IT leaders are busy and do not have enough time to research and keep up with the latest trends and events that might affect them. The goal of the newsletter is to analyze these trends and events to present actionable items to these leaders.
Weekly Newsletter, IT with Business Outcomes, Vol 4
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Hello Leaders, Given the geopolitical situation, it is no surprise that state actors are trying innovative ways to steal confidential and sensitive information. Two of the three items in this week's newsletter are related to latest attack methods being used by the attackers. This reinforces the need for basic security hygiene which could be easily improved across the board. 1. Rethink your brand strategy in the AI WorldAccording to a Boston Consulting Group study, 28% of survey respondents were asking AI for product recommendations. However, a Carnegie Mellon research showed that how the prompts are written can make your product be the top recommended or not recommended at all. Similar to Search Engine Optimization, companies are already looking at optimizing their branding for AI. The key challenge is that each AI model may interpret the same set of text description differently based on how it is trained. As many language models are closed-source, similar to SEO, companies are trying to find ways to trick AI for better placement! We did our own test and here are the results.
Prompt: “which smartphone is environmentally conscious, affordable, and durable?” with Google’s Gemini.
Result: Fairphone was on top of the list followed by Nokia. Apple and Samsung were lumped together as third.
We change the prompt as follows:
Prompt: “which smartphone is most user friendly, best quality, and offers seamless integration?”
Result: Apple iPhone was on the top spot followed by Google Pixel. As you can see Pixel did not show up in the first search while Fairphone and Nokia were missing in the second.
Actions you can take This shows that how AI perceives your brand would matter.
Further Reading https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/19/1112076/your-most-important-customer-may-be-ai/ 2. Attackers take phishing to the next levelGoogle Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) shared new techniques being used by state actors to compromise messaging apps like Signal, WhatsApp, and Telegram. The attackers are exploiting the linked device feature which relies on a user scanning QR code to access the messaging app on multiple devices. They are sending messages which seem like group invites, security alerts, or pairing instructions with malicious QR code embedded. Scanning these will instantly grant attackers access to the entire device data. Actions you can take
Further Reading https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/russia-targeting-signal-messenger https://www.okta.com/identity-101/byod-policy/ https://clickup.com/blog/using-personal-phone-for-work/ 3. Secure your non-interactive accountsThe trouble with Microsoft 365 accounts does not seem to end. State actors are now targeting non-interactive Microsoft 365 accounts that are still using now deprecated basic authentication. These non-interactive accounts are used for system to system authentication, legacy protocols, automation, etc. Unlike interactive accounts, these accounts do not use MFA or get locked out after few invalid attempts. Even thought the invalid attempts are logged, most do not monitor the logs for these accounts. Over 130,000 devices are said to have been compromised. Actions you can take None of these should come as a surprise, but we would like to reiterate them
Further Reading |
Agile C-Level
IT leaders are busy and do not have enough time to research and keep up with the latest trends and events that might affect them. The goal of the newsletter is to analyze these trends and events to present actionable items to these leaders.
Hello Leaders, We hope you have adjusted to the time change. However, it will hard to keep up with the speed at which AI is evolving. That's why we are reviewing dozens of headlines to highlight a handful that your IT leadership must act on. 1. Another AI product that has taken the Internet by storm Manus is another AI from China. Unlike the other AI products, this is a general purpose autonomous AI agent which can perform many tasks. It combines many AI models and tools to accomplish a range...
Hello Leaders, With the daylight savings returning this weekend, you will lose an hour of sleep. However, we don't want you to lose sleep over missing critical news. That's why we are reviewing dozens of headlines to highlight a handful that your IT leadership must act on. 1. Search engines and LLMs cache could expose your data Lasso, an Israeli cybersecurity company, discovered that contents of its private Github repositories were showing up in Microsoft’s Bing search engine. These...
Hello Leaders, Artificial Intelligence is gaining momentum every week and continues to hog the headlines. The three we hand picked are to highlight the challenges you need to prepared for a) to avoid compliance issues and b) to keep your team members' wellbeing in mind. 1. Over dependence on AI can lead to deterioration of cognitive skills No one can dispute that any skill will deteriorate when it is not used. As our responsibilities shift with AI, our cognitive faculties could deteriorate....