American companies are once again promising to increase minority hiring and retention in the aftermath of the 2020 police killings of George Floyd and other Black people and subsequent Black Lives Matter demonstrations. But Black people have heard this promise before — for decades, in fact — with little tangible change in the low employment numbers of Black engineers, developers, and IT pros. For companies that really do want to change their staffs to better…

Global ransomware attacks against universities doubled year-on-year in 2020 as the pandemic forced massive changes to higher education, according to BlueVoyant. The security vendor’s latest Cybersecurity in Higher Education report is compiled from an analysis of 2702 universities across 43 countries, covering the period January 2019 to September 2020. It found that ransomware was the number one threat last year, with attacks increasing 100% and average pay-outs totalling nearly $450,000. Many universities have been forced…

A new survey of tech decision makers finds that security concerns are high and trust is low when it comes to artificial intelligence. Image: KOHb, Getty Images/iStockphoto Artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms are hard at work for many businesses, despite the fact that no one has figured out explainability, according to a new survey. Research from Modzy found that security is also a serious concern with 72% of companies reporting that security breaches or threats to…

Executive Summary Babuk ransomware is a new ransomware threat discovered in 2021 that has impacted at least five big enterprises, with one already paying the criminals $85,000 after negotiations. As with other variants, this ransomware is deployed in the network of enterprises that the criminals carefully target and compromise. Using MVISION Insights, McAfee was able to plot the telemetry of targets, revealing that the group is currently targeting the transportation, healthcare, plastic, electronics, and agricultural…