global cybersecurity leaders have experienced boardroom pressure to downplay the severity of cyber risks facing their organizations. Even as cyber threats rank at the top of their list of the biggest business risks, security leaders still struggle to communicate effectively to the senior leadership, usually perceived as nagging or even too negative. As pointed out by Bharat Mistry, the Technical Director at Trend Micro, this communication gap greatly undermines corporate cyber-resilience.
Cyber Risk Communication Challenges
Of those under board pressure, 43% were seen as nagging, 42% were seen as too negative, while one-third have been dismissed outright. The rejection is partly because they fail to attribute the cyber risks with the business risks; one-third noted that they were rejected outright. The other side of the coin is that when cybersecurity strategies are attributed to business value, 46% of leaders gain more credibility. This is further increased in their responsibilities to 45%, the higher perceived value to 44%, more budget to 43%, and inclusion in senior decision-making to 41%.
Persistent Communication Gap and Solutions
Despite these benefits, only 54% of the respondents believed that their C-suite fully understood the organization’s cyber risks, a marginal increase from 50% in 2021. More than a third still treated cybersecurity as an IT issue rather than a business risk. Additionally, 80% of security leaders believe that only a significant breach would encourage the board to take more decisive action on cyber risk.
The communication challenges are compounded by the heterogeneous cybersecurity environment and siloed products generating inconsistent data points. As 58% of respondents acknowledge, the challenge is that IT communication skills need to be improved. However, a unified Attack Surface Risk Management (ASRM) platform could ease these challenges by offering consistent risk insights through an executive dashboard, thus possibly reducing the need for immense communication investments.
#3 HiddenLayer Unveils Microsoft Azure AI as a new user of its Model Scanner
HiddenLayer, a leader in AI security, announced that Microsoft Azure AI will use its Model Scanner to secure third-party and open-source models. This integration aims to ensure models in Azure AI’s collection are free from vulnerabilities, malware, and tampering.
Boosting AI Security
Chris Sestito, CEO of HiddenLayer, stressed the importance of advancing AI innovation with robust security. By incorporating the Model Scanner, Azure AI enhances the safety of open-source models, streamlining their deployment and boosting developer confidence.
Key Features and Benefits
The Model Scanner, compatible with major machine learning formats, detects malicious code, vulnerabilities, and integrity issues. It offers:
- Malware Analysis: Identifies embedded malicious code.
- Vulnerability Assessment: Detects common and zero-day vulnerabilities.
- Backdoor Detection: Finds supply chain attacks and unauthorized code executions.
- Model Integrity: Checks for tampering or corruption in model components.
#4 KnowBe4 Q1 2024 Phishing Report: HR and IT Email Scams Dominate
KnowBe4, the provider of security awareness training and simulated phishing platforms, published its Q1 2024 phishing test report, including the most common email subjects employees click on during phishing tests. Results indicate that HR and IT are very much still at the top of the list of successful phishing lures.
Phishing Continues to Be a Huge Cyber Threat
Phishing is still a high method of attack, with KnowBe4’s 2023 Phishing by Industry Benchmarking Report showing that almost one-third of users will click on malicious links or act on fraudulent requests. Cybercriminals take advantage of this with the latest tools—such as AI—to build more convincing phishing emails. Many of these emails are emotionally triggering or u***** and get the employee to click on a malicious link or download a malicious attachment.
Top-Clicked Phishing Email Subjects
HR-related phishing emails led the list, with 42 percent, and have been a constant trend over the past three quarters. Most of these emails revolve around dress code changes, tax updates, healthcare information, and training notifications—subjects that directly affect the user’s work. IT-related phishing emails followed with 30 percent, further reinforcing the idea that emails that appear to originate from internal departments are the most effective.
This report further noted an uptick in personal phishing attacks where sensitive information, such as tax, healthcare, and ApplePay issues, is targeted. These emails are very effective because they are ‘concerning’ about personal data and get users reacting quickly to protect their information before they can verify the authenticity of the email.
#5 NVIDIA and Microsoft Expanded Partnership to Accelerate AI App Development
The partnership between NVIDIA and Microsoft harmonizes the best hardware and software so that each element works together.
The latest Microsoft AI models, including the Phi-3 family of small language models, are now optimized for NVIDIA GPUs. These models are available as the NVIDIA NIM inference microservices, making them better and more accessible. Such optimization ensures that the execution of AI tasks is highly efficient, making it a fundamental strength for any developer.
Expansion of AI Microservices
NVIDIA keeps building on its offerings to the Microsoft Azure Marketplace through the NVIDIA AI Enterprise software platform. This includes microservices such as the cuOpt route optimization AI, which improves logistical efficiency. In general, the continuous addition of such microservices to Azure shows how both firms are dedicated to supporting developers with the best AI solutions.
This collaboration between NVIDIA and Microsoft will not only help in improving AI model performance. Still, it will further increase access to such sophisticated AI tools and make the development process easier and more innovative.
#6 IBM and AWS Announce Integration of IBM watsonx AI Platform with Amazon SageMaker
During the IBM Think Conference, IBM announced its collaboration with Amazon Web Services to have the full portfolio of IBM’s WatsonX AI and data platform integrated with AWS services. The purpose of this deal is to scale enterprise AI through an open, hybrid approach with end-to-end governance.
Key Integration and Benefits
IBM watsonx.governance will be integrated with Amazon SageMaker, the service by AWS for building and deploying machine learning models. This will help manage model risk and support compliance regulations with the EU AI Act. It can be available in June, with customizable risk assessment and model approval workflows and an audit trail in both Watsonx and SageMaker.
Enhanced AI Solutions
IBM watsonx.data on AWS will make it easier to access, visualize, and transform data for AI workloads. This partnership allows businesses to use their own trusted data, offering flexibility, scalability, and integration with other AWS services.
#7 Dell and NVIDIA Launch Project Helix to Simplify On-Premises Generative AI Deployment
Dell Technologies and NVIDIA have introduced Project Helix, aiming to simplify the deployment of generative AI models within businesses. This initiative enables enterprises to leverage their proprietary data more effectively for customer service enhancement and market intelligence applications.
Streamlined Deployment
Project Helix offers a suite of solutions encompassing hardware and software components, including a blueprint for deploying generative AI models using proprietary data.
Key Components
The initiative leverages Dell PowerEdge servers, NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs, and scalable data storage solutions like Dell PowerScale for diverse workloads.
Project Helix covers the entire generative AI lifecycle, from infrastructure provisioning to model training and deployment, providing validated designs for rapid scalability.
Focus on Security
Security features like Secured Component Verification are integrated to protect on-premises data and ensure regulatory compliance. Project Helix signifies a significant step towards democratizing generative AI adoption, empowering enterprises to leverage their data for transformative business outcomes.
#8 Teradata Launches AI U******** in Microsoft Fabric
Teradata has announced ‘Teradata AI U********,’ the company’s on-demand AI/ML (artificial intelligence/machine learning) workload, which is now available in private preview in Microsoft Fabric. Teradata AI U******** in Microsoft Fabric extends user freedom to innovate with frictionless, on-demand access to ClearScape Analytics, empowering exploration, discovery and building of new AI innovations and use cases.
Users accessing Teradata AI U******** within the Microsoft Fabric ecosystem only pay for the time they use, alleviating concerns about cost overruns. This design streamlines the transition from conceptualization to testing and eventual deployment in real production environments.
#9 Radware Leads DDoS Mitigation for Fourth Straight Year in 2024 SPARK Matrix™
Quadrant Knowledge Solutions has once again recognized Radware as the top leader in DDoS Mitigation, marking the fourth consecutive year of this accolade. Sujitsinh Dubal, Analyst at Quadrant, commends Radware for its cloud-based and hardware solutions, emphasizing their efficacy in combating various threats, including advanced, encrypted, and zero-day attacks. Radware’s behavioral-based protection ensures real-time attack detection, catering to diverse environments from on-prem data centers to private and public clouds.
The SPARK Matrix™ analysis provides a comprehensive overview of the global market dynamics and vendor landscape, underscoring Radware’s technological excellence and customer impact. Sharon Trachtman, Radware’s CMO, highlights the company’s commitment to innovation with AI-powered solutions, offering adaptive protection and shorter mean time to resolution. Radware continues to lead the industry, delivering advanced capabilities that address evolving cybersecurity challenges.
#10 WitnessAI Raises $27.5M in Series A Funding Co-Led by GV and Ballistic Ventures
WitnessAI, creator of the first enablement platform for safe AI use, has secured $27.5 million in Series A funding, co-led by GV and Ballistic Ventures. Initially incubated by Ballistic Ventures in 2023, WitnessAI addresses major barriers to enterprise AI adoption, including privacy, governance, and security concerns. Despite 75% of enterprises experimenting with generative AI, only 9% have fully deployed it due to issues like lack of visibility, control, and protection.
WitnessAI’s platform offers observability, policy enforcement, and data protection for AI use, ensuring secure and compliant operations. The company, set to begin deployments in June 2024, is already collaborating with over 20 design partners across various industries. CEO Rick Caccia emphasized the platform’s ability to operate in demanding environments, while GV and Ballistic Ventures highlighted its potential to revolutionize enterprise AI usage safely and effectively.
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