Month: February 2023
Your CISO is getting super stressed – and that could be really bad news
A stressed CISO does not perform well, and could put your the entire organization at risk.
Almost all Chief Information Security Officers (CISO) are under immense stress at work, a new report from Cyble has claimed.
Asides from the personal consequences, the company notes that for many businesses, this stress hinders a CISO’s ability to perform, putting the entire organization at risk.
Cyble’s “Implications of stress on CISOs 2023” report, based on interviews with CISOs working in SMBs whose IT teams have up to five people, says that 94% of them are super stressed at work. As a result, two-thirds (65%) don’t perform as well as they would like to.
Switching jobs
Stress also makes people quit – and three-quarters (74%) of the respondents had at least one team member call it quits in the past 12 months, while half (47%) had multiple people walk out the door. Stress also makes hiring troublesome. More than four in five (83%) have had to compromise on the staff, just to fill the gaps and keep the company running.
More than a third of CISOs polled for the report said they were looking to find a new employer themselves.
Board members, on the other hand, seem to be showing no understanding of the matter. Four in five (79%) of CISOs said they received complaints from the board about their work not being handled adequately. Almost all (93%) would like to be able to spend more time on strategic work, rather than tactical. In fact, more than a quarter report spending their workday almost exclusively on tactical/operational tasks.
What’s more – when they work – they never seem to stop, as 84% had to cancel a vacation, 64% missed a private event, and 90% consistently work more than 40 hours a week – with no break.
To tackle the issue, the vote is unanimous – they need more resources. They need more talent, more tools, and more automation.
“One of the most eye-opening insights from the report was the fact that more than 50% of the CISOs we surveyed said consolidating multiple security technologies on a single platform would decrease their work-related stress levels,” said Eyal Gruner, Co-founder and CEO, Cynet.
Check out the best firewalls
The original Pokémon TCG base set is coming back as a trio of premium decks
Charizard, one of the cards featured in Pokémon TCG Classic | The Pokémon Company
While the Pokémon Trading Card Game is getting something of a major overhaul with the upcoming Scarlet and Violet expansion, The Pokémon Company knows there are still hardcore fans out there obsessing over the original base set, and it’s cooking up something special for them.
During today’s Pokémon Presents stream, The Pokémon Company announced the impending arrival of Pokémon TCG Classic, a premium set of three decks built around classic cards like the base set’s Charizard, Venusaur, and Blastoise. In a press release about the decks, The Pokémon Company described them each as featuring a number of “iconic cards from the history of the Pokémon TCG” as well as newer cards like Ho-Oh-Ex, Lugia-Ex, and Suicune ex.
Currently, no hard date has been announced for the collection’s release, and it’s not clear which other cards aside from the fully evolved Kanto starter trio will be included in it. But if you didn’t happen to pull Charizard, Venusaur, and Blastoise from the 25th-anniversary celebration set, Pokémon TCG Classic is probably going to be your next best chance to snag them.
Charizard, one of the cards featured in Pokémon TCG Classic | The Pokémon Company
While the Pokémon Trading Card Game is getting something of a major overhaul with the upcoming Scarlet and Violet expansion, The Pokémon Company knows there are still hardcore fans out there obsessing over the original base set, and it’s cooking up something special for them.
During today’s Pokémon Presents stream, The Pokémon Company announced the impending arrival of Pokémon TCG Classic, a premium set of three decks built around classic cards like the base set’s Charizard, Venusaur, and Blastoise. In a press release about the decks, The Pokémon Company described them each as featuring a number of “iconic cards from the history of the Pokémon TCG” as well as newer cards like Ho-Oh-Ex, Lugia-Ex, and Suicune ex.
Currently, no hard date has been announced for the collection’s release, and it’s not clear which other cards aside from the fully evolved Kanto starter trio will be included in it. But if you didn’t happen to pull Charizard, Venusaur, and Blastoise from the 25th-anniversary celebration set, Pokémon TCG Classic is probably going to be your next best chance to snag them.
VW wouldn’t help locate car with abducted child because GPS subscription expired
VW says its Car-Net service shouldn’t have demanded $150 payment from detective.
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | NurPhoto )
A sheriff’s office in Illinois said it was initially thwarted from tracking a stolen car with a 2-year-old boy inside when Volkswagen’s Car-Net service refused to provide access to the tracking system because the car’s subscription had expired.
“While searching for the stolen vehicle and endangered child, sheriff’s detectives immediately called Volkswagen Car-Net, in an attempt to track the vehicle,” the Lake County sheriff’s office said in a statement posted on Facebook about the incident on February 23. “Unfortunately, there was a delay, as Volkswagen Car-Net would not track the vehicle with the abducted child until they received payment to reactivate the tracking device in the stolen Volkswagen.”
Volkswagen Car-Net lets owners track and control their vehicles remotely. According to a Chicago Sun-Times article, “the Car-Net trial period had ended, and a representative wanted $150 to restart the service and locate the SUV.” The article continued:
Spotify is ditching the heart icon for an dual-purpose plus button
Spotify is waving goodbye to its heart icon. The company is combining the icon, which enables you to quickly save music to your library, with the “add to playlist” prompt under a single plus button.
The plus button works a little differently on Spotify than it does on Apple Music, where tapping it a second time on an album or playlist downloads it to your device. When you tap Spotify’s plus button once, you’ll add a song, playlist, podcast or audiobook to your library. The plus button will then turn into a green check. If you tap the checkmark on the Now Playing view, you’ll be able to add the song or podcast episode to a playlist rather than just saving it to your Liked Songs or Your Episodes.
SpotifySpotify says the plus button will streamline how folks save songs and podcasts. It wrote in a blog post that user research showed the button “helped save time and gave users the ability to add to multiple playlists at once.” It could come in useful, for instance, if you’re listening to a radio station or Discover Weekly and encounter a song you like that would work well on one or more of your playlists.
The plus button is starting to roll out on Spotify’s iOS and Android apps today. It’ll be available to all Spotify users in the coming weeks.
Spotify is waving goodbye to its heart icon. The company is combining the icon, which enables you to quickly save music to your library, with the “add to playlist” prompt under a single plus button.
The plus button works a little differently on Spotify than it does on Apple Music, where tapping it a second time on an album or playlist downloads it to your device. When you tap Spotify’s plus button once, you’ll add a song, playlist, podcast or audiobook to your library. The plus button will then turn into a green check. If you tap the checkmark on the Now Playing view, you’ll be able to add the song or podcast episode to a playlist rather than just saving it to your Liked Songs or Your Episodes.
Spotify says the plus button will streamline how folks save songs and podcasts. It wrote in a blog post that user research showed the button “helped save time and gave users the ability to add to multiple playlists at once.” It could come in useful, for instance, if you’re listening to a radio station or Discover Weekly and encounter a song you like that would work well on one or more of your playlists.
The plus button is starting to roll out on Spotify’s iOS and Android apps today. It’ll be available to all Spotify users in the coming weeks.
Millions more homes will be exposed to hurricane winds because of climate change
Gusts from Hurricane Ian hit Punta Gorda, Florida, on September 28th, 2022. | Photo: RICARDO ARDUENGO/AFP via Getty Images
In the next 30 years, 13.4 million more properties in the contiguous US will likely face destructive winds from tropical cyclones, according to a new report. It’s not a risk these properties typically faced in the past, but that’s changing as hurricanes get stronger and weirder with climate change.
The shift could cost property owners billions of dollars in damages. This year, the US could see $18.5 billion in losses from hurricane winds, the report finds. In 30 years, average annual losses rise to roughly $20 billion.
“This next generation of hurricane strength will bring unavoidable financial impacts and devastation that have not yet been priced into the market,” Matthew Eby, CEO of First Street Foundation, the nonprofit research organization that published the report, said in a press release today.
“This next generation of hurricane strength will bring unavoidable financial impacts and devastation that have not yet been priced into the market.”
First Street Foundation also debuted a new online tool that lets users see how vulnerable a particular property is to hurricane winds now and over the next three decades. It adds to First Street’s Risk Factor tool on its website, which already allows users to search addresses to generate reports on its exposure to floods, fire, and extreme heat. It’s a helpful tool, especially considering a lot of flood maps are outdated, and these kinds of climate-related risks aren’t often disclosed to homeowners and potential buyers.
The report relies on historic observations and a peer-reviewed wind model to assess future risks. First Street simulated more than 50,000 different storm tracks to figure out likely wind speed and direction, adjusting for how the local landscape might speed up or slow down gales. Then it zooms in on individual properties to evaluate how vulnerable they would be to hurricane winds.
Florida faces the most risk — but not necessarily in places that typically bear the brunt of storms. Nearly all the additional losses from hurricane winds hitting the mainland US 30 years from now, about $1 billion worth of damage, are expected in Florida. Stronger storms and shifting hurricane paths could expose 4.1 million properties there to a Category 5 hurricane in 2053, compared to 2.5 million this year. And that could be a big problem for communities further north that haven’t had to deal with as many severe storms in the past as places further south.
The state is already more prone to storms because of how it juts out into warm waters, coupled with a lot of development along its vast coastlines. Florida’s southeast coast, where Miami has become a sort of poster child for cities vulnerable to climate change, tends to get hit particularly hard by landfalling hurricanes. But in the future, storms will be more likely to make landfall further north, near cities like Jacksonville.
Tropical storms draw strength from heat energy on the surface of the sea, and oceans are heating up because of climate change. So it’s no wonder that hurricanes are becoming more intense. Along with storms making landfall further north than they have before, there’s also evidence that storms are retaining more of their strength upon making landfall. So they’re hitting new places that were previously out of reach.
That makes it all the more important to give people a heads-up about what kinds of hazards might be headed their way in the future. Even less severe storms can wreak havoc on places that weren’t expecting them, and a little preparation can go a long way toward keeping people and their homes safe.
Gusts from Hurricane Ian hit Punta Gorda, Florida, on September 28th, 2022. | Photo: RICARDO ARDUENGO/AFP via Getty Images
In the next 30 years, 13.4 million more properties in the contiguous US will likely face destructive winds from tropical cyclones, according to a new report. It’s not a risk these properties typically faced in the past, but that’s changing as hurricanes get stronger and weirder with climate change.
The shift could cost property owners billions of dollars in damages. This year, the US could see $18.5 billion in losses from hurricane winds, the report finds. In 30 years, average annual losses rise to roughly $20 billion.
“This next generation of hurricane strength will bring unavoidable financial impacts and devastation that have not yet been priced into the market,” Matthew Eby, CEO of First Street Foundation, the nonprofit research organization that published the report, said in a press release today.
First Street Foundation also debuted a new online tool that lets users see how vulnerable a particular property is to hurricane winds now and over the next three decades. It adds to First Street’s Risk Factor tool on its website, which already allows users to search addresses to generate reports on its exposure to floods, fire, and extreme heat. It’s a helpful tool, especially considering a lot of flood maps are outdated, and these kinds of climate-related risks aren’t often disclosed to homeowners and potential buyers.
The report relies on historic observations and a peer-reviewed wind model to assess future risks. First Street simulated more than 50,000 different storm tracks to figure out likely wind speed and direction, adjusting for how the local landscape might speed up or slow down gales. Then it zooms in on individual properties to evaluate how vulnerable they would be to hurricane winds.
Florida faces the most risk — but not necessarily in places that typically bear the brunt of storms. Nearly all the additional losses from hurricane winds hitting the mainland US 30 years from now, about $1 billion worth of damage, are expected in Florida. Stronger storms and shifting hurricane paths could expose 4.1 million properties there to a Category 5 hurricane in 2053, compared to 2.5 million this year. And that could be a big problem for communities further north that haven’t had to deal with as many severe storms in the past as places further south.
The state is already more prone to storms because of how it juts out into warm waters, coupled with a lot of development along its vast coastlines. Florida’s southeast coast, where Miami has become a sort of poster child for cities vulnerable to climate change, tends to get hit particularly hard by landfalling hurricanes. But in the future, storms will be more likely to make landfall further north, near cities like Jacksonville.
Tropical storms draw strength from heat energy on the surface of the sea, and oceans are heating up because of climate change. So it’s no wonder that hurricanes are becoming more intense. Along with storms making landfall further north than they have before, there’s also evidence that storms are retaining more of their strength upon making landfall. So they’re hitting new places that were previously out of reach.
That makes it all the more important to give people a heads-up about what kinds of hazards might be headed their way in the future. Even less severe storms can wreak havoc on places that weren’t expecting them, and a little preparation can go a long way toward keeping people and their homes safe.
A Swiss IT manager’s 500-piece vintage Apple collection is going up for auction
The Lisa is listed with an estimated price of up to $20,000.
Apple’s 1983 Lisa computer will be auctioned alongside other old-school Apple tech next month. (credit: Julien’s Auctions)
Over 500 Apple computers and related accessories are being auctioned off next month online and in Beverley Hills, California. The auction will feature numerous products dating from 1977 to 2008, including Macintosh systems from the ’80s, more modern machines like the 2001 iMac G3, and old-school accessories like RH Electronics’ Mac N’ Frost external fan and surge protector.
Auction house Julien’s Auctions has dabbled in Apple auctions before. Sadly, that includes the auction of Steve Jobs’ Birkenstocks for a disturbing $218,750. Its upcoming auction, announced last week and spotted by sites like PetaPixel, features classic Apple items accrued by Swiss collector Hanspeter Luzi.
Julien’s will auction the Apple II Plus (’78-’82) with a monitor, printer, two disk drives, two gaming paddles, and a manual. (credit: Julien’s Auctions)
The auction house’s announcement describes Luzi as a late historian with many hobbies who maintained a collection of old sewing machines that are now part of Germany’s Sewing Machine Museum.
Best Roku Device Deals: Roku Ultra LT at Walmart Is Less Than Half Price of Regular Ultra – CNET
We’ve rounded up the best discounts currently available on some of our favorite streaming devices.
We’ve rounded up the best discounts currently available on some of our favorite streaming devices.
Snapchat adds OpenAI-powered chatbot and proactively apologizes for what it might say
Snap announced today that it’s adding an OpenAI chatbot (similar to ChatGPT) to Snapchat. “My AI” is an experimental feature initially available for $3.99-per-month Snapchat+ subscribers, although the company reportedly wants to expand it to all users eventually. Snap’s bot rolls out this week.
My AI will appear as a regular Snap user profile, suggesting the company is marketing it less as an all-purpose writing machine and more as a virtual friend. “The big idea is that in addition to talking to our friends and family every day, we’re going to talk to AI every day,” CEO Evan Spiegel toldThe Verge. “And this is something we’re well positioned to do as a messaging service.” When it rolls out, you’ll find the bot pinned to the app’s chat section above conversations with friends.
Snap’s announcement says the bot runs “the latest version of OpenAI’s GPT technology that the authors have customized for Snapchat.” That reportedly refers to OpenAI’s Foundry, a recently leaked, invitation-only developer program for deep-pocketed developers; it lets them use GPT-3.5, the more advanced model on which ChatGPT is based. The company’s publicly available API currently only supports up to GPT-3, an older and less intelligent model. We contacted Snap for clarification on the model used and will update this article if we hear back.
SnapchatSnap’s chatbot will include restrictions to stay within the platform’s trust and safety guidelines. Hopefully, it avoids a similar fate to CNET’s AI-written articles, the AI Seinfeld experiment or various other AI bot train wrecks. For example, My AI will reportedly steer clear of swearing, violence, sexually explicit content or political opinions. Snap reportedly plans to continue tuning the model as more people use it and report inaccurate or inappropriate answers. (You can do so by holding down on a troublesome message and submitting feedback.)
Even with those protections, Snap’s bot could still become a dumpster fire of misinformation and offensive content. “As with all AI-powered chatbots, My AI is prone to hallucination and can be tricked into saying just about anything. Please be aware of its many deficiencies and sorry in advance!” the company said in its announcement post. “While My AI is designed to avoid biased, incorrect, harmful, or misleading information, mistakes may occur.”
Snap announced today that it’s adding an OpenAI chatbot (similar to ChatGPT) to Snapchat. “My AI” is an experimental feature initially available for $3.99-per-month Snapchat+ subscribers, although the company reportedly wants to expand it to all users eventually. Snap’s bot rolls out this week.
My AI will appear as a regular Snap user profile, suggesting the company is marketing it less as an all-purpose writing machine and more as a virtual friend. “The big idea is that in addition to talking to our friends and family every day, we’re going to talk to AI every day,” CEO Evan Spiegel toldThe Verge. “And this is something we’re well positioned to do as a messaging service.” When it rolls out, you’ll find the bot pinned to the app’s chat section above conversations with friends.
Snap’s announcement says the bot runs “the latest version of OpenAI’s GPT technology that the authors have customized for Snapchat.” That reportedly refers to OpenAI’s Foundry, a recently leaked, invitation-only developer program for deep-pocketed developers; it lets them use GPT-3.5, the more advanced model on which ChatGPT is based. The company’s publicly available API currently only supports up to GPT-3, an older and less intelligent model. We contacted Snap for clarification on the model used and will update this article if we hear back.
Snap’s chatbot will include restrictions to stay within the platform’s trust and safety guidelines. Hopefully, it avoids a similar fate to CNET’s AI-written articles, the AI Seinfeld experiment or various other AI bot train wrecks. For example, My AI will reportedly steer clear of swearing, violence, sexually explicit content or political opinions. Snap reportedly plans to continue tuning the model as more people use it and report inaccurate or inappropriate answers. (You can do so by holding down on a troublesome message and submitting feedback.)
Even with those protections, Snap’s bot could still become a dumpster fire of misinformation and offensive content. “As with all AI-powered chatbots, My AI is prone to hallucination and can be tricked into saying just about anything. Please be aware of its many deficiencies and sorry in advance!” the company said in its announcement post. “While My AI is designed to avoid biased, incorrect, harmful, or misleading information, mistakes may occur.”