Information security
fromNextgov.com
1 day agoData is a strategic asset and a strategic vulnerability
Data is a primary strategic asset in national security, transforming into both a powerful tool and a critical vulnerability.
Western Union is six months into a migration of 900 to 1,200 applications that run across a 3,900-core server fleet. The decision to move came during a period of re-invention at Western Union, a 175-year-old company that is currently working to become more customer-focused and therefore is open to new suppliers to help reach that goal.
When civilian banks, logistics platforms, and payment processors share physical data center infrastructure with military AI systems, those facilities become legitimate military targets under international humanitarian law - and the civilian services housed inside lose their legal protection.
A future-proof IT infrastructure is often positioned as a universal solution that can withstand any change. However, such a solution does not exist. Nevertheless, future-proofing is an important concept for IT leaders navigating continuous technological developments and security risks, all while ensuring that daily business operations continue. The challenge is finding a balance between reactive problem solving and proactive planning, because overlooking a change can cost your organization. So, how do you successfully prepare for the future without that one-size-fits-all solution?
Developers have spent the past decade trying to forget databases exist. Not literally, of course. We still store petabytes. But for the average developer, the database became an implementation detail; an essential but staid utility layer we worked hard not to think about. We abstracted it behind object-relational mappers (ORM). We wrapped it in APIs. We stuffed semi-structured objects into columns and told ourselves it was flexible.
DataBahn's AI-driven connectors automatically normalize, enrich, and route telemetry from more than 500 sources to Microsoft Sentinel. DataBahn's Cruz AI engine determines which data to send to the analytics tier and which to the Sentinel data lake for long-term storage. Customers report cost savings of up to 60 percent on Sentinel ingestion thanks to this intelligent tiering mechanism.
Organizations are drowning in dashboards, KPIs, performance metrics, behavioral traces, biometric indicators, predictive scores, engagement rates, and AI-generated forecasts. We have more data than we know what to do with. We pretend that the mere presence of data guarantees clarity. It does not. That's data hubris—the arrogant belief that because something can be measured, it can be mastered.
The rise of generative AI is often seen as an existential threat to the SaaS model. Interfaces would disappear, software would fade away, and existing players would become irrelevant. However, new figures from Databricks paint a different picture. Rather than undermining SaaS, AI appears to be increasing its use. This week, Databricks reported a revenue run rate of $5.4 billion, a 65 percent year-on-year increase. More than a quarter of that now comes from AI-related products.