FT lists 5 things to watch for at Davos, and they’re all about resilience
The World Economic Forum returned to Davos on May 22, with a theme of “History at a Turning Point” and, according to the Financial Times, five topics to watch for, all of them reflecting concerns about economic resilience. Rebuilding Ukraine, recession fears, climate change, pandemic preparedness and the strength of capitalism are all at the top of the discussion/debate menu, says the FT. This year's gathering is the “most timely and consequential” Davos meeting since its founding 50 years ago, WEF Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab says.
Cybersecurity roundup: New laws, health vulnerabilities, ransomware soars, and more
It’s been a very busy month for cybersecurity news around the world. Here’s a quick rundown:
- The EU has agreed on new cybersecurity laws to protect the financial sector. Pymnts.com has details on the new measures, which set uniform rules for securing network and information systems. And in the U.S., cybersecurity officials have released new NIST guidance on platform security for cloud and edge use cases, according to Continuity Central.
- Continuity Central also has an article on the global "State of Ransomware 2022" survey from Sophos. The percent of organizations hit with ransomware nearly doubled (from 37%-66%) from 2020-2021 and the average ransom paid shot up fivefold to reach $812,360, the survey showed.
- Medical Economics reports on health care systems’ vulnerabilities to cyberattacks, while the HIPAA Journal shares an operational continuity/cyber incident checklist from the Health Sector Coordinating Council.
- The annual PWN2OWN hacker competition paid out $1.15 million in rewards for finding and exploiting bugs in Microsoft, Ubuntu and Tesla technologies, Forbes reports. And in broader good news for virtuous hackers, the U.S. Justice Department says it will no longer prosecute White Hat hackers (those who act in good faith to uncover vulnerabilities) under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, according to TechCrunch.
Workday Survey: CFOs need better data to meet business demands
Workday’s global survey of finance leaders show CFOs are lagging behind other departments in digital transformation and are struggling to meet business demands. But the survey showed CFOs are aware they need more reliable and accessible data to move forward, a desire that may help them better align with their CIO counterparts, the survey says.
Central banks’ umbrella group calls for new data-harvesting rules
There’s still a huge awareness gap between those who harvest and control data, and those from whom that data is harvested, says the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) in a new paper detailed by Reuters. The BIS paper recommends authorities “level the playing field between data subjects and data controllers” with new data governance systems. The BIS wants to require firms “to get clearer consent to collect data, better explain how it was being used and make it easier to be accessed by those from whom it was harvested,” Reuters says.
BoE leader tells banks they must speed recovery from outages
A top Bank of England leader told British banks they must recover from service-disrupting outages faster to “avoid undermining public confidence in the financial sector,” Reuters reports. In a UK Finance speech, David Bailey, executive director for supervision of banks at the BoE, said that “while clear progress has been made, there is still distance to travel to a point where firms across the sector reach the level of operational resilience we expect to see.” For more, read Bailey’s full speech at the UK Finance Webinar, “Operational Resilience: Beyond.”
Mental Awareness Month roundup: DevOps, apps, and across the USA
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and DevOps.com has a timely article to coincide on how engineers can reduce toil, which “wraps its tendrils around the workforce, draining the energy out of every digital worker across departments.” The article recommends standardization, automation, proactive monitoring and collaboration, as well as avoiding software automation traps in which cost and maintenance outweigh time savings. Axios warns of mental health apps that offer services without human support, and a CVS Health/Morning Consult poll reveals mental health concerns are increasing across Americans of all backgrounds.The survey found 6 in 10 Americans had concerns about their own mental health or that of someone close to them.
Proposal to simplify capital requirements has merit, Financial Times says
The FT’s editorial board has weighed in on suggestions by the UK’s top supervisor of lenders to simplify bank capital requirements. Sam Woods, a Bank of England deputy governor, is proposing that banks replace an “alphabet soup” of buffers they must establish to absorb losses with a single buffer built with “a purer equity of common stock and cash.” While the FT board says this change has merit, it cautions that “his vision, if it is to work safely, would require intense regulatory scrutiny and intervention; arguably much more than today.”
Deloitte survey shows most CFOs satisfied with IT services, but cite talent, complexity challenges
Two-thirds of CFOs say they are satisfied with IT services, but there are still some barriers to getting value from IT, Deloitte reports, in a sponsored article in the Wall Street Journal. Deloitte cites results from its Q1 2022 CFO Signals™ survey, which shows that talent, complexity and non-standardization are among CFOs’ top challenges in realizing value from IT.
Cybersecurity: Remote work’s vulnerabilities, and quantum computing’s promise
Continuity Central has weighed in with two security reports — one on a KPMG Canada survey that found nearly half of North American executives say remote work has left their cyber defenses vulnerable, with 67% reporting cases of external fraud in the last 12 months, and almost all expecting to see an increase in regulatory requirements in the next five years. Another offers a distant glimmer of cybersecurity hope, reporting that a trial of the world’s first commercial quantum-secured metro network has launched. The network’s first commercial client, EY, will connect two of its sites in London, one in Canary Wharf, and one near London Bridge. “Quantum secure data transmission represents the next major leap forward in protecting data, an essential component of doing business in a digital economy,” says Praveen Shankar, EY UK & Ireland Managing Partner for Technology, Media and Telecoms.
“Race towards trendy” giving way to stability, State of Frontend report says
The Software House has released its State of Frontend 2022 survey, a large-scale global survey of developers covering a wide variety of topics, including developers and their working conditions, preferred technologies, frameworks and testing. The survey also offers a peek into the future, which, besides more maturity and stability, could portend more app performance issues.
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