Friday Tech News

Insights & Updates in Cybersecurity & AI - 10/25/2024

Author

Phil Moroni
October 25, 2024

New logo courtesy of Claude 3.5. Will be playing with this for a bit until I get it right.

Good morning and Happy Friday!

It’s been a wonderful week here in Charlotte and I hope the same is true for you wherever you may be reading this.

Below you’ll find updates on OEM’s and other newsworthy articles in the tech space. Of note this week was definitely ServiceNow and Anthropic, coming out with massive announcements.

I’m really eager to see what Anthropic will become. It seems like you need to keep pace with these articles to know which of the models to use and which currently is best in class.

Speaking of Anthropic, what do you think of the new logo for Tech News? I had Claude build it - crazy that it can generate things like this…and now move your mouse for you…

Enjoy your weekend and a great start to the week next week!

Phil

OEM News & Updates 📰

  • Tenable announced DSPM and AISPM features for their Tenable Cloud Security platform

  • These features help reduce risks related to cloud data and AI resources by addressing vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and excess privileges.

  • Users can now automatically discover, classify, and analyze sensitive data risks with agentless scanning and manage AI entitlements and training data. Big win for Tenable coming out with Agentless scanning here…seems to be the preference for the world.

  • New models designed for document tasks

  • These models offer high efficiency and accuracy for real-time document analysis and image recognition.

  • Models now available on Hugging Face allowing for modification and fine tuning.

  • NVIDIA has introduced the Llama 3.1-nemotron-70B-Instruct LLM. Mouthfull. This surpasses OpenAI’s GPT-4o and Anthropics Claude 3.5

  • The model is based on Meta’s Llama 3.1-70B-Instruct Base and fine tuned by NVIDIA

  • It focuses on SteerLM Regression Reward Modelling to enhance factual correctness and problem-solving.

  • Anthropic released Claude 3.5 and other updates to their model family.

    • Try this - Anthropic has released a significant update to its Claude AI apps for iOS and Android including a new iPad app. It’s awesome and how I generated the svg for the FTN graphic.

  • Users can now search past chats, add specific information for customized instructions, and enjoy a more personalized experience.

  • The updates aim to boost productivity for users handling multiple projects or needing tailored AI assistance

  • Anthropic released their aforementioned updated AI models, including Claude 3.5, Sonnet, and haiku 3.5.

  • There’s a new feature: Computer Use. This allows AI to autonomously perform computer tasks, such as moving the mouse and typing…particularly aimed at software developers.

  • Yep there are safeguards. The feature includes safeguards to prevent misuse in areas like spam, fraud, and elections.

  • Stability AI announced the release of three new text-to-image AI models:

    • 3.5 Large

    • 3.5 Large Turbo

    • 3.5 Medium

  • Each model offers different capabilities, with Large focusing on high-quality images, Large Turbo on speed, and Medium on balance and efficiency.

  • The models are designed for various users including researchers, hobbyists, and enterprises with options for local and cloud deployments.

  • Available on Hugging Face and thru their API with a community license.

  • xAI has launches a new API service for its Grok models, allowing devs to integrate xAI’s LLMs into their applications.

  • Competitive with other models out there, but right now is anything really holding a candle to Anthropic?

  • Grok models can generate and understand text, code, and images.

  • Noteworthy - it’s more expensive than some competitors but offers integration with various SDKs and supports multiple regions.

  • IBM released new Granite Language models under an open-source Apache 2.0 license, including general purpose, safety, and mixture-of-experts models.

  • The models were trained on over 12 trillion tokens from multiple languages and programming languages using NVIDIA H100 GPUs. They support extended context lengths and multi-modal documents.

  • IBM really is emphasizing their open-source, smaller, efficient, and ethically trained models as a way to differentiate themselves in the market. Meanwhile, I believe enterprises have been shy to adopt IBM based GenAI/AI services in the last 2 years.

  • Microsoft is introducing autonomous AI agents that can handle tasks like client queries and sales leads, aiming to boost productivity.

  • This no-code tool built from CoPilot Studio allows users to build their own AI agents.

  • Microsoft is claiming these AI agents will reduce mundane tasks, freeing up time for more valuable work.

  • UiPath introduces agentic automation, combining AI agents, robots, and humans to handle complex and dynamic processes.

  • Introducing Agent Builder: A new tool for creating and deploying enterprise agents, allwoing users to build agents from scratch or use pre-existing templates, coming in Dec 2024.

  • Also includes a GenAI conversational Agent that helps employees enhance productivity by automating complex tasks - this comes free.

  • All this due to a recent partnership with Anthropic which was also announced this week.

  • Cohesity introduces a new visual data exploration capability to its AI search assistant, Gaia, which helps users gain insights faster by visually categorizing themes across documents and files.

  • The new tool uses advanced AI techniques like topic modeling and NLP to identify hidden thematic structures to make it easy for users to interact with.

  • Gaia now supports additional data sources including M365 Mail, Sharepoint, OneDrive, and various on-prem and cloud based file servers.

  • Workflow Data Fabric is an integrated data layer that unifies business and technology data across the enterprise.

  • Zero Copy Connectors: These optimize integration capabilities, allowing businesses to turn data into instant AI powered actions without moving or duplicating data.

  • Includes real-time data processing, automation tools, and a high performance database, RaptorDB Pro, improving operational efficiency and customer experience.

ServiceNow | ServiceNow Partners with a TON of awesome companies

  • Cisco unveiled AI driven innovations like Cisco Spatial Meetings, Ceiling Microphone Pro, and enhanced AI Assistant for Webex.

  • Cisco aims to create meeting experiences where all participants feel like they’re in the same room.

  • New tools to help facilities teams manage flexible work environments more efficiently.

  • Ataccama announced the release of version 15.3 of its AI-powered data management platform, enhancing productivity, security, and data quality.

  • The new version includes AI capabilities to generate test data to improve accuracy and efficiency.

  • The update strengthens data security to help with regulatory compliance.

  • Project Voyager introduces an AI investigator and OpenTelemetr-Native APM. What. To help Engineering, DevOps, and SRE teams troubleshoot incidents faster.

  • Great announcement. Love the multi-target approach to consolidating problems into a single platform.

  • The AI Investigator feature orchestrates domain-specific AI agents to assist engineers in resolving issues quickly and efficiently.

  • These cats just secured $145M in Series B funding to expand their teams out. Expect to see them more in the observability space.

  • Fastly has launched a New DDoS protection service that provides automatic protection from layer 7 and other application-level DDoS attacks with a simple activation.

  • The service is designed to be easy to deploy and manage, capable of detecting stealthy attacks, and scalable to handle large attacks without manual intervention.

  • Fastly’s DDoS Protection leverages techniques that have been used to protect its global network, ensuring reliability and resilience for customer applications and APIs.

  • SailPoint announced updates to its Identity Security Cloud, including dynamic access roles, access model metadata, and data segmentation.

  • They also highlight improvements to onboarding their application in general, which is always a plus from an ID provider.

  • Comes with a preview of their new Agentic AI tool which will assist users with identity management and security through a conversational interface.

  • Cofense has introduced new AI-driven spam reduction capabilities to its Phish Detection and Response platform (PDR).

  • The AI features help analysts focus on genuine threats to improve response times.

  • The AI spam filter uses Bayesian Machine Learning to adapt to each SOC’s unique environment ensuring data privacy by keeping emails local.

  • Alkira announced the launch of ZTNA which is a cloud based service for secure access coming out in Q4 of 2024.

  • This will include a unified solution for all traffic flows, a network-first approach, decentralized architecture, a single UI for management, and integrated full stack security and scalability.

  • Integrates with existing identity providers, supports MFA, and provides real time visibility into user sessions and network flows.

  • The people who started Alkira also started Viptella. Pay attention to these cats.

  • Contrast has introduced Contrast One, a managed AppSec service combining their Runtime Security Platform with expert staff to help organizations eliminate application vulnerabilities. Hmm. Not using AI Agents to do this? Sounds like you have too many humans.

  • The service is designed for organizations that lack the resources to build a comprehensive appsec program.

  • Customers should experience accelerated detection and remediation of vulnerabilities.

  • McAfee and Yahoo have partnered to integrate McAfee’s AI powered deepfake image detection technology into Yahoo News’ content quality system.

  • This tech helps quickly identify and flag AI generated or manipulated images.

  • Flagged images are reviewed by Yahoo News’ editorial standards team to determine if they meet guidelines to be published.

  • Trying to enhance user trust in news these days with so many partnerships coming out for AI generated content.

Articles I Liked This Week 💡

  • Another follow up from last week, I like this content and think there’s more to come from alternative energy with the hyperscalers, especially given ESG initiatives by enterprises.

Business Standard | Google going Nuclear too

Tech Funding & M&A 💸

  • Secureworks is a Georgia based Cybersecurity firm that provides services such as log management, security consulting, and threat hunting for businesses.

Stream.security | Stream.security raises $30M

  • Stream.security is an Israel based startup focusing on real-time threat and exposure management for enterprises.

  • Pantheon AI is an AI-enabled architecture startup that recently exited stealth mode.

  • Socket is a Supply Chain Security company focusing on real time threat prevention using AI for enterprises.

Meme of the week 🤣

Recommendations 👉🏻

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Thank you so much for making this a part of your Friday morning coffee time. I'm Phil Moroni, and I'm an Account Executive in the Information Technology industry here with another edition of Friday Tech News!

What is this? This is a newsletter that provides updates and insights on the latest trends and developments in the technology industry. I am a professional who specializes in supporting IT leaders in evaluating, investing, and managing people, processes, and technology tools that support their businesses.

Each week, I summarize relevant industry updates from popular Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM's), software publishers, and managed providers. The goal of my research and newsletter is to keep you informed about current trends and events that may impact your business from a trusted and reputable source. It's just information I'm sharing, and I follow and work with hundreds of partners in the industry, keeping track of their growth, changes, and evolution so that you don't have to.

Bottom Line: As you focus on improving your business through digital initiatives, my commitment is to keep you informed of the fast-paced changes and trends taking place so that you can plan ahead and stay ahead of the game.

Key areas of focus for me are:

  1. Cloud Computing, Security, Trends

  2. Developer & Security Tools

  3. Networking & Infrastructure Tools

  4. End User Tools & Workspace Tech

  5. Emerging Technologies and Future Concepts

If you have any questions, would like information about any specific vendors I follow, or would like to have a conversation about any topic that is challenging you, I invite you to engage with me! I value feedback immensely and would love to know what you find valuable about this newsletter so feel free to reach out!

Thank you for reading and stay digitally and physically safe!

Phil

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