A new report by Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work, Securing the Digital Future, reveals that, in the pursuit of digital transformation, organisations have overlooked one critical factor that could put all their transformation efforts - and even share prices- into jeopardy: cybersecurity.

The research, which surveyed over 1,000 senior IT executives in 18 countries, found that only 9% of organisations have made cybersecurity a board-level priority. This is despite respondents acknowledging that digital is opening their businesses to more cybersecurity vulnerabilities than ever, with 60% of respondents saying there are more emerging cyber threats than they can currently control.

The report found that cybersecurity vulnerabilities stem from a range of sources, including not only technology itself, but also the design and execution of business processes and, employees within the organisation. Respondents believe that migrating data to the cloud (74%), social media (66%) and careless employees (64%) pose the highest risk to businesses in the next 12 months, stating that they need to be addressed now to bolster their organisation’s security.

Rather worryingly though, over 60% of respondents believe they have inadequate resources (namely access to cybersecurity talent due to staffing budget issues) to address gaps in the business’s cyber defences. As a result of this shortage, unsurprisingly, almost a third (31%) also admit they only refresh their cybersecurity strategies on an annual basis, potentially leaving glaring gaps in their cyber defences.

Combined with fast-changing threats, this talent and budget shortage has many organisations looking to technologies, particularly artificial intelligence (AI)-driven automation, to improve their cybersecurity outlook. However, while technology can close the gap, it cannot solve the security short fall alone.

Future-proofing digital operations

The study identified four critical elements that organisations can follow to bolster their cybersecurity strategies, allowing them to future-proof digital operations:

1. LEAD: though cybersecurity should be a concern for every employee, there needs to be top-down leadership in this regard. Leaders cannot just sponsor initiatives; they need to understand the technologies and processes and how they work. Practical ways of ensuring this include placing divisional chief information security officers in business units, embedding cybersecurity as a core value in the organisation and ensuring cybersecurity is a board level issue. 
2. EVOLVE: organisations need to continually evolve their cybersecurity strategies to make sure they have some ammunition in the race against cyber threats. R&D, therefore, needs to be an integral part of security divisions. This does not need to be confined to an in-house endeavour – organisations should consider hackathons and war-rooms to bring in external talent and co-create security initiatives.
3. AUTOMATE: faced with global cybersecurity talent shortages and growing cyber threats, AI-based approaches are progressively becoming readily available and should be a part of any organisation’s larger cybersecurity execution strategy. While automation will not solve security talent requirements completely, it will mitigate select shortages in the junior- to mid-level analysis roles.
4. PREPARE: prepare for the new technologies that will entirely shift the current dynamic of the cybersecurity strategy, including blockchain and – further ahead – quantum computing. Although the ability to quickly adapt to current security needs is vitally important, it is fundamental to keep an eye on the future.

Euan Davis, European Lead for Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work said: “While not a silver bullet, the introduction of AI tools into cybersecurity platforms will spur organisations to rethink how they approach cybersecurity and reduce the burden left by talent shortages. Cybersecurity needs to be an ongoing endeavour however, and failure to adapt processes and systems on a regular basis will leave an organisation open to further attacks.

“Leadership must take the initiative when it comes to ensuring this is embedded into the business’s DNA, or else face losing customers, reputation and revenue. Ultimately, any company that hopes to do business in the digital economy must make cyber defences a key part of their business strategy.”

Volume of Indonesia’s digital economy will reach about $130 billion by 2020, which will make this country one of the leaders in digital development among the countries of South-East Asia. This was stated by the authorities of the country just last week. New technologies, blockchain and transformation of the IT-sector will play an important role in this process. From this perspecrive, the Blockchain INDO conference in Jakarta, which will be held on 11^th -12^th May in Kempinski Hotel, becomes even more relevant.

Apart from the usual Cryptocurrency players, this international event will bring together players in digital business, IT Startups, Internet application Developers, digital Marketers and companies with a FINTECH base to create new networks and expand already existing ones.

40 speakers from different parts of the world – USA, Germany, Russia, Japan, Switzerland, China and other countries, will tell the participants about their international experience in blockchain technologies. Among the prominent speakers who have confirmed their presensce are Gebhard Scherrer (co-founder of DATUM), Ville Oehman (investment funds registered with the monetary authority of Singapore), Matthew J. Martin (Director General blossom of Finance), Robert Ryu (the Korean company crypto-Fund) and Dr Zaharuddin A. R (Malaysia Shariah ICO), Matthew Joseph Martin (CEO of Blossom Finance).

In three years, 8 million representatives of small and medium-sized businesses in Indonesia will use digital technologies, although at the moment it is used only by 9%.

In a couple of years it is planned to create 1000 young  IT-companies, with a total value of more than $10 billion. To achieve this rate, around 200 new startups must be launched every year. By the way, one of the first Indonesian startups, Go-Jek, is now estimated at $1.3 billion.

We will pay special attention to startups at the Blockchain INDO conference, don’t miss presentations of ICO-projects. "As a rule, founders present interesting ideas based on blockchain technology from the field of FINTECH or IT. There are a lot of promising projects! And thanks to such events, the teams have an opportunity to find investors and get support. Investment and venture funds will be able to notice them, this is the perfect opportunity", - says Nikolay Volosenkov, the organizer of the conference Blockchain INDO.

In addition, soon the Internet in Indonesia will be installed in 187 remote settlements across the country. According to some forecasts, Indonesia will have about 100,000 bitcoin users in the next 6 months.

According to Abas A Jalil CEO of Amanah Capital Group Limited, a financial expert in South East Asian market who will present his report at the conference, “South East Asian, mainly Indonesian, markets have huge potential for Blockchain and fintech sectors, especially in Islamic Finance and Digital Business. This conference will be an opening venue for further progress in these new technologies in South East Asia, especially for Indonesia itself”

This conference-exhibition is expected to be one of the biggest Blockchain and Fintech conferences in Indonesia this year.  

Tickets to the conference can be purchased at the conference’s website https://cryptoeventindo.com/  or via ADEI’s payment system which will provide convenience for Indonesian participants to pay in Rupiah.

Citizens Bank, working with Infosys as its implementation partner, has selected Finastra to power the trade finance solution it offers to its corporate clients. This new capability will enable Citizens’ corporate clients to digitize traditionally paper-based trade processes, leading to increased efficiencies and reduced costs.

The new trade finance offering will allow the bank to meet increased client demand. Citizens picked Finastra’s Fusion Trade Innovation for its end-user experience, ability to support all trade products, capacity to integrate with downstream systems through open APIs and its high level of configurability.

“In addition to providing the best trade finance solution on the market, Finastra met our demand for a strategic partner that could provide other corporate banking solutions, such as syndicated lending and supply chain finance, as our needs evolve,” said Michael Cummins, Head of Treasury Solutions, Citizens Bank.

Citizens Bank and its corporate clients will access integrated trade finance capabilities via FinCloud, Finastra’s private cloud solution.

“Citizens Bank is not only changing the way they deliver trade finance solutions to their corporate customers in the near future, but will be well-prepared to scale their corporate banking business in the years ahead,” said Nadeem Syed, CEO, Finastra. “Finastra sees increasing demand for a truly connected corporate banking experience, in which multiple corporate banking applications can be fully integrated on a single platform.”

Jasmeet Singh, Senior Vice President and Industry Head, Americas, Financial Services at Infosys said, “Bringing together our combined expertise and capabilities, Infosys will work with Finastra to deliver a cloud solution that helps Citizens Bank achieve its connected corporate banking ambitions, enabling digitization of trade processes.”

Citizens is a trusted strategic and financial advisor, consistently delivering clear and objective advice. The Citizens Commercial Banking approach puts clients first by offering great ideas combined with thorough market knowledge and excellent execution to help our clients enhance their business and reach their potential.

For more information, please go to the Citizens Commercial Banking website.

wi-Q Technologies has announced that its web-based digital engagement platforms, wi-Q and Mi-Room, will now support payments via global bitcoin payment service provider, BitPay.

wi-Q is the web-based integrated mobile ordering solution developed for F&B outlets, whilst Mi-Room delivers solutions for the full spectrum of hotel guest services including in-room ordering, booking spa treatments, guest loyalty and even housekeeping requests. In addition to cash, debit or credit card, PayPal and charge to room, venues with wi-Q or Mi-Room can now allow their customers or guests to pay from their own device with Bitcoin via BitPay.

In the last year alone, wi-Q Technologies has won numerous industry awards, delivered integrations and partnerships with the world's leading hospitality technology providers including Oracle Hospitality, Aircharge and Epson. The company's user-centric technology has already been successfully implemented in venues and hotel groups across the world.

BitPay is the world's leading bitcoin payment provider, covering financial services, e-wallets, software, gaming and now, hospitality. BitPay processed over $1B USD worth of transactions in 2017.

Graham Cornhill, Co-Founder and Managing Director of wi-Q Technologies said, "The vision behind wi-Q and Mi-Room was to make the mobile ordering process fast, simple and seamless. Choice is equally important in a global market where users don't want to be forced into downloading, updating and storing multiple apps. With wi-Q, customers can instantly choose their language, filter products depending personal preferences and choose how they pay. Our solutions support PayPal, Credit / Debit Card, Tola Mobile, Apple Pay, Cash, Charge-To-Room - and now BitPay. It is quite possible that one day, a cryptocurrency, or more likely, several cryptocurrencies will be widely adopted for mobile ordering and as an innovator in digital guest engagement, it is a future trend we are keen to explore."

Sonny Singh, Chief Commercial Officer at BitPay said, "Bitcoin is the ideal payment method for mobile service applications and with BitPay, wi-Q Technologies can accept bitcoin for hospitality services quickly and easily from anywhere in the world."

Hyosung, the largest and fastest growing ATM provider in the United States, is proud to announce the release of the 8100 QTN, a micro ATM, and the latest in Hyosung's inventive line of ATM products and services.

Spurred by demand for a reduced footprint ATM with full functionality and cash recycling, the 8100 optimizes the best of Hyosung technology to provide an exceptional customer experience. Measuring 21-inches wide and 32-inches deep, the 8100 ATM provides full function, check and cash deposit in less than five square feet of space – the size of a traditional cash dispenser.  This small footprint enables financial institutions to provide full service in off premise locations.  Alternatively, the 8100 can act as a replacement for traditional lobby ATMs. 

"We remain committed to bringing our customers tomorrow's technology today," said Scott Hackl, Senior Vice President of Sales of Hyosung, "and, the 8100 is just another revolutionary new product in Hyosung's long line of ATM innovations."  

Use of Hyosung's proprietary recycling technology leads to lower cash handling expenses, fewer cash replenishments and fewer cash deposit pulls making it a more cost-effective way to support transaction efforts. The Hyosung recycler also provides 25% fewer faults than traditional dispense and mixed media technology.  

"By making this ATM smaller, we have allowed financial institutions to scale down their branch size, expand presence off-premise, lower cash handling expenses while also limiting cash replenishments," said Hackl. "All of these factors contribute to an overall better customer experience, with simple user controls on the front end and intuitive maintenance access on the back end."  

Percona, the company that delivers enterprise-class MySQL®, MariaDB®, MongoDB®, PostgreSQL, and other open source database solutions and services, announced new services and software products, including a new Percona DBA service, new support tiers, and the general availability of Percona Server for MongoDB 3.6, the latest version of Percona's free, enhanced, drop-in replacement for the MongoDB Community Edition. 

As open source databases are now standard in the enterprise, mission-critical data workloads, whether on-premises or in the cloud, require expert DBAs for architectural decisions, performance tuning, security compliance, and query optimization, as well as monitoring and alert response. Percona has helped thousands of customers achieve better performance, better cost savings and better ROI by ensuring optimal performance while letting DBAs shift their focus to improving applications and better supporting their business. 

Organizations are increasingly looking to deploy these open source databases in public cloud environments to benefit from the flexibility, scalability and economics of cloud deployments. Today's announcements reflect Percona's commitment to making it easier for organizations to take advantage of the cloud by providing comprehensive support for migrating open source databases to the cloud and providing support and DBA services specifically designed for the evolving role of database administrators.