ByteBeat: Your Monthly Dose of IT Buzz and Breakthroughs – December

Dive into the latest happenings and innovations in the ever-evolving realm of information technology with our December IT News Roundup. As the year draws to a close, we bring you a curated collection of key developments, breakthroughs, and noteworthy trends that have shaped the IT landscape this month. Stay informed and stay ahead; our December IT News Roundup is your gateway to the cutting edge of the tech sphere.

Security

Rackspace Ransomware Might Cost More Than $11M

Rackspace Technology disclosed losses of nearly $11 million from a single ransomware attack in multiple SEC 10Q filings. To tell you more, the company expected its cyber insurance policy to cover approximately $5.4 million in incurred costs. Although it hired CrowdStrike to investigate the incidents, the total damage remains uncertain.

Read more here.

Around 60 credit unions in the US fell prey to a ransomware attack that targeted their supply chains. The resulting outage took out the credit union’s provider Ongoing Operations.

The attack, believed to involve the Citrix Bleed vulnerability, resulted in nationwide downtime. Thus far, no customer information exposure has been reported.

Read more here.

AI

New Secure AI Development Guidelines

CISA, NCSC, and 21 global agencies endorsed fresh guidelines for secure AI development, emphasizing “secure by design.” This solid governing concept may be why the recommendations won approval from tech giants and G7 nations alike.
Read more here.

Despite increased cybersecurity awareness, most organizations aren’t ready for the worst. Some 53 percent of CEOs said they needed to prepare to handle targeted cyberattacks within the next year.

For CISOs, that figure jumped to an unsettling 61 percent. Challenges like generative AI, endpoint proliferation, and new workforce models were all contributing factors.

Read more here.

cybersecurity

Google Opens Safety Engineering Center in Malaga

Google inaugurated a cybersecurity hub in Málaga, Spain, to join its existing facilities in Dublin, Ireland, and Munich, Germany. The search giant aims to address growing threats with a focus on collaboration. On top of partnerships with European experts, businesses, and governments, the new hub will host training workshops.

Read more here.

Australia’s National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) declared that a malicious insider shared around 11,000 records with an unauthorized party. To clarify, government officials said fewer than 11,000 people were affected and that the breach only lasted for a short period. However, full names, genders, addresses, and other info were exposed.

Read more here.

web services

New AWS Marketplace Fee Structure

AWS Marketplace fees might get much less confusing. Starting on January 1, 2024, you’ll pay a flat fee of 3 percent. What’s more, AWS global channel chief Ruba Borno said partners with larger private pricing agreements could pay even less.

Read more here.

A recent survey found that IT leaders overwhelmingly depend on their service providers during cloud migrations. According to the study by RapidScale, 90 percent of companies found themselves in this camp. Time to rethink how you market yourself?

Read more here.

ai

Super AI Is Still a Pipe Dream

Microsoft’s president said we’re nowhere close to creating a hyper-intelligent AI. The question arose following rumblings that such a discovery had prompted the temporary ouster of an OpenAI cofounder. In reality, however, our robot overlords are probably still a few decades away.

Read more here.

Multiple funding rounds saw security companies make big money recently. Zip Security’s quest to make security more accessible made investors happy enough to fork over $7.7 million. Radiant Security got $15 million to pursue new security products that used AI under the hood.

Read more here.

security

Phishing

Multiple funding rounds saw security companies make big money recently. Zip Security’s quest to make security more accessible made investors happy enough to fork over $7.7 million. Radiant Security got $15 million to pursue new security products that used AI under the hood.

Read more here.

The Hershey Company announced the theft of more than 2,000 people’s financial data. In its Maine security notification filing, the famed chocolate maker admitted losing all kinds of personally identifying info over the past three months. While the thieves didn’t get the victims’ favorite candy bar flavors, they did make off with credit card numbers and other info.

Read more here.

security

Okta Breach Gets Worse

After announcing a minor data breach in September, Okta revealed it may have underestimated. Instead of just 134 people being affected, the firm’s CISO backtracked, admitting that all users of its customer support system had their info leaked.

While this breach didn’t expose sensitive personal info, attackers stole full names and email addresses. That’s not quite what you want to hear from an identity management company.

Read more here.

AI products are ballooning in size, scope, and nature. But which tools are worth your time? This roundup from the team at CRN might offer some insights into how MSPs can integrate AI into their work.

Read more here.

career

Launch Your 200K Prompt Engineering Career

Want to be a prompt engineer? This piece from the Wall Street Journal might be your guide. It shares one writer’s pursuit of a sweet AI gig paying $200K.

Read more here.