Month: May 2025

Enterprises Take Up Arms Against Perilous Threats but Still Struggle with Unwieldy Security Tools

by Amy Larsen DeCarlo, posted in Secure
Amy Larsen DeCarlo – Principal Analyst, Security and Data Center Services

Summary Bullets:

  • Enterprises are under constant threat with no signs of abatement. The Verizon 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) notes a 37% rise in ransomware versus 2024.
  • Cisco’s May 2025 State of Security Report found that 59% of the 2,058 security professionals surveyed spend excessive resources maintaining tools and affiliated workflows.

The nature of cybersecurity is dynamic, as the threat landscape is in constant flux, making the discipline a daunting exercise environment for security practitioners. Even well-resourced organizations struggle to manage risk effectively as bad actors apply a combination of advanced technology and sophisticated techniques to exploit enterprise vulnerabilities. Verizon’s 2025 Database Investigations Report (DBIR), an examination of 22,052 security incidents, 12,195 of which were verified to be data breaches, found that in 20% of all breaches, vulnerabilities were the entryway for a breach. This makes it the second most common initial avenue for a breach, just behind credential abuse.

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Verizon: Do or DEI Another Day, The Sequel

by Guest Author, posted in Cloud Enable, Communicate, IT Leader, Mobilize
R. Pritchard

Summary Bullets:

• Any telco in the US making deals must be cognizant of the current administration’s efforts to destroy diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) commitments.

• Service providers have traditionally understood benefits of progressive DEI but now need to conceal efforts from a dogmatic set of regulators for long-term strategic benefit.

Verizon has become the latest telecoms service provider to abandon its DEI programs under pressure from the US administration (please also see: T-Mobile USA: Do or DEI to Close Lumos Deal? – IT Connection, April 7, 2025). The move follows alleged demands from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in exchange for its approval of the $20 billion acquisition of fiber broadband provider Frontier Communications and reflects a broader response across US corporations to the policies of the current administration.

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Verizon: Do or DEI Another Day, The Sequel

by Rob Pritchard, posted in Cloud Enable, Communicate, IT Leader, Mobilize
R. Pritchard

Summary Bullets:

• Any telco in the US making deals must be cognizant of the current administration’s efforts to destroy diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) commitments.

• Service providers have traditionally understood benefits of progressive DEI but now need to conceal efforts from a dogmatic set of regulators for long-term strategic benefit.

Verizon has become the latest telecoms service provider to abandon its DEI programs under pressure from the US administration (please also see: T-Mobile USA: Do or DEI to Close Lumos Deal? – IT Connection, April 7, 2025). The move follows alleged demands from the FCC in exchange for its approval of the $20 billion acquisition of fiber broadband provider Frontier Communications and reflects a broader response across US corporations to the policies of the current administration.

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8×8 is Sending a Mixed Message to the Market

by Gregg Willsky, posted in Communicate, IT Leader
G. Willsky

Summary Bullets:

• Recent enhancements to the 8×8 platform are intrinsic to a foundational pivot the company has taken.

• The pivot masks the true scope of capabilities 8×8 provides and risks confusing the market.

8×8 has been very busy recently with new rounds of enhancements to its platform that strengthen the customer experience. A sample of more noteworthy features includes: an AI assistant for composing chat messages; the ability for employees outside the contact center to engage with customers via digital channels; the introduction of JourneyIQ which gives businesses the capability to optimize the customer journey across all channels, departments, and touchpoints; and the announcement of AI Orchestrator which enables interaction between bots from different vendors and supports hand-offs between bots and human agents.

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Digital Sovereignty in the Age of AI

by siowmeng, posted in Big Data, Cloud Enable
S. Soh

Summary Bullets:

  • Digital sovereignty becomes even more critical due to the growing investment in AI while rising uncertainties due to geopolitical tensions.
  • Systems integrators and telecom operators should work alongside to develop sovereign AI cloud solutions.

With the pervasive use of technology in all aspects including social services and critical infrastructure, governments see the need to ensure digital sovereignty, which gives the country control over its infrastructure, data, and systems, without influence from foreign entities. This is increasingly an important consideration with the growing geopolitical tensions around the globe and the need to protect against extraterritorial laws that may compromise data sovereignty. Digital sovereignty has been driven in part by data protection regulations. With the rapid development and adoption of AI, it has become even more crucial since since sensitive data may need to be processed for training AI models.

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Near Miss – Funding is Not the Only Threat to the CVE Program

by Steven J. Schuchart Jr., posted in Secure
S. Schuchart

Summary Bullets:

• The foundations of the cybersecurity industry shook as the CVE program is nearly ended over short-sighted budget considerations.

• It is hard to convey how crucial the CVE system is worldwide.

This news was kept in the dark. If it would not have been for a leak of an internal memo to social media, it would have hit the cybersecurity landscape like a musket ball to the forehead. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) system is a load-bearing piece of the world’s cybersecurity infrastructure, and it was still perilously close to being suspended. The current US administration’s FIRE – READY – AIM approach to cost cutting was to blame for what could have been a catastrophic loss.

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UK Altnets Show Strategic Naivete and Must Consolidate Rapidly for Relevance

by Rob Pritchard, posted in Communicate
R. Pritchard

Summary Bullets:

• UK infrastructure provider Neos Networks has published research into 100 UK alternative network (altnet) fiber providers, giving insight into altnet challenges and strategic plans.

• Altnet strategies look naïve and often unachievable. For long-term relevance, rapid consolidation cannot come soon enough – they know this and need to act fast.

UK-wide connectivity provider Neos Networks has published results of a survey of 100 decision-makers at UK altnet companies. The findings not only underline challenges faced in an overcrowded and competitive market, but also a lack of imagination when it comes to establishing differentiated market propositions.

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