I will have a bachelors degree in IT with a cyber security option next year. Is it worth it to get the A+ cert or should I start with something more advanced?

Hello

We held the final part of our Benelux and UK&I MSP Interest Group - MSP Marketing Masterclass today with Rien van den Bosch who was talking about SEO Optimisation.

I have attached the slides and recording.

I hope you find it useful!

https://comptia.zoom.us/rec/share/D...TW87Fi-QREWp7R-dER1cMrospZl8.56MGMq__6OsLNRw_
Passcode: Jg36@5ig

Leanne

In recent years, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) have emerged as strategic business priorities, recognized for their ability to drive innovation, foster inclusive workplace cultures, and enhance organizational performance. Despite facing backlash—ranging from accusations of tokenism to perceived threats to meritocracy—organizations are recalibrating their DEI efforts to emphasize authentic engagement and meaningful action.

Why DEI Remains Essential:

1. Reflecting on the Emerging Workforce:
   • Today’s workforce is the most diverse in history. Future leaders expect workplaces that reflect their backgrounds, experiences, and visions. Social change often faces resistance, but this is not a reason to abandon DEI mandates.
2. Cultural Vitality:
   • Historically, corporate values have been shaped by predominantly white male leadership. Every culture needs diversity to stay vibrant. Strategies like equity, inclusion, belonging, and justice are essential to making diversity work effectively.
3. Meeting Evolving Employee Needs:
   • The multicultural and multigenerational workforce makes DEI imperative. Embracing DEI helps organizations understand and meet employees' evolving needs, leading to stronger financial performance and better talent retention.
4. Driving Innovation:
   • Diverse teams bring varied perspectives, leading to more creative and innovative solutions. Organizations prioritizing DEI attract a diverse pool of job seekers and retain employees who feel valued and included.
5. Fostering Respectful Environments:
   • DEI is crucial for creating inclusive workplaces that respect diverse perspectives and drive innovation and growth. Future DEI programs may focus more on systemic changes, enhancing accountability, and integrating DEI principles at every organizational level.
6. Competitive Advantage:
   • DEI is a competitive advantage that fosters innovation, attracts diverse talent, and boosts performance. Successful organizations will embed DEI into their culture and decision-making processes, addressing systemic barriers and fostering a true sense of belonging.
7. Transcending Bias:
   • DEI transcends bias, fostering workplaces where diversity drives innovation and inclusivity. Embedding DEI principles into organizational culture promises a future landscape of equity, empathy, and shared success.
8. Talent Retention:
   • Cultures where everyone has a voice are better at retaining talent. Leaders who do not embrace DEI are missing a critical component of organizational success.
9. Understanding Within Organizations:
   • DEI initiatives are vital for fostering inclusivity, innovation, and understanding within organizations. As these initiatives evolve, it is important to balance metrics with celebrating individual differences.
10. Ensures Fair Treatment And Opportunities For All:
    • DEI is critical for driving innovation, enhancing organizational performance, and ensuring fair treatment and opportunities for all individuals. The future of DEI programs will likely emphasize systemic change, addressing unconscious bias, and fostering genuine cultural transformation.

Discussion Questions:

• How can organizations ensure their DEI initiatives are authentic and not perceived as tokenism?
• What are some effective strategies for integrating DEI principles into every layer of an organization?
• How can leaders foster a true sense of belonging beyond just representation?

Join the conversation and share your thoughts on the evolving importance of DEI in the workplace!

Read the article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbes...inesses-and-how-its-evolving/?sh=4d6aefb63a12

Over the past two decades, the Internet of Things (IoT) market has evolved from a visionary concept to a tangible reality, fundamentally transforming our interaction with technology and the world around us. This maturation has been driven by technological advancements and shifting consumer needs.

The Early Days of IoT​

In the early 2000s, the advent of wireless connectivity, sensor miniaturization, and internet-enabled devices marked the birth of IoT. Initially, IoT applications focused on monitoring and optimizing industrial processes to enhance efficiency and reduce costs. Although these early implementations were not 'smart' by today's standards, they laid the groundwork for widespread adoption across various sectors.

Recent Trends in IoT Adoption​

The past five years have seen a significant surge in IoT adoption and integration, fueled by several key trends. Consumer demand for convenience, security, and energy efficiency has driven the proliferation of smart home devices. Modern homes are now equipped with an array of IoT gadgets, from smart thermostats and lighting systems to connected appliances and security cameras. On average, homes and apartments in the United States boast around 16 connected devices.

The Covid-19 pandemic further accelerated IoT adoption in commercial sectors such as healthcare and remote monitoring. Telemedicine systems and IoT-enabled devices facilitated virtual consultations, patient monitoring, and chronic disease management during social distancing measures. Consequently, IoT technology has ensured continuity of care while mitigating the risk of infectious diseases.

The Impact of AI on IoT​

A significant development in the IoT landscape is the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities. As IoT devices generate vast amounts of data, AI algorithms derive actionable insights and enable predictive analytics. Machine learning and deep learning techniques empower IoT systems to predict events, detect anomalies, and optimize real-time decision-making. This means IoT devices can now 'anticipate' user needs or accurately forecast equipment failures, such as a water heater or motor.

The synergy between IoT and AI promises remarkable advancements for technology and society. Over the past five years, AI-powered IoT devices have exhibited extraordinary intelligence, autonomy, and adaptability. These devices can collect, transmit, interpret, analyze, and act on data in real time, revolutionizing our interaction with our environment and each other.

Join the Discussion​

How have IoT and AI technologies impacted your daily life or industry? What future developments do you foresee in the integration of these technologies? Share your thoughts and experiences below!

Read the article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbes...et-of-things-market-grows-up/?sh=291f444c80d0

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing various cybersecurity domains, offering potential benefits and challenges to organizations. In information security (infosec), AI enhances threat detection, intrusion prevention, malware detection, and phishing detection, improving overall security posture. In cloud security, AI's rapid response capabilities enable early threat detection, anomaly detection, real-time threat detection, and predictive security analytics.

Ensuring An Effective AI Strategy

Developing a holistic AI strategy is crucial for organizations to harness AI's benefits. This involves responsible AI deployment, human oversight, and collaborative integration of AI with human expertise in cybersecurity.

AI strengthens defense mechanisms against evolving threats, contributing to real-time threat detection and enhancing intrusion detection and prevention systems. For instance, AI analyzes real-time network traffic, user behavior, and system logs to identify malicious patterns quickly and accurately, improving network security by suggesting effective security policy groupings.

Traditional monitoring techniques often struggle with inaccuracies and slow data processing. However, deep learning models in network traffic monitoring and analysis (NTMA) can efficiently recognize hidden and intricate patterns, aiding traffic classification and prediction.

As AI becomes more business-critical, developing and deploying AI ethically is vital, ensuring it is trustworthy, safe, and legal. Responsible AI usage increases transparency and minimizes issues such as AI bias. An effective AI strategy begins with understanding AI concerns and openly sharing adoption decisions with diverse stakeholders, including clients, consumers, suppliers, and other affected parties.

Developing responsible AI technology requires transparent decision-making processes, actionable AI ethics policies, research, widespread consultation, ethical impact analysis, and continuous checks and balances. Ethical and privacy concerns in AI should be viewed as conduits to a sustainable AI strategy rather than obstacles to adoption. Embedding responsible AI principles of inclusiveness, fairness, privacy, transparency, non-maleficence, and responsibility is essential for AI's evolution and adoption.

Join the discussion on how AI transforms cybersecurity and share your insights on developing effective and responsible AI strategies!

Read the article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbes...ing-an-effective-ai-strategy/?sh=524c23c27d90

Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing how we consume and create data and information, but it comes with its own challenges. One of the most pressing issues is the creation of fake content, which raises questions about the trustworthiness of the information we encounter online. Could existing technologies help address this trust deficit? Interestingly, organizations are turning to blockchain technology that was once considered transformative but struggled to gain traction in the business world.

Blockchain is an unchangeable, shared ledger that tracks assets and transactions within a business network. Its key features—decentralized data storage and transparent, immutable digital records—make it a promising solution to the trust issues plaguing AI. While AI is typically opaque and centralized, blockchain could provide the accountability, privacy, and trust that AI lacks. Let's explore how this convergence could work.

High-Quality Data​

AI-enabled software and apps are gradually transforming various business sectors by providing real-time access to patient data, among other things. However, one significant challenge remains limited access to high-quality data. AI often cannot access data governed by other entities, making data authentication difficult. This frequently results in low-quality data, which can lead to inaccurate predictions.

Blockchain can be incredibly useful in this context. It can provide vast amounts of data that are not owned by any single entity, making it immutable and accessible to everyone. Additionally, blockchain ensures the implementation and compliance of specific analytics, data, and rules securely and sequentially through "Smart Contracts." With their immutable digital records, these smart contracts could help us understand AI's framework and the source of the data it uses, thereby addressing the trust issue. The best part? Blockchain enables real-time access to high-quality data without compromising data security and privacy.

For instance, the blockchain-based video marketplace MOBS allows users to buy and sell smartphone videos. Once users sell their videos, potential buyers, like marketers, can sift through them to find what they need. The MOBS blockchain then creates a smart contract that directly apportions money to the content creator based on engagement views and rates. This ensures that all customer details, app data, and financial transactions are publicly accessible, immutable, and recorded in real time. The result is fair, secure, and faster transactions, guaranteeing data accuracy and authenticity and eliminating the need for intermediaries.

Decentralized Intelligence​

One issue with existing AI-powered business models is data centralization, which prevents AI systems from rendering the most accurate decisions. In this context, blockchain's decentralized data storage can be the perfect audit trail, showing users how companies and other organizations employ their data. The idea is to enable frictionless access to information that is both shared and validated by all stakeholders involved in the network. If blockchains were to store and distribute AI models, the latter's decisions could become more transparent and accountable due to decentralization.

In conclusion, the convergence of AI and blockchain holds immense potential for creating a new era of trust and transparency. By leveraging blockchain's decentralized and immutable nature, we can address many of the trust issues plaguing AI, paving the way for more accountable, private, and trustworthy AI systems.

Read the article: https://www.sify.com/cryptocurrency/how-blockchain-can-solve-ais-trust-problem/

Today's interest group call was attended by 23 community members and included some great questions from our community which were addressed by Cybersecurity Insurance member SherpaTech, Sherpatech.com.au by Andrew Bremner and Tim Stephinson, with legal perspectives in this subject area by Dudley Kneller, Partner at gadens.com.

Although both organisations represent the Australian market, the discussion and scenarios discussed could happen anywhere in the world, and the recommendations you’ll hear in the recording are intended to help guide you in the way you prepare and structure your own Managed Services Agreements with whichever insurance and legal providers you choose to work with.

The recording is available at https://tinyurl.com/4d9r77tb

Enjoy!

We are excited to invite everyone to join us in Utrecht - 22 May 2024. Registration for the Community Meeting in Utrecht is open: https://connect.comptia.org/events/registration?eventid=UTRECHT24.

There are quite a few LLM available, open source or paid. I am hoping to get some views from the ground if anyone of you have tried or is experimenting with some?