This week’s top picks reflect the evolution of work and how the Great Resignation will impact the IT jobs market. A new dangerous remote access trojan (RAT) is available on dark web forums. Next, check out why AWS skills matter more than ever in the cloud era. Industry heavyweight Matt Hatton, Founding Partner at Transforma Insights and Toolbox expert contributor, quantifies the growth and adoption of AI.
BORAT: The new malware in town
Organizations have always been beset by a range of cybersecurity threats – zero-day vulnerabilities, notorious supply chain attacks, advanced persistent threats (APT) and malware that can throw IT security teams off schedule. Right at the top of the week, Toolbox author wrote about a new remote access trojan (RAT), BORAT, showing up in dark forums.Â
Well, there are plenty of trojans out there. So, what makes this different? BORAT gives novice hackers RAT, spyware, and ransomware capabilities all fused into one single malware.Â
So, think before you click!
Preserving IT talent amid the Great Resignation
By now, you’ve all heard of the Great Resignation – the shift in the global labor market which has brought about massive uncertainty in organizations across the board. It all began in 2021 when a record-hitting 4.5 million Americans quit their jobs in November (according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor StatisticsOpens a new window ), with attrition reported to be the highest among mid-career employees. Now, a perfect storm of factors is making employee retention equally challenging in 2022, as evidenced by a recent Gartner survey that shows that CIOs will soon be grappling with the IT talent retention challenge, with tech professionals showing little interest in staying with their current employer. Even more startling is that of all the corporate functions – IT has the lowest intent to stay.Â
The ‘Big Quit’ has caused the biggest shift in the current labor market and changed the notion about the ‘office’ – which is now perceived as the anchor for fostering culture, employee engagement and innovation. So how can IT leaders create a favorable environment to retain and preserve IT talent?This is a chance for technology leaders to put recruitment and retention strategies at the forefront and build a more competitive organization.
This story unpacks how with the right human-centric approach, organizations can turn the Great Resignation into the Great Opportunity.Â
AWS: Everything you need to know to get started with cloud in 2022
It’s no secret that the future of IT lies in the cloud. According to Michael Warrilow,Opens a new window research vice president at Gartner, the shift to the cloud was spurred by the pandemic and accelerated over the past two years as organizations responded to a new business and social dynamic. While enterprise spending on cloud is growing at a faster clip, the cloud skills shortage is significantly hampering innovation.Â
Research from IDC commissioned by CloudreachOpens a new window , an Atos company, bears this out. The IDC infobrief spotlights that cloud professionals are in short supply and more than one-third of business leaders feel hemmed in by a lack of skilled cloud professionals, which hampers the time to market.Â
It’s no surprise that IT professionals with cloud computing chops are in huge demand. But what cloud skills are most important to tech professionals? With AWS forming the bedrock of modern computing and powering the most progressive applications – from AI to the blockchain, choosing AWS certifications can provide a great pathway to in-demand roles and high-paying jobs.Â
Wondering how to improve your AWS know-how and get started with hands-on cloud computing skills training? Whether you’re a learner or a mid-level career professional with some cloud-computing experience, this article details all the information you need to level up your AWS cloud skills and which certifications are worth it. Further, you can explore certifications by job role and expertise that you’d like to add to your resume and take your career to the next level.Â
Do give it a read to get one step closer to achieving your career goals.Â
What’s the essential metric for measuring AI adoption?
The global pandemic put a charge on the push to digitize, mobilize and automate business processes with artificial intelligence (AI) underpinning the functionality and fueling innovation. Gartner predictsOpens a new window over the next five years, AI is set to gain a firm foothold with organizations “set to adopt cutting-edge techniques for smarter, reliable, responsible and environmentally sustainable artificial intelligence applications.â€Â
And while statistics about AI growth and revenue are often quoted with enthusiasm, they do not provide a fair snapshot of AI market growth. So how does one measure the transformational impact of the technology? Should one look at the total revenue associated with the use cases? Or instead, measure it by spending on AI technologies? In his column, Toolbox expert contributor Matt Hatton, founding partner at Transforma Insights, posits how “measuring AI revenue doesn’t fairly reflect how and where AI is really used.†Instead, quantifying the growth and adoption of AI should focus on the number of instances, he writes. Â
In addition, as more organizations deploy IoT devices, new needs will emerge for AI technologies to measure and analyze data and drive the need for predictive analytics. Check out how AI is making inroads in the IoT industry.Â
Check out how IoT will play a key role in driving AI adoption.Â
Lastly, as Identity Management Day approaches, this article outlines why identity-first security should be a strategic priority for organizations in 2022 and beyond. Now is the time to rethink legacy practices and understand why identity management policy is crucial in IT security for protecting data, users, and your customers.
And before you leave, we urge you to visit all the great content on Toolbox.com.Â
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