According to CEO Arvind Krishna, International Business Machines (IBM) anticipates pausing employment hiring as approximately 7,800 positions may be replaced by artificial intelligence (AI) in the upcoming years.
According to Krishna, hiring in back-office areas like human resources will stop or slow down. He also predicted that in five years, automation and AI might replace 30% of non-customer-facing roles.
His remarks come at a time when AI has captured the attention of people all around the world with the November 2016 introduction of ChatGPT, a popular chatbot developed by OpenAI with funding from Microsoft.
The PC manufacturer told the publication that part of the decrease might involve not filling positions left vacant by attrition.
In spite of the firms’ claims that artificial intelligence will be their next growth engine, it was revealed last month that investors in US IT giants will closely examine if the cost reductions and layoffs improved profits to their satisfaction.
Following a pandemic-driven hiring boom, Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon announced they would eliminate 70,000 jobs between November and March. Meta has made two rounds of layoff announcements.
According to a recent World Economic Forum (WEF) report, the Indian labor market is expected to expand by 22% over the next five years. According to the survey, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data segments will produce the top jobs.
According to WEF’s most recent Future of Jobs research, 69 million new jobs are anticipated to be produced globally over the next five years. The report also predicts that by 2027, 83 million jobs will be lost. The WEF reported that nearly a quarter of jobs (23%) are expected to change in the next five years through growth of 10.2% and decline of 12.3% (globally).
The survey covered 803 companies, which collectively employ more than 11.3 million people across 45 different economies and 27 industrial groups.
According to the report’s estimates, higher acceptance of new technologies (59%) and improved internet access (55%) are the two factors that would fuel job development in India, followed by broader applications of ESG (environment, social, and governance) norms. AI and machine learning experts, as well as data analysts and scientists, will be the top positions for industry transformation in India.
According to the survey, the manufacturing and oil/gas sectors have the highest levels of green skill intensity worldwide, with India, the US, and Finland leading the list for the same.
In addition, countries’ attitudes on the availability of talent when hiring were more favorable in populous economies like India and China when compared to the worldwide average. But among the several countries, India was one where the expansion of social jobs lagged behind that of non-social jobs.
After learning that AI services were being misused, Samsung has put restrictions on how its employees can utilize so-called generative AI tools like ChatGPT.
The South Korean technology behemoth revealed to CNBC on Tuesday that it is temporarily limiting the usage of generative AI on its internal systems.
After instances of technological misuse, one of Samsung’s largest divisions’ employees received a note at the end of April informing them of the change. According to a Tuesday Bloomberg report, some employees uploaded sensitive code to ChatGPT.
Samsung doesn’t have a generative AI product at the moment. Google’s Bard, created by American startup OpenAI and funded by Microsoft, is another generative AI solution.
Companies may be reluctant to enter sensitive company data into these foreign-owned platforms if they are worried about information leaks.
Samsung recommended employees to exercise caution and refrain from entering any private or business-related information into the services when using ChatGPT and other products outside of the office. In a company-wide survey conducted by Samsung last month, 65% of participants said they were worried about security risks while using generative AI technologies.
Websites have become the face of the business. Again, business owners understood that brands that do not exist online could not earn more profit. Thus, over the recent years, the development of websites has hiked significantly. Other than web technologies like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, etc., Content Management Systems like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc., are also making it easier to develop websites quickly. According to a Siteefy, 252,000 new websites get created every day, & 10,500 websites every hour.
However, an online business that does not have appropriate security in place will not foster in the long run. According to a Forbes report, on average more than 30,000 websites get hacked every day. Therefore, website security is paramount. Various techniques, like patch updates, strong passwords, robust web application security tools, etc., are necessary. This article caters to a complete walkthrough of what website security is and how to secure the site. It will also highlight some website attacks & the best ways to secure your website in 2023.
What is website security?
Website security is the art and science of protecting websites from unauthorized access and cyber-attacks. Website security comprises a collaborative approach to preventive or defense measures, such as firewalls, encryption through SSL Certificates, Identity and Access Management, and authentication, as well as reactive or offensive techniques, such as intrusion detection, penetration testing, vulnerability assessment, and incident response. Website security is essential because websites are at the forefront of any business. Because of this, it has a massive attack surface. Thus, website security is paramount.
Popular Website Attacks –
Website attacks are taking over the news headlines. With the increased use of websites, cyber-attacks on web applications and websites have risen exponentially. Here is a list of widespread website security attacks that cybercriminals exploit when the website contains vulnerabilities.
SQL Injection: SQL is a database query language that helps applications fetch data from the database. Various websites contain databases from where it brings data to show to their users. Attackers target to expose those databases through SQL injection (SQLi). Over the past two decades, SQL injection has become an online ploy to compromise a server, web forms, database, or HTTP posts to manipulate data fiends & exploit the database. Attackers use malicious SQL scripts to gain unauthorized access to sensitive data.
Cross-Site Scripting: Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) is another well-known website attack wherein the attacker tricks a browser into providing malicious client-side scripts. These scripts will run on the victim’s browser, which ultimately causes harm to the business. It also damages the brand reputation as the attacker can display anything on the official website.
Password-based attack: Passwords are the most common form of authentication used still today. Attackers often target website and web app users by compromising their accounts through password attacks. They target websites & web applications by attempting to guess or crack user passwords. Password cracking attacks are carried out using automated hacking tools (that use permutation and combination or try every password from a given dictionary). With the potential of powerful processors, these tools can quickly test large numbers of passwords in a short amount of time. Brute force, dictionary attacks, and credential stuffing are well-known password attack techniques.
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack: Another well-known website attack is the DDoS attack. It aims to disrupt or malfunction the regular functioning of a website or online service. It does so by overpowering the website by flooding the traffic from multiple sources.
In other words, the attacker takes advantage of the limited capacity of a server or website infrastructure. Attackers generate DDoS attacks from diverse infected systems (Zombie computers) & IoT devices connected through a single network. It is known as a “Botnet” that generates pseudo traffic in exponentially large amounts.
Man-in-The-Middle (MiTM) attack: Another prevalent website-based attack that happens because of insecure web data transmission is the MiTM attack. Websites that do not have SSL certificates (HTTPS or encryption measures can be a victim of this attack. When attacker notices that, the website is insecure and users use it for various purposes, they try to intercept the communication between two parties. Here, a site owner can go with Sectigo SSL, Comodo SSL certificate, RapidSSL certificate, etc. to avert MiTM attack and provides a secure environment to users.
The attacker does so by eavesdropping using tools like Burpsuite. They manipulate unencrypted traffic or steal sensitive information. In a MiTM attack, the attacker positions themselves between the two communicating parties (sender and receiver) and relays messages between them.
Drive-by compromise attack: In this website attack, the victim’s device gets infected with malware without the users’ knowledge or consent. Such an attack is possible because the cybercriminal exploits the website’s vulnerability (exploit zero-day vulnerabilities or newly discovered ones) to inject the malware. Now, as soon as the user visits a compromised website or clicks on any malicious link to that attacked website, the drive-by attack gets triggered. It will download the malware on the user’s device, often without any observable indication of the attack. Such an attack damages the business’s reputation or reduces the number of users on that site.
Top Five Ways to Secure Your Website
If you are worrying about how to secure your website from cyber threats and attacks, do not worry. This section will provide the top five approaches to protect your website from cyber-attacks.
Install an SSL certificate:
Security through encryption has been prevalent for ages. Websites also require data security through encryption. A secure Socket Layer (SSL) is an encryption technique and a protocol that works with a digital certificate for secure data transmission. Usually, an insecure website will have HTTP.
For securing the data SSL, the certificate creates an encrypted link between the client browser and the web server. It signifies any data transmitted between the client software and the server will be unreadable and jumbled up through an encryption algorithm.
SSL encryption is necessary, especially when the website offers account creation, e-commerce sales, online business stores, software services, etc. Encryption using an SSL certificate will add security and privacy to users’ data. It will protect websites and users’ data from attacks like Man-in-The-Middle (MiTM), eavesdropping, network traffic monitoring, password-based hacking, etc.
Use a secure host:
Secure hosting is another significant way to safeguard your business website from cyber-attacks. There are diverse ways website hosting can secure your website and its data from cyber-attacks. A robust hosting service will upload the data with encryption. Therefore, both data at rest & data in transit will remain secure with strong encryption.
A secure hosting provider will also offer a dashboard to set secure server configuration for you. Other secured hosting providers deliver security protection through web application firewalls (WAF), monitoring tools, and incident response systems.
Professional website hosting providers and web admin monitors the infrastructure & website for potential threats. They have tools & processes in place to detect, analyze, and respond to cyber threats in real-time. Also, while choosing a hosting service, you, as a website owner, must check the following:
Does it offer a Secure File Transfer Protocol service?
Does it have a built-in rootkit scanner?
Does it offer file and data backup services?
Does it offer a configuration system to disable unused ports and services?
Does it align with the security updates and patches?
If all these questions have a positive reply, you can assure the hosting service is secure.
Enforce a strong password:
Passwords are one of the most common elements of authentication in cybersecurity. However, using easy passwords like words, users’ names as passwords, phone numbers, number sequences, website names, etc., are easy to hack. Attacks like password guessing, brute force and dictionary attacks are well known to break a website’s user password.
Again, using the same password on multiple platforms can also be threatening. They can lead attackers to employ credential stuffing and other custom-made dictionary attacks using hacking tools.
Therefore, keeping robust passwords can help protect a user’s account from brute force and dictionary attacks. Passwords comprising a combination of numbers, letters, special symbols, etc., can help create a strong password.
Again, experts recommend using passphrases rather than passwords. Passphrases are long-tailed passwords that are difficult to crack. Meaningless phrases also add security strength to passwords and passphrases. Meaningless passwords are hard to detect. Hive security revealed a table of password strength that might help you understand how password strength changes.
Backup your website:
Website backup is another essential technique to protect your website and users’ data from malware like ransomware, virus infection, etc. Although you already checked that the hosting service taken provides the backup option. However, it is also essential to self-invest in an automatic backup.
Often backups are periodic, meaning – after a day, a week, or even a month, a backup of all data happens. However, it is essential to provide a regular backup of data at every point in time. Data backup in real-time eliminates the worst-case scenario of losing everything because of the delay in backing up a website or its data.
While data breaches and loss of website information are stressful, having a current data backup makes it much easier when a website encounters DDoS or ransomware attacks. Various tools are available that automatically keep a backup of data. Also, with the advent of cloud technology, data backup became redundant. Cloud-hosted websites automatically keep an automatic data backup on different servers across different geolocations.
Use of security tools:
Implementing robust security tools also helps by providing multiple layers of security. Regularly scanning your website files with threat and malware detectors can help your websites deter persistent threats. SiteLock, Free Website Scanner, VirusTotal, Astra Security, SiteGuarding, Quttera, etc., are popular threat scanners. Again, tools like Web Application Firewalls (WAF) and vulnerability scanners also help identify potential security vulnerabilities in websites. It helps scan for known vulnerabilities in the website’s software, configurations, and network.
WAF proactively check the data traffic and block security issues before they enter the website hosting server for exploitation. Lastly, IDS (Intrusion Detection System) and IPS (Intrusion Prevention System) also help monitor, detect, and notify security threats and prevent them from the action. Tools like IDS and IPS also help alert security teams about potential security incidents and provide insights to help mitigate the attack. Some well-known website security tools popular in the market are Qualys, Detectify, UpGuard, Sucuri, ImmuniWeb, etc.
Conclusion
Most businesses are turning from offline to online. The pace increased as we all encountered the pandemic. So, if you plan to launch a website for your business, ensure it has robust security implemented. Apart from security tools, companies should implement SSL certificates that can validate to users that the website is genuine.
SSL certifications are the foremost security shields that websites should hold. Apart from instilling trust among users, it also increases brand reputation. If you have not implemented them yet, try them today.
Databricks, a leading provider of data and AI solutions, has announced the launch of two online courses on building and using Large Language Models (LLMs) on edX. These courses are part of Databricks’ efforts to democratize AI and enable any organization to use it effectively.
We're launching two comprehensive online courses on building and using Large Language Models! The first is on using LLMs in applications, covering topics like prompt engineering, embeddings, chains, and MLOps. The second teaches you to build your own LLMs.https://t.co/AfIprtlp9B
The LLMs program is designed to meet the growing demand for LLM-based applications, which are transforming countless industries. Through dynamic lectures, demos, and hands-on labs taught by industry leaders and researchers, you can learn how to develop and productionize LLM applications.
The first course is a 6 weeks program designed for developers, data scientists, and engineers who want to build LLM-centric applications with the latest and most popular frameworks. It covers topics such as prompt engineering, embeddings, chains, and MLOps.
The second course is a 5 weeks program aimed at data scientists interested in the details of foundation models and the key innovations that led to the proliferation of transformer-based models.
The courses have been developed in collaboration with Stanford Professor Matei Zaharia and the technical team that built the Databricks Dolly model.
Course materials will be free for anyone to audit.
Learners can also pay a nominal fee of ₹8095 to access a managed compute environment for course labs, graded exercises, and a completion certificate.
Enrollment for the courses on edX will begin in Summer 2023.
A peer-reviewed paper released on Monday in the journal Nature Neuroscience claims that scientists have created a noninvasive AI system that aims to convert a person’s brain activity into a stream of text.
Patients who have lost their capacity to physically communicate due to a stroke, paralysis, or other degenerative conditions may eventually benefit from the technology, known as a semantic decoder.
The system was created in part by University of Texas at Austin researchers using a transformer model, which is also used to power Google’s Bard and OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbots.
The fMRI scanner, a sizable apparatus that detects brain activity, was used by study participants to train the decoder while they listened to many hours of podcasts. No surgical implants are necessary for the system.
When the participant is listening to or imagines telling a new story, the trained AI system can produce a stream of text. The researchers intended to capture broad concepts or sentiments, not a precise transcript, when they created the final text. In around half of the cases, the trained system generates text that closely or precisely fits the participant’s original words’ intended meaning.
The decoder depends on the fMRI scanner, thus as of Monday, it can only be used in a laboratory environment. But the researchers think that more transportable brain imaging systems might eventually use it.
The “Godfather of AI,” Geoffrey Hinton, acknowledged on Monday that he left Google last week in order to speak out against the “dangers” of the technology he helped create. Hinton, 75, announced his departure from Google in a message to the New York Times, saying he now regretted his work.
Hinton tweeted that he had left his position at Google so that he could freely discuss the dangers of AI. “In the NYT today, Cade Metz implies that I left Google so that I could criticize Google,” he wrote in a tweet. “Actually, I departed so that I could discuss the risks of AI without taking into account how this affects Google. Google acted in a very responsible manner.”
In the NYT today, Cade Metz implies that I left Google so that I could criticize Google. Actually, I left so that I could talk about the dangers of AI without considering how this impacts Google. Google has acted very responsibly.
He stated, “I can now just speak freely about what I think the dangers might be,” in a Monday interview with the BBC. “And some of them are really frightening. They don’t appear to be any smarter than we are at the moment, as far as I can tell. However, I believe they soon might be.”
Notably, Hinton was one of the most esteemed experts in the field and spent more than a decade working for Google. When he collaborated with two graduate students in Toronto in 2012, he made his most significant AI discovery. According to the NYT, the group was successful in developing an algorithm that could examine pictures and recognise common objects like dogs and cars. He collaborated on the project with a student who is now the principal scientist of OpenAI.
According to CNN, his groundbreaking work on neural networks influenced artificial intelligence systems, which are at the heart of many modern technologies like ChatGPT. He did, however, warn the BBC that chatbots might soon surpass the amount of knowledge a human brain can store.
LinkedIn is making more than one hundred AI courses free from June 15, 2023 to help people succeed in their job and career. The free courses are available across languages, including Chinese, French, German, Japanese, English, Brazilian, Portuguese, and Spanish.
In a blog post, Dan Brodnitz, Global Head of Content Strategy, LinkedIn Learning, wrote, “Some of the biggest changes – and opportunities – today are being driven by artificial intelligence (AI). We know how important building AI-related skills will be to navigating virtually every role and industry, whether you’re an everyday professional in fields like marketing or sales or a seasoned developer.”
The learning topics include Generative AI, Responsible AI, Advanced AI, AI and Machine Learning (ML) Foundations, and Applied AI. Generative AI courses include topics kike What is generative AI, introduction to prompt engineering for generative AI, generative AI for business leaders, and introduction to conversational AI.
AI and Machine Learning Foundations courses include topics like Python k-Means clustering, Python foundations, security risks in AI and machine learning, and learning no-code AI.
Responsible AI topics include responsible AI principles and practical Applications, introduction to responsible AI algorithm design, AI accountability essential training, and foundations of responsible AI.
According to TechCrunch, OpenAI, the company behind the ChatGPT chatbot, has completed a more than $300 million share sale at a valuation of between $27 billion and $29 billion.
According to records seen by TechCrunch, VC firms like Andreessen Horowitz, Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital, Thrive, and K2 Global are acquiring fresh shares. The Founders Fund is also investing, according to a source.
Microsoft Corp. recently invested $10 billion over several years in OpenAI, the ground-breaking artificial intelligence research company responsible for ChatGPT and DALL-E. The money from Microsoft will allow OpenAI to continue its independent research and develop AI that is increasingly safe, useful, and powerful, according to a statement from OpenAI.
The GPT, or Generative Pre-trained Transformer, family of OpenAI’s huge language models, which are accessed by third parties via APIs, has recently drawn a lot of attention. OpenAI has an army of technical teams working across a variety of fields.
When OpenAI’s ChatGPT was introduced last year, it generated a worldwide sensation since it can generate essays, songs, examinations, and even news pieces from quick suggestions. Italy was the first Western nation to initiate legal action against the well-known AI chatbot in March.
Italy temporarily blocked ChatGPT last month over worries about data privacy, but has already reversed the restriction, according to the owner of the AI chatbot. “Our users in Italy can once again access ChatGPT. We are happy to have them back and will continue to secure their personal information, according to an OpenAI spokeswoman.
In accordance with the directives of the Ruler of Dubai, the Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications Office has published a comprehensive guide on the usage of generative AI applications in order to accelerate research and efforts to encourage the adoption of cutting-edge technologies in government work models.
Government organizations can benefit from the advantages of AI technology and enhance their implementation across a range of disciplines with the help of the “Generative AI” handbook.
The manual provides a thorough explanation of generative AI, examines the challenges and opportunities posed by various digital technologies, and suggests the best management techniques for these technologies. Moreover, it emphasizes the importance of data privacy in the current digital environment, elaborates on the fundamentals and methodologies for utilizing generative AI technologies, and includes texts that provide the most accurate information.
The manual provides 100 real-world examples of generative AI in action, including the creation of text and images, language translation, original music, and video synthesis. The guide also lists a number of language-based employment that aid in the expansion of transportation, healthcare, and educational services. The adoption of ChatGPT, which is simple to include, demonstrates the UAE’s efforts to develop legislation and regulations that are in accordance with modern practices.
The resource also demonstrates how generative AI applications may be used to streamline and enlighten the public about government services. By automating customer assistance inquiries, these programmes improve operational efficiency and response times. Additionally, they can evaluate customer evaluations of goods and services, providing information to decision-makers that they can use to draft more sensible regulations.
The manual places a strong emphasis on the benefits of employing generative AI systems in education and highlights their potential as online instructors or instructional tools. These programmes can offer students customized and interactive advice by responding to their inquiries and providing feedback on their tasks.
