Google Launches Gemini 2.0 with Autonomous Tool Linking

Google Launches Gemini 2.0 with Autonomous Tool Linking

Google is embracing “agentic experiences” in the rollout of Gemini 2.0, its new flagship family of generative AI expected to compete with ChatGPT with OpenAI o1, GitHub Copilot, and Amazon Nova. The tech giant released the first model, Gemini 2.0 Flash, on Dec. 11 for global developers through the Gemini API in Google AI Studio and Vertex AI. Consumers can expect Gemini 2.0 to impact Google Search and AI Overviews, with limited testing beginning next…

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Patch Tuesday: Microsoft Patches One Actively Exploited Vulnerability, Among Others

Patch Tuesday: Microsoft Patches One Actively Exploited Vulnerability, Among Others

December brought a relatively mild Patch Tuesday, with one vulnerability having been actively exploited. Of all 70 vulnerabilities fixed, 16 were classified as critical. “This year, cybersecurity professionals must be on Santa’s nice list, or, at the very least, Microsoft’s,” Tyler Reguly, associate director of security R&D at cybersecurity software and services company Fortra, told TechRepublic in an email. Microsoft patches leaky CLFS CVE-2024-49138 is an elevation of privilege vulnerability in the Windows Common Log…

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Dell Unveils AI and Cybersecurity Solutions at Microsoft Ignite 2024

Dell Unveils AI and Cybersecurity Solutions at Microsoft Ignite 2024

Dell pulled the tarp off several new connected services during Microsoft Ignite, an annual conference hosted by Microsoft that is designed for developers and IT professionals. Several services are intended to take guesswork or security concerns from deploying generative AI, particularly on Microsoft’s Copilot+ PCs. Dell takes on the management of APEX File Storage for Azure APEX File Storage has been available for Azure for some time. However, starting with a public preview in the…

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Microsoft Ignite 2024: AI, Security, and Teams Innovations

Microsoft Ignite 2024: AI, Security, and Teams Innovations

Microsoft Ignite 2024, held Nov. 19 – 22 in Chicago, featured nearly 100 announcements and software updates, including an AI feature in Teams that can translate speech and replicate an individual employee’s voice. This year’s overarching theme was expanding generative AI’s summarization and rewriting capabilities to address more niche use cases. AI translator agent can replicate your voice in Teams Microsoft is going all-in on AI “agents” in an effort to further abstract the workings…

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1.1 Million UK NHS Employee Records Exposed

1.1 Million UK NHS Employee Records Exposed

Over a million NHS employee records — including email addresses, phone numbers, and home addresses — were exposed online due to a misconfiguration of the low-code website builder Microsoft Power Pages. In September, researchers with the software-as-a-service security platform AppOmni identified a large shared business service provider for the NHS that was allowing unauthorised access to sensitive data through insecure permission settings on Power Pages. Specifically, the permissions on some tables and columns in Power…

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Patch Tuesday: Four Critical Vulnerabilities Paved Over

Patch Tuesday: Four Critical Vulnerabilities Paved Over

On Patch Tuesday, Windows systems will be updated with a flood of security fixes. In November, Windows patched four zero-day vulnerabilities, two of which have been exploited. Patch Tuesdays are a good time for admin teams to remind employees of the importance of keeping operating systems and applications up to date. In the meantime, software makers like Microsoft and Adobe will have caught problems and closed backdoors. In addition, as XDA pointed out, sharp-eyed Windows…

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AI-Assisted Attacks Top Cyber Threat For Third Consecutive Quarter, Gartner Finds

AI-Assisted Attacks Top Cyber Threat For Third Consecutive Quarter, Gartner Finds

For the third consecutive quarter, Gartner has found that cyber attacks staged using artificial intelligence are the biggest risk for enterprises. The consulting firm surveyed 286 senior risk and assurance executives from July through September, and 80% cited AI-enhanced malicious attacks as the top threat they were concerned about. This isn’t surprising, as evidence suggests AI-assisted attacks are on the rise. Other commonly cited emerging risks outlined in the report include AI-assisted misinformation, escalating political…

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Midnight Blizzard Escalates Spear-Phishing Attacks

Midnight Blizzard Escalates Spear-Phishing Attacks

Microsoft Threat Intelligence has uncovered a new attack campaign by Russian threat actor Midnight Blizzard, targeting thousands of users across over 100 organizations. The attack leverages spear-phishing emails with RDP configuration files, allowing attackers to connect to and potentially compromise the targeted systems. The attack campaign targeted thousands of users in higher education, defense, non-governmental organizations, and government agencies. Dozens of countries have been impacted, particularly in the U.K., Europe, Australia, and Japan, which is…

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Microsoft: Ransomware Attacks Growing More Dangerous, Complex

Microsoft: Ransomware Attacks Growing More Dangerous, Complex

The number of attempted ransomware attacks on Microsoft customers globally have grown dramatically in the last year, according to Microsoft’s Digital Defense report, released on Oct. 15. However, advancements in automatic attack disruption technologies have led to fewer of these attacks reaching the encryption stage. Microsoft reported 600 million cybercriminal and nation-state attacks occurring daily. While ransomware attempts increased by 2.75 times, successful attacks involving data encryption and ransom demands dropped by three-fold. The inverse…

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Generative AI in Security: Risks and Mitigation Strategies

Generative AI in Security: Risks and Mitigation Strategies

Generative AI became tech’s fiercest buzzword seemingly overnight with the release of ChatGPT. Two years later, Microsoft is using OpenAI foundation models and fielding questions from customers about how AI changes the security landscape. Siva Sundaramoorthy, senior cloud solutions security architect at Microsoft, often answers these questions. The security expert provided an overview of generative AI — including its benefits and security risks — to a crowd of cybersecurity professionals at ISC2 in Las Vegas…

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