Application programming interfaces, or APIs, have become an integral part of maintaining an online business, and are often indispensable for cross-functionality and user experience. However, the increased use of APIs has led to a rise in attacks against them. This can in turn cause breaches of company data or even full account takeovers. Improperly-managed APIs are a key attack surface and firms would do well to treat this seriously as threat actors step up their efforts at exploitation. Today, ...
Jan 27, 2023•26 min
As we enter what is set to be a long recession businesses are looking to manage and reduce costs, and IT departments will be forced to budget where possible. More than ever, IT leaders are evaluating the benefits and drawbacks of serverless architecture, the best payment models for their business, and the risks associated with vendor lock-in amidst uncertain financial conditions. This week, we spoke to Tom Fairbairn, distinguished engineer at event broker Solace, to explore when serverless and l...
Jan 20, 2023•33 min
Large companies are relying on online learning more and more, to improve the career goals of their employees, and upskilling can be an important way of retaining staff while adding to existing expertise. But the public sector has lagged behind the private sector on this front, and is currently experiencing record churn and vacancies. 410,000 staff quit social care in 2021, and care roles around the country are now short of approximately 165,000 staff. This week, we spoke to Hadi Moussa, general ...
Jan 13, 2023•28 min
Passwords can be tricky at the best of times. Proper password hygiene is one of the most important factors in endpoint security, as it keeps sensitive data secure and prevents threat actors from getting into important systems. Despite the risks, the use of weak or recycled passwords continues to be a problem even amongst IT professionals and remembering too many unique passwords is a strain. While systems such as multi-factor authentication have been used as an extra layer of security, groups li...
Jan 06, 2023•30 min
In today's festive edition of the podcast, Jane and Rory discuss a few key trends happening right now that could influence 2023. With Twitter undergoing constant change, and other firms such as Meta and TikTok facing regulatory battles, current conversations around the upheaval of social media could play a major role in the coming year. Together with the recession into which the UK has fallen, and the rise of generative AI like ChatGPT, these emerging trends from 2022 will continue to dominate h...
Dec 30, 2022•40 min
In today's festive edition of the podcast, Jane and Rory discuss three things that were predicted to happen during the course of 2022, but never did. The metaverse making sense, Russian threat actors winning against Ukraine and other nations, and the 'bonfire' of EU regulations were all promised or anticipated, but none came to pass. We ask what has happened instead, and question why things turned out the way they did. For more information, read the show notes here....
Dec 23, 2022•33 min
In a sector of changing priorities, cyber security remains at the top of the list in any boardroom. With the threat landscape presenting challenges old and new, and the increasing risk of entities such as state-sponsored hacking, it is essential that businesses carefully craft their cyber security strategy to keep ahead of the next big attack. The speed that threats evolve now demands real-time action from companies, who must maintain oversight of their assets and maintain as many assets as poss...
Dec 16, 2022•31 min
Hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructure has become such an important aspect of digital transformation, but it brings its own potential risks. It’s important that businesses maintain a macro view of their environment, with centralised dashboards proposed as an option to provide adequate observability to security teams. With the increasing pressures of data sovereignty, and concerns surrounding lateral security, it’s more important than ever that siloed teams are brought together under clear securit...
Dec 09, 2022•35 min
5G holds major potential for businesses, from improved speeds and the technology it enables such as the Internet of Things. But to unlock its true potential, and lay the groundwork for 6G, a number of new technologies have to be tapped. To grasp opportunities like open RAN, network slicing, and private network environments, radical overhaul is necessary, to drive both innovation and revenue growth. Networking has never been more important across every aspect of life, and telcos hold a unique opp...
Dec 02, 2022•34 min
Ten years ago, identity fraud typically meant people manually forging, but today’s threat actors work with purely-digital fakes with an increasingly-advanced toolset including ‘deepfakes’ that work even on live video feeds. At the same time, Twitter advertisers have seen billions wiped off their market caps as the platform struggles with its ID verification. On top of the growing scale of digital fraudsters, a surprising amount of businesses are willing to let a small amount of fraud occur. Comp...
Nov 25, 2022•37 min
Metaverse technology: although it still hasn’t found its feet, it’s the headline-grabbing area of development that has seen massive investment in just the past few years. Meta has spent over $15 billion on the tech through its Reality Labs division, and Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia, and more have all begun development using variations on metaverse tech. But like any new technology, metaverse tech will also usher in new security risks, from innovative threat actors and existing vulnerabilities inheri...
Nov 18, 2022•34 min
Automation has been widely adopted across the sector, and firms have repeatedly applied it to laborious tasks such as document handling. Using machine learning and AI, a great number of documents can be processed, and decisions made without the need for painstaking human input. But automation in the legal space requires careful thought, as contracts can be very complex and often require a human touch — here, a hybrid approach is needed. This week, we spoke to Rich Somerfield, CTO at Summize, to ...
Nov 11, 2022•34 min
Procurement has long been treated as a ticketing problem, with check boxes to fill and suppliers to onboard according to regulation. But with increasingly sophisticated automation systems, and a growing need for exact partner agreements amidst global supply chain issues, companies could do well to rethink their linear approach to procurement. This week we talked to Sudhir Bhojwani and Lalitha Rajagopalan, co-founders of supplier engagement platform ORO Labs, about its ‘smart’ procurement strateg...
Nov 04, 2022•40 min
Facing the triple threat of supply issues, tough economic headwinds, and the climate crisis it’s vital that the supply chain can run at low cost, and with as little carbon footprint as possible. Implementation of smart ports using the internet of things and 5G could hold the answer. Using fast local networks, smart port tech can track crane movement, metrics such as operational speed and maintenance needs, and the location of resources in near real-time to provide valuable operational data. This...
Oct 28, 2022•35 min
Spurred on by the pandemic, digital transformation has become a core business aim for many companies both in and out of the tech sector. When it comes to handling data on a massive scale, especially when such data is sensitive, compliance is key. The insights from data analysis can be priceless for business growth, but require careful strategy in order to be properly implemented. This week, we talk to Nicola Wadham, Chief Information Officer at the Financial Ombudsman Service, about the specific...
Oct 21, 2022•40 min
Fibre rollout appears to be going well, with the majority of UK homes and businesses able to access gigabit-capable broadband. But there is still much confusion around what exactly terms like ‘full fibre’ mean, and adoption still lags behind international partners even as businesses turn to greater bandwidths than ever before to undergo digital transformation. Moreover, many rural businesses aren’t being catered to by large network providers, and as they remain on copper lines, wonder if alterna...
Oct 14, 2022•30 min
Businesses are rapidly having to contend with responding to the climate crisis, and the tech industry is set to become one of the biggest contributors to energy drain by the end of the decade. It is clear that sustainable software options are a goal, but many firms are reluctant to adopt lower-carbon systems out of concern for loss of power. Joining us this week is Behrad Babaee, Technology Evangelist at Aerospike, to talk about his proposals for a universal metric with which to measure the carb...
Oct 07, 2022•27 min
Technology plays a vital role in helping government and public sector organisations respond to challenges and deliver services to the public, and in increased use of digital tools can unlock new capabilities and efficiencies. One somewhat unique example of this is the Welsh government, which must meet certain standards to ensure that the Welsh language is treated equally to English. As well as providing Welsh-language options in its apps and services, this also includes supporting Welsh speakers...
Sep 30, 2022•34 min
The technological arsenal available to cyber criminals is already enough to give any security professional nightmares, but there’s another emerging threat on the horizon that may keep them up at night: bio-augmented hackers. Implantable chips and other modifications are growing in capability and sophistication, and there are a variety of creative ways that attackers can use them to carry out both physical and device-based attacks - This is made all the more concerning by the fact that these impl...
Sep 23, 2022•41 min
The global energy market is currently experiencing some extreme turmoil, with low availability resulting in steep price increases. The turbulence is particularly pronounced in the UK, where spiralling power bills are raising concerns for both consumers and businesses alike over whether or not they’ll be able to afford them. The IT industry isn’t exempt from these challenges; in fact, thanks to the extreme power usage that data centre infrastructure requires, the risk of further price rises shoul...
Sep 16, 2022•31 min
Phishing remains one of the oldest and most persistent attack methods for hackers trying to break into an organisation, and potential targets continue to use simulated phishing attacks as one of the primary ways to ensure their staff are ready to defend against it. However, these spoof attacks aren’t always well-recieved, and employees can frequently feel unfairly trapped or caught out by these tests. Appearing on this week’s podcast to discuss why phishing simulations are often so poorly receiv...
Sep 09, 2022•39 min
Five years ago, the security world was rocked by one of the most sudden and widespread ransomware outbreaks in history. Even now, organisations are still recovering from the damage done by WannaCry, and its shadow still looms large over the industry. While ransomware has remained a major threat for organisations over the last half-decade, we haven’t seen anything as globally impactful as WannaCry since then - so what (if anything) has the industry learned from the incident, and are we likely to ...
Sep 02, 2022•35 min
The tech industry has been forced to weather more than its fair share of storms over the past few years, but one of the most troublesome to navigate has been the ongoing issues in the semiconductor supply chain. The situation has resulted in delays, shortages and missed revenue targets for companies across a range of industries, and has prompted government intervention across the globe. There are a number of factors behind the disruptions to the chip supply chain, and although measures are being...
Aug 26, 2022•24 min
There is a vast universe of threats facing modern businesses, from opportunistic lone hackers and organised criminal gangs, to state-backed intelligence units working for nations such as Russia and China. Attempting to divine which of these groups is behind a given cyber attack has almost become an industry in and of itself, with numerous tools being leveraged by analysts and researchers to assign blame. But is there any actual value for businesses in knowing exactly which individuals are respon...
Aug 19, 2022•35 min
AI is increasingly working its way into organisations’ main IT environments, and as a cutting-edge field that relies heavily on technology infrastructure to run effectively, you might assume that IT would be enthusiastic supporters - but this isn’t always the case. In fact, far from being bosom buddies, in many instances IT and AI practitioners can find themselves locked in turf wars and disputes over support and resourcing. In this episode of the IT Pro Podcast, we sit down with Nvidia’s direct...
Aug 12, 2022•28 min
Collaboration is a fundamental part of success in modern business, but while most (although not all) businesses are well-versed in the ways of collaborating within their teams, not all organisations are as confident when it comes to sharing knowledge and ideas with their peers in other organisations. One group that has absolutely nailed this, however, is developers and IT professionals. These workers have a long history of collective problem-solving and cooperation, enabled by tools like StackOv...
Aug 05, 2022•32 min
Five years can be a very long time in the world of technology, and looking back the changes to our hardware over that period can be stark. In this podcast, presented in association with Dell Technologies, we will compare new laptops to those we were using half a decade before, exploring the development in functionality, speed, battery life and more, and how those are supporting and enabling the way businesses operate today and tomorrow.
Jun 14, 2022•31 min
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May 27, 2022•1 min
Singapore’s dominance in the data centre market, helped in no small part by the country’s keen investment in technology, is undeniable. But, for one of the smallest countries in the world, what are the ramifications of such a large investment and what can businesses learn from Singapore’s approach to tech? This week, Adam Shepherd is joined by IT Pro Staff Writer and our resident APAC specialist Zach Marzouk, who explains exactly why Singapore is such an interesting case study for national tech ...
May 20, 2022•28 min
Running a small business has always been a demanding task, but recent circumstances - from the coronavirus pandemic to the advent of Brexit - have come together to make it more challenging than ever before. An increasing number of SMBs, however, are turning to technologies such as cloud and AI to help address these issues. This week, we’re joined by Aaron Harris, CTO for UK-based cloud financial software firm Sage, to talk about the state of the UK’s small-business market, the role technology pl...
May 13, 2022•33 min
