Cybersecurity In Companies- To Protect Themselves When Introducing 5G

September 30, 2021

_How Companies Protect Themselves When Introducing 5G

Cybersecurity is becoming more critical than ever with the introduction of the new 5G standard. This is how companies prepare themselves, against the dangers of the Internet. Cybersecurity is not infallible. Companies should therefore do everything in their power to prioritize security when implementing 5G in their operations.

Cybersecurity In The Age Of 5G

Introducing the new high Cybersecurity speed standard for mobile data transmission is taking longer in neighboring countries . But one thing is sure: sooner or later 5G will also arrive with us. The fifth generation of mobile communications allows data transmission rates of up to ten times the speed of its predecessor, 4G. Many are expecting a revolution in corporate communication, the world of work, and, last but not least, video streaming. Despite all the euphoria, it should not be overlooked that cybercriminals will also take advantage of the new possibilities to run broader attack campaigns on more and more end devices.

5G will expand the available bandwidth and, at the same time, reduce the size of the individual data packets. This makes it easier to attack mobile devices with very small and complex to detect malware. These are usually hidden in the code of applications. The file size of malware combined with limited bandwidth in mobile data transmission has hindered large-scale campaigns against mobile devices. However, with the introduction of 5G at the latest, these hurdles will disappear. Therefore, smartphone users will have to prepare for a wave of highly specialized and increasingly sophisticated malware attacks in the future.

Companies should start implementing a cybersecurity strategy now to contain the new risks in advance. 5G is in the starting blocks, and 6G is already in the planning phase.

IoT Devices Are Vulnerable

In addition to mobile devices, IoT devices are at the top of the list of cybercriminals who aim to paralyze or exploit companies deliberately. Many things in our everyday life are continuously connected to the Internet and use it to exchange data. From baby cameras to cars, a large part of the world we live in has now become hackable. And every day, more IoT devices are adding to the attack surface for cybercriminals.

Unfortunately, many of these valuable objects are still poorly secured. Quite a few have a predefined access password such as “admin” or “password” – not a genuine hurdle for hackers, who thereby gain access to a host of IoT devices that are often misused for DDoS attacks when necessary.

The probability that a hacker will find a particular IoT device on the Internet is very high – the higher connection speed will make it even easier for them in the future. The hackers bundle thousands of these recruited devices in botnets and abuse their willies followers for large-scale cyber attacks. With the help of 5G, hackers will be able to extract information faster than ever before. That is why the protection of the personal data of employees and customers has the highest priority.

External Work As A Weak Point In Cybersecurity

With targeted attacks, cybercriminals are usually out to steal the most sensitive and valuable information. For this reason, companies in the banking, logistics, and transport sectors, alongside legal companies, are at the top of the attacker’s priority list. After all, sensitive information is the core of the business in all of these sectors.

Protecting sensitive data is already a major headache for many of these companies – the arrival of 5G is likely to exacerbate this pain. More and more companies are promoting the benefits of working away from home, and this has increased since the arrival of Corona. Often, however, employees are negligent in meticulous compliance with all the necessary safety precautions that must be taken into account when working outside the office. In this way, they open up an additional and, above all, avoidable gateway for cybercriminals.

And then there is the careless employee in the inner circle to consider. The higher this is in the company hierarchy, the more authorizations and insights are linked to his account. The greater the risk if this employee does not adhere to all of the company’s security and compliance regulations.

The Focus Is On A Lack Of Cyber Education

A recently published report gave a shockingly high number of employees poor testimony: According to this, one in four employees has no idea of the cyber threats that their company is confronted with on a day-to-day basis. Every fourth employee is not familiar with the words phishing, social engineering, or ransomware.

These numbers highlight the need for organizations to educate their employees about internet fraud and cybersecurity before 5G is implemented across the organization. Because a careless, untrained employee can destroy all good resolutions and safety measures of his company.

Another finding of the report is that 69 percent of employees use their company devices for private purposes. This results in several problems for IT departments regarding prevention: the more permissive an employee is with his company device when using it for private purposes, the more difficult it becomes for supervisors and IT security officers, the extent and to overlook the possible consequences of this use.

Cybersecurity Best Practice

Below are some practical employee training tips that can give companies fresh ideas on how best to protect themselves against the dangers of the Internet:

Don’t let up: There is anyone solution to all problems. Above all, you should get rid of the habit of practicing an often outdated and therefore useless course once a year. It would make more sense to present the current dangers to your employees in shorter cycles and train them on identifying harmful websites and messages. Therefore, it is advisable to regularly convey current knowledge to employees in short learning units that do not take longer than a few minutes. This means that you can react promptly to new threats.

Training is compulsory: to be effective, training must take place every month. By keeping your employees entirely up to date without exception, you make it easier for the IT department and all those responsible to guarantee the security of data and digital infrastructure.

It has to be a bit of fun: A creative approach has proven highly effective for consolidating teaching content. People find it easier to memorize information when it is conveyed with the help of recurring characters and a little humor. A little story makes things less dry and provides more than bland, monotonous, and ultimately inconclusive training.

ALSO READ: Data Security In The Cloud: Why Banks Shouldn’t Miss Their Opportunities

Data Security In The Cloud: Why Banks Shouldn’t Miss Their Opportunities

Techno Rumours

September 30, 2021

Many banks do not dare to outsource critical data to the cloud because the geopolitical and regulatory uncertainties are significant. But Europe has already taken the initiative to become more independent as an economic area. Banks should, therefore, not miss their opportunities in the cloud.

Tok-Tok? Forbidden. Huawei? Locked. Microsoft Teams? Declared inadmissible for banks by the Data Protection Commission. These are just a few examples of the potential impacts of geopolitical tensions that the financial industry has grappled with over the past year. Because not only the Corona crisis has massively changed the global framework. Financial institutions today are also constantly exposed to new global dynamics to which they must react.

These uncertainties make the path to the public cloud difficult for many. Their use would be urgently needed for banks because with comprehensive offers from cloud service providers, higher availability, greater flexibility, and scalability, and a higher level of security can be achieved than in their own data center. Resilience, or rather “operational resilience,” is strengthened. Therefore, the financial sector would have to take the next step into the cloud and outsource essential applications and data. But how is that supposed to work?

Data Security In The Cloud – Get Out Of The Dilemma

The dilemma can only be resolved if Europe succeeds in becoming more independent as an economic area. The EU has already recognized this. The European cloud initiative “Digital Operational Resilience Act” (DORA) launched an initiative that subjects cloud service providers such as Microsoft, Google, or Amazon to the same regulations that apply to banks. This also clarifies the question of how data can be stored, shared, and used. With the European cloud initiative “Gaia-X,” a pioneering project has also been launched. EU states will have a standardized set of rules and a marketplace for cloud services following European values. And thus an alternative to purely US and Chinese offers.

Off To The Cloud – They Are Making The Proper Use Of Opportunities

But how can the path to the cloud succeed safely? Before starting, banks should first get an overview of the risks associated with using the cloud. The institutes evaluate aspects such as the dependency on the service provider, data security, availability, or political upheavals. Ideally, they follow a structured decision-making process. In the end, independent third parties can also freely assess risks. This is also in the interests of the board of directors and the management, which under no circumstances wants to be accused of negligence due to the current board liability.

Financial institutions should take a holistic view of the risk position compared to the status quo. Many houses could even improve their risk profile if they swap weaknesses in their own data center for professional and resilient operation at the cloud providers. The institutes often overlook the opportunities in risk assessment, and ultimately business strategy factors. What tools can I use to analyze my database deeply and quickly? How can I fully understand my customers and support them across all channels? What will my employees need in their future workplace?

Data Security Within The Cloud: The Exemplary Architecture

Data is technically secured in the cloud. If there are weaknesses, they are often not due to the cloud provider but rather to the financial service provider himself: In practice, cloud architectures are sometimes poorly designed and thus open gateways for hackers. Since the responsibility for data security within the cloud lies with the banks, it is their sole responsibility to establish an appropriate (security) architecture. Cloud providers cannot be held responsible here.

It is essential to plan the architecture of cloud solutions stringently, taking into account data protection requirements and associated measures: It is essential to choose wisely in which countries or regions the data may be stored and processed. The selective choice of cloud services as the architecture is also decisive since processing the USA’s data cannot be ruled out for some.

Finally, there is the question of who holds the key used to process and store the data in the cloud. The supervisors demand that banks themselves are responsible – especially for accounting-related systems. In an emergency, the institutes could remove the key to make the data in the cloud unusable. However, this is equivalent to an IT blackout. It should therefore be considered whether the key management is not left with the cloud provider. Services are then integrated that ensure practicability and usability.

ALSO READ: AI Systems: How New Technology Is Changing IT Professions

AI Systems: How New Technology Is Changing IT Professions

Techno Rumours

September 29, 2021

AI Systems How New Technology Is Changing IT Professions

AI systems will change the professional world and the fields of activity of the IT specialists themselves. AI will take over routine activities and even the programming of algorithms. Industry knowledge and consulting skills will be in demand in the future. This also has an impact on the training and further education of young professionals.

Artificial intelligence, or AI for short, is gaining greater public awareness in the corona pandemic. Not only did an artificial intelligence system, the Canadian health platform BlueDot, warn of viruses of unknown origin in the Wuhan area before the WHO was officially informed. Evaluations of lung recordings, tracking processes for the spread, or monitoring distances in the logistics area are just a few possible uses. The ideas and possible applications are incredibly diverse. Several research projects are currently ongoing in the area of drug discovery alone.

AI Systems: Moving Into Everyday Life

The corona crisis can therefore prove to be a motor for the further development of artificial intelligence. The subject is, of course, not new. Learning algorithms have long since found their way into everyday life – in the form of navigation systems, voice assistants, or vacuum robots. Comfortable in daily life, they are much discussed, linked to the highest expectations, and feared as job killers. In any case, the time is ripe for applications of artificial intelligence. Because, unlike in the past, the storage and computing power required for this is now available. Enabling scalable storage capacities through cloud platforms and high processing speeds also makes AI economical for companies.

“Many potential users first think of process optimization, here the boundaries are often fluid between digitization and the use of artificial intelligence,”. Automation alone can replace many routine processes, repetitive and tiring activities for humans. However, AI can do much more: Through machine learning, the generation of knowledge from experience, the algorithms can deal with unknown data, find patterns, and independently derive actions. Chatbots, for example, which are increasingly used in customer service, get better and better over time with supported learning.

Deep Learning Enables Forecasts Based On Complex Relationships

Deep learning based on neural networks enables forecasts based on very complex relationships. Well-known applications can be found in the area of predictive maintenance or in predicting customer behavior. A crucial aspect of AI comes into play: Uncovering previously unknown relationships lead to new insights and thus promises real added value.

But how can companies use artificial intelligence systems to add value? To recognize and use their potential, IT users need development and implementation services and comprehensive advice. Because the use of AI elements is not comparable to the introduction of new software, for example. Instead, very different technologies and approaches are summarized under the term artificial or artificial intelligence, also AI. The best known include speech and image recognition or data analysis. A Bitkom project on the periodic table of AI offers detailed information and an overview, But it also illustrates how complex this topic is.

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Knowledge Of AI Systems And Industry Knowledge Is Becoming More Critical

This results in a comprehensive spectrum of specializations and specialist knowledge for the developers and programmers of AI models. “IT consultants and business analysts will also need an appropriate background to familiarize potential users with the possibilities of artificial intelligence.

The next step is to jointly find specific use cases in the company and design a suitable model for them. Companies need support in analyzing the options and estimating the costs: What amounts of data are required, and is it available in sufficient quality? If not, how much effort would it take to prepare the data? How much time should be planned for “training” the chatbot?

AI Systems: IT Knowledge Alone Is Not Enough

The AI model must also fit the application. Sub-symbolic processes such as neural networks are compelling, they are suitable for image recognition, for example, but their decisions are not understandable for people. So when it comes to traceability and documentation, they would not be suitable. IT know-how alone is not enough, who has worked in the banking sector for many years, explains: “To provide competent advice and to be able to speak to users on an equal footing, IT specialists also need knowledge of the specifics Processes, the business environment and the legal requirements in the respective industry.”

At the same time, rule-based routine activities in the IT area will also be taken over by AI algorithms in the future. Google Brain reported a corresponding success in 2017 with the development of speech recognition software using an AI system. IT experts will be best able to support companies on the subject of AI if they acquire background knowledge of the possibilities and AI systems, have consulting and problem-solving skills, and specific industry knowledge.

IT Young Talent Promotion: Future-Oriented Education And Training

However, specialists with this profile are likely to be rare. Companies are, therefore, primarily dependent on external support. Promoting young talent would often be the better alternative in the long term. Still, many companies lack the resources to train IT career starters or internal trainee programs.

The Digital Workforce Group has developed a holistic model to bring young professionals and companies together. Tailor-made support concepts and mentoring, project assignments, and internalization are the cornerstones. The personalized training is supplemented by offers of expert lectures and regular TechTalks. Workshops together with companies offer platforms for discussion and the exchange of experiences.

“AI is one of our main topics. With special project labs, we allow young IT talents to implement their developments, for example, with humanoid robots, and thus further develop their skills in the field of AI,”. After all, independent learning drives people and moves them forward – the template on which AI was developed in the first place.

ALSO READ: Internet Fraud: How New Technology Secures Online Banking

Internet Fraud: How New Technology Secures Online Banking

Techno Rumours

September 29, 2021

Internet Fraud How New Technology Secures Online Banking

The advancing digitization of services, which is being driven both by the corona pandemic and the development of new technologies, offers users significant advantages and great dangers. One of the most important uses for this is online banking.

Today almost all banks have stepped into the Internet and offer a whole range of different services via digital channels and mobile devices with online banking. The digitization of account management and the further development of open banking options are expected and used by users. Many fintech and neo-banks are just one example of the trend towards digitization, which is very popular among customers. But with the rise of online banking and digital services, so too do the dangers of Internet fraud, where hackers use complex technologies to capitalize on the development.

Internet Fraud Damage Is Increasing Sharply

Internet fraud in the banking sector is a significant challenge that can be viewed from two angles:

Ensuring the safety of users and their assets
Regulatory pressure and compliance

Both of these lead to further hurdles, including the cost of infrastructure, additional staff, the time required to comply with new regulations, and increasing the digital competence of users. The main reason why this challenge is so demanding is that it is invisible and should be: fast and without any significant impact on the user experience and banking operations. Therefore, it requires the use of specialized, AI-supported technology.

Prevent Internet Fraud From New Technologies

To meet security and regulatory challenges, organizations can employ technology that processes a wide range of usage data to continuously verify the identity and intentions of users, thereby protecting personal assets.

It does this by evaluating specific digital usage details, including transactions, sessions, devices, and behavioral data, to create a trusted digital profile. Based on this profile, it is possible to identify subtle differences in the details of use. Once such a digital fingerprint is created, any associated anomalies or changes in known and trustworthy behavior are used to optimize the profile to provide valuable insights to the banks.

The assessment can be carried out continuously throughout the entire digital use (onboarding, authentication, account management, transactions, etc.) and thus offers trust and security for both end-users and companies. This approach ensures that there are no unnecessary authentication hurdles in online banking.

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The Same User Experience – But Safe

Everything starts with registering for online banking. As soon as a user downloads the content of a page, a function is loaded, which begins to transmit data to the analysis server. This can be done on websites via a JavaScript snippet, on mobile devices via an SDK integrated into the mobile banking app.

The collected data is examined on the analysis servers, after which the risk assessment is linked to the current user, the session, the device, and the behavior. An authentication hurdle can be inserted if the user profile is new and the AI engine is not trained on it. If the user profile is known, an uninterrupted experience can ensue during the entire usage. As soon as a user logs in, the AI evaluates the behavior pattern, for example, typing behavior and mouse movements, to confirm the identity.

Behavioral Biometrics As An Additional Signature

This behavioral biometric data is unique for each user, similar to a fingerprint or the iris pattern. The EU directive PSD2 (Payment Service Directive 2) regards behavioral biometrics as a component of identity and allows the method of identity confirmation. While users write their e-mails or enter their passwords, the digital profile can be updated with the digital behavior, and the risk assessment can be adjusted if necessary. If a user typically sends money from their safe home location but is suddenly 500 kilometers away, this is a signal to increase the risk assessment.

If the user navigates the online banking app differently, this is also a signal to increase the risk assessment. Suppose the user uses a seemingly fake and static mobile device on which the accelerometer does not move for an extended period. In that case, this is a signal to increase the risk assessment. Anything that represents an anomaly can be measured and assessed to determine how it will affect the final risk assessment. Today’s technology can evaluate hundreds of these signals and adjust the risk assessment accordingly.

Verification Of The Process In Less Than 150 Milliseconds

The most important task of modern anti-fraud technologies is to continuously evaluate the details of users and their behavior in digital banking. The system adjusts the risk assessment accordingly. As soon as a critical event occurs in online banking, for example, access to PII (Personally Identifiable Information), applying for a loan, or making a payment, the bank can use APIs to ask the analysis server how high the risk is for the active user.

As the system continuously updates the risk value, the information is immediately available and accessed in less than 150 milliseconds. The bank can then use this information at its discretion. In addition, modern fraud prevention solutions usually offer a graphical user interface (GUI). With this, fraud analysts or other banking specialists can evaluate the risk assessment details, such as meetings, devices, or warnings.

Powerful Internet Fraud Prevention Solution

Sophisticated technology offers a robust fraud prevention solution by creating a trustworthy digital profile from details of user behavior. It’s like a unique fingerprint. The standard information database can offer both companies and users additional digital experience security and trust. The system decides within 150 milliseconds whether a process is classified as trustworthy or fraudulent. This enables secure online banking in a fraction of a second, and, in case of doubt, additional authentication hurdles are interposed to prevent attempted fraud.

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Data Automation In Documentation: Greater Agility For Data Architectures

Techno Rumours

September 28, 2021

Data Automation In The Documentation Greater Agility

Documentation is part of every sustainable data architecture. However this is often neglected by developers still work with manual processes. Because developers are judged more by their code than by the correct documentation. One solution lies in data automation.

Pseudo-agile strategies are common in data warehousing today. Teams often work in sprints with scrum meetings and the like. However, most developers are still typing every line of code by hand, using ETL technology from the 1990s. While the deadlines and iterations they must meet are aligned with agile timeframes, the tools and methods they use are not elegant, which is a disadvantage. This is rarely used when defining print. Adequate attention is paid to the documentation. With these restrictions, developers are always pressed for time and take shortcuts to deliver their code. The documentation is always the first thing that is neglected or dropped entirely. Tools for data automation offer a way out.

Data Automation: Documentation Reduces Developer Productivity

The need to write the documentation is a drag on productivity in several ways. When developers take regular breaks to document what they’ve done, they have to disrupt their workflow and write less code. If they postpone the documentation, for example, to confirm last week’s code on Monday, they will forget a lot of what they did. And the more productive developers were, the more they forgot.

In a work culture designed for the short term and where the key is to deliver code on time, the documentation is viewed as a nice-to-have and may not even be checked by those responsible for data governance. Only in retrospect, when the architectures are unclean and challenging to maintain, or when one of the developers leaves the company, and a new specialist comes to replace him, does the value of precise, standardized documentation become apparent.

Sustainability Of Data Architectures

Current tools for data automation allow more flexibility and a much easier chance of the target database than before. The choice of database is no longer a ten-year decision. This also means developers no longer have to start from scratch if the modeling style needs to be changed. The code that developers write now can be modified as required and will last for many years. Because of this, it must be reliable to stand the test of time and how it is documented. Architects have to outlast people and databases; So when a developer leaves the company, the code has to be seamlessly passed on to a colleague.

Advantages Of Documentation With Data Automation

With modern software for data automation, the documentation problem is wholly removed from developers’ schedules so that they can concentrate on higher-value tasks and meet agile deadlines without compromising. All they have to do is click a button, and all of their work will be documented in a level of detail that would otherwise take them hours to complete.

Data automation software is metadata-driven. This means that the user interface is a simplified manifestation of all the metadata behind it and ensures that the data warehouse functions as it is presented. This out-of-the-box documentation means that every action by users as well as every element and structure within the architecture is saved, such as:

the program code itself
Lists of columns and objects, who created them, whether they are in specific jobs, and so on
Transformations
Data lineage backward and forwards: where did the data come from, and where did it go after this point?
Data types and all information about the current object that is currently being viewed
Interactions between the various things within the architecture

In-Depth Insight And Quick Troubleshooting

Documentation through Data Automation is like a roadmap going back through the project developers were working on. It provides hyperlinks to each stage of the process so developers can click in and see the code and structure. It maps everything that developers should create manually but often not do for the various reasons just mentioned. So deep that creating it manually would be too time-consuming to be productive while writing code.

Developers would need to create a detailed spreadsheet and then use Visio tools to develop appropriate flowcharts. Doing this for an entire architecture would take months of work without an automation solution. Such extensive documentation means that errors can be found and corrected much faster. Instead of going through poorly documented code by hand to find the fault, the automation solution highlights incorrect code in red. This not only helps you find the problem quickly. It also prevents one from working on good code that has been mistakenly diagnosed as faulty.

Data Automation: Eliminate Banal, Redundant Tasks

When discussing the pros and cons of data automation, it’s essential to remember that human creativity still comes first. It is complemented by automation tools that eliminate repetitive, manual work. This enables developers to be tireless and is more creative. In many areas of data warehousing, however, creativity and sensitivity are undesirable and even harmful. Documentation is precisely the kind of mundane, redundant work that is ideal for automation.

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Supplier Management: How Manufacturers Identify Risks In Supply Chains

Techno Rumours

September 28, 2021

Supplier Management How Manufacturers Identify Risks In Supply Chains

In many areas, the pandemic disrupted what was already fraught with risks – including logistics. Suppliers could no longer deliver or provide to the usual extent, and supply chains collapsed. The effects on production were devastating. Supplier management allows the dangers to be identified in advance.

The effects of the corona pandemic on supply chains were felt on all sides. The crisis only revealed what was already there: the vulnerability of supply chains. companies that purchase their goods from a few suppliers in the same region have suffered massively from the pandemic. The imposed lockdowns – the dependency on individual suppliers, became apparent. Supplier management offers a solution for this. “Such chains, which are susceptible to failure, could have been identified in advance through analyzes,”. The management consultancy is active worldwide and specializes in strategy and process consulting and factory, production, and logistics planning.

Supplier Management: Analyzes Reveal Susceptibility To Failure

For manufacturing companies in the industry, the supply bottlenecks caused by crises led to production downtimes and a drop in sales – especially in companies that rely on the just-in-time principle and thus designed their supply chains on redundancies. To prepare as best as possible for incidents caused by the Corona crisis, companies should ensure transparency in the supply chain. For this, the establishment of systematic supplier management is essential.

“Such an organization plays an essential role in the risk assessment of supply chains,”. As early as the supplier development phase, the managers can identify risk areas and run through possible failure scenarios with the help of the Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). In production, the FMEA is already a standard method for identifying possible disruptive processes. However, the way can also be easily transferred to logistics chains. Potential risks and bottlenecks in the delivery can be identified and eliminated in advance.

Early Warning Systems And Cockpits: Tools For Supplier Management

Early warning systems and cockpits as tools can also be helpful and support supplier management. Various criteria and key data can be implemented in these critical figure systems – tailored to the industry and the company. With the tools, tolerances can be taken into account and differentiated according to the forms of delivery.

The critical figure systems provide crucial data on the demand side, giving companies an overview of the delivery performance of their logistics chains. “The automotive industry has come a long way here and serves as a pioneer,”. Still, they can also be used for other sectors, primarily since suppliers supply car manufacturers and other companies. These then benefit from standards that have been established and which they can apply to other areas.

The Flexible Design Of Internal And External Networks

In addition, it is also essential to make networks more flexible. Suppose goods can be obtained from different suppliers, and suppliers can be changed quickly in bottlenecks. In that case, companies can react to fluctuations in good time and avoid production downtimes. Continuous network monitoring provides an overview of changes in performance and shows how individual parameters are changing. In addition, unique procurement platforms offer a high degree of flexibility, as they use different networks. Instead of relying on one supplier or one region, production companies have access to a whole network of suppliers. In this way, companies can create redundancies and switch to multiple sourcing.

In addition to this external supply network, i.e., the cross-location exchange of inventory and delivery data. If companies have an overview of the stocks at all locations, they can move goods internally and thus react to fluctuations at short notice and without great effort.

Supplier Management And Flexible Networks Increase Stability

The systematic supplier management and the flexibilization of the networks guarantee companies a high degree of stability, which is the basis of any production security. “If companies can ensure this stability, customers are even willing to pay a higher price,”. If customers order an article online, for example, and receive a selection from different manufacturers, they would usually opt for the more expensive product delivered to them faster.

In the pandemic, the supply chains were massively disrupted by imposed lockdowns. This led to supply bottlenecks, production losses, and a collapse in sales. However, if companies have supplier management in place, they can identify potential risks and incidents in advance and counteract them. Early warning systems, cockpits, and monitoring are supportive means here. In addition, the flexible design of the external and internal networks is crucial to react quickly to fluctuations.

ALSO READ: AIoT – Is This The Future Of The Internet Of Things?

AIoT – Is This The Future Of The Internet Of Things?

Techno Rumours

September 27, 2021

AIoT - Is This The Future Of The Internet Of Things

According to Statista, there were 30 billion IoT devices in 2020 and 75 billion in 2025. All of these devices generate huge amounts of data. However, due to stringent processes, outdated data processing tools and faulty analysis methods, around 73 per cent of the data remains unused.

To get the most out of IoT systems, companies need AI. Only then can specialists interpret this data and derive insights and forecasts. The solution that tech experts are currently seeing is Artificial Intelligence of Things (AI + IoT = AIoT ). IoT is still hype. This means that the potential of AIoT cannot yet be properly classified. In the short term, the possibilities of AIoT tend to be overestimated – but underestimated in the long term. Here you can find out what you should bet on if you are considering using AIoT.

AI + IoT: The Perfect Symbiosis

IoT solutions are multi-level sensor devices that collect large amounts of data and send them to the cloud via wireless protocols. Artificial intelligence is the ability of a machine to interpret data and make intelligent predictions. IoT devices use AI to analyze and react to the collected sensor data. AI and IoT go together perfectly. Neither AI without IoT or IoT without AI make sense: IoT data alone doesn’t say anything, and AI always needs data for food.

Gain Additional Insights

If companies equip their IoT systems with AI functions, they can gain additional insights into IoT data that would otherwise be lost. In this way, they increase the benefits of existing IoT solutions. IDC compared two groups of companies – the first used the AI + IoT combination, the second only IoT. The companies were asked about these six goals: Acceleration of internal processes, improved employee productivity, quick reaction to risks and failures, rationalization of processes, new digital services and innovations, and cost reduction.

The result is not surprising: AIoT companies appear to be more competitive than IoT companies because they are more likely to achieve each goal, with differences in the double-digit percentage range.

AIoT: Status And Risks

The AI focus of European countries on IIoT is partly because the AI area is currently overregulated. While US and Chinese companies are working on sensitive applications such as automated facial recognition, European companies face data protection issues. On the other hand, there are open legal questions about liability and intellectual property. This unsettles companies because they do not know who data belongs to and what they can do with it.

One danger of this over-regulation is that foreign companies, which have more options, develop AI solutions in all value chain stages (from marketing to production to service). At the same time, German providers can only offer AI services for IIoT to a very limited extent.

Marco Junk, Managing Director of the Bundesverband Digitale Wirtschaft, describes it as follows: “As a country of mechanical engineering, we have to realize that in the future, added value will no longer lie in the machines alone, but in the AI-based services on and with our machines.” Now I will decide “whether in future we will only be suppliers of our machines for the providers of AI services or whether we will integrate these services ourselves”.

Slowly, however, the ball is rolling: the European Commission has taken the first steps. In the White Paper on Artificial Intelligence, she presented proposals for designing a European legal framework for AI applications and political options for action to promote AI because AI is a technology that, in practice, often cannot yet do as much as one thinks. Regulations and uncertainty, at least in Europe, meaning that it is unclear where and how AI can be used. Therefore, AI is currently overrated in some places. However, especially at AIoT, it is the perfect technology to generate added value. Here are a few examples of where AIoT works and why you shouldn’t underestimate it.

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How IoT Is Changing The World

Predictive Maintenance

Thanks to AI-based systems for predictive maintenance, companies can obtain usable insights from machines to predict device failures. According to Deloitte, such solutions lower per cent and increase equipment availability by 10-20 per cent. Many companies have been using this approach for years, including the German compressor manufacturer BOGE. Its products are used in areas where downtime can have fatal consequences, such as in the pharmaceutical and food industries or semiconductor production.

The company used software for predictive maintenance to minimize the risk of failure. The software can provide specific information on how many hours or even minutes it will still take before a technical problem arises on the machine, which makes maintenance work easier to plan.

Remote Monitoring Of Patients By AIoT

During the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more healthcare providers are turning to technology. They rely on remote monitoring systems to treat COVID-19 patients while reducing the risk of infection for medical staff. An example of such a system is an AI-based solution from Tyto Care. It diagnoses patients using data recorded by the Tyto Care-AIt and the mobile phone. The special AI algorithms detect problems such as swollen tonsils, sore throats and lung diseases. This allows doctors to make a diagnosis without touching the patient.

Self-Driving Cars

At the moment, only “highly automated driving” (or “piloted driving”, level 3) is permitted in Germany. In other words, the car can almost completely take over the journey, but responsibility remains with the driver. AI is currently used in autonomous driver assistance systems (ADAS) and fulfils several tasks: reducing the fisheye effect in videos from onboard cameras to monitoring the situation on the road. Technologically, on the other hand, the automotive industry has already arrived at autonomous driving – autonomous cars are being tested worldwide.

AIoT For Improved Business Models

Rolls Royce is best known as a car and turbine manufacturer. The company used to manufacture engines and then sell servicing services for those engines. If the engine failed, it had to be serviced for Rolls Royce, which was an additional business. Today they have completely changed their business model: they sell an hourly rate for the operating time of the engines. Based on the IoT sensor data of the motors, they optimize the performance to have as little maintenance time as possible and to intervene early so that the motors remain in operation for as long as possible. For the customer, this now means that he pays for exactly what he wants to pay for, namely the operating performance of an engine.

What do we learn from it? IoT is the future of the Internet of Things – if it is implemented and used correctly. A full-stack provider such as Softeq has the right expertise to turn data-poor devices into data-rich machines and transform data into insights.

ALSO READ: No-Code And NLP: How Cloud-Based Software Can Relieve Developers

Networks: Advantages Of Networks And Its Overview

Techno Rumours

September 27, 2021

5G is a real milestone in cellular technology. Companies can even set up their own 5G network for Industry 4.0 or remote working networks. Here is an overview of the advantages of campus networks and the solutions that telecommunications providers offer.

Up to 4G, the matter was straightforward: With earlier mobile radio technologies, voice communication was first in the foreground, then later the use of the Internet and many applications based on it. 5G is the first generation of mobile communications in which the use cases, such as campus networks, were already established in advance, beyond telephoning and surfing.

Industry 4.0 Provides A Boost To Digitization

The driver is Industry 4.0, i.e., the idea of the digitized factory with networked cyber-physical systems and the goal of manufacturing individualized products down to batch size one instead of millions of precisely identical products. Before 5G, there was no satisfactory solution for the flexible networking required for this. Cables do not allow the systems to be mobile. LLAN struggles with radio shadows and dropouts when transitioning from one radio cell to another. Earlier portable radio standards were too slow or had too high a latency, which prevented real-time applications.

All of that changes with 5G. It allows data transfer rates of up to 10 gigabits per second; the latencies should be close to a millisecond for future releases. And as a mobile radio technology, there are no interruptions when the handover to the following radio cell, which is essential for driverless transport systems, for example.

Faster In The Campus Network

Probably the most outstanding advance with 5G is not the faster technology, but the regulation by politics. Because with 5G, the legislature provided so-called campus networks from the beginning and kept frequency ranges free for them. Companies, universities, and trade fair organizers can apply for such frequencies and set up a self-sufficient 5G network on their premises. The data is processed on the edge, i.e., in computers on the premises. Such a network is highly available and extremely fast, which allows for entirely new applications.

For example, the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT in Aachen uses 5G in a milling machine in which it produces prototype components for MTU Aero engines. A vibration sensor communicates with the device via 5G so that vibrations can be compensated for in a flash and damage to the components can be avoided.

Set Up Campus Networks In Slices

An utterly self-sufficient network is only one variant of campus networks. The operators of the cellular networks also offer network slicing. There, the campus network is set up in the public network but sealed off with guaranteed bandwidth, even if many people nearby are surfing with their smartphones simultaneously. This variant is interesting for smaller companies that shy away from investment. Still, the disadvantage is the more significant latency since the data runs through the data centers of the network operators.

Such scenarios are interesting for companies that want to network their locations worldwide, including with suppliers. Small campus networks are then linked together to form an extensive, virtual 5G network; the machine in a plant in China appears to be located directly in the plant. In the coming releases of the 5G standard, mechanisms are provided with which machines can even reserve more bandwidth on their own if they have to send more significant amounts of data.

Industry 4.0 and 5G are a perfect pair, which is why the first applications are coming from the manufacturing industry, above all from the automotive industry, where the first campus networks are also in place. So far, however, these are still based on 4G or combined 4G / 5G technology. However, this focus on the manufacturing industry is a narrow view. Many applications are just emerging, and there are tons of exciting ideas. For example, Airbus controls its unmanned airship Altair from a distance of up to 250 kilometers, and drones can also be controlled via 5G to inspect pipelines. Autonomously driving cars can communicate with a parking garage via 5G and are parked autonomously.

Use Of 5G: From Healthcare To Football Stadiums

The 5G standard is set to move in quickly in healthcare. For example, a doctor could remotely give instructions to an emergency aid worker in the event of an accident. In the future, data will be transported in hospitals instead of patients. The ultrasound is then recorded with a small hand sensor on the bedside, and the results are transferred to the cloud in the clinical information system.

New ideas are also opening up in the sport. VFL Wolfsburg has equipped the Volkswagen Arena with 5G to offer the audience a unique live experience. They can point their smartphone at a player and receive real-time information about it as augmented reality, such as their duel values. Live events and e-gaming are merging into a new form of sport. Viewers can expect other similar applications at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, postponed to 2021. Network operator NTT Docomo has already announced a firework of ideas with augmented and virtual reality.

Many people who are currently holding out in the home office are probably asking: What effects does 5G have on my work and office jobs in general? The cloud is essential for remote work, but fast data connections are also necessary. 5G will take mobile working to a new level and work in the company’s office. Where a lot of data is exchanged with the cloud, small 5G campus networks – for example, in a building or perhaps just within one floor – can replace the rigid network with LAN cables and offer more flexibility.

Virtual Campus Networks On The Advance

One technology that is likely to cause a sensation in the coming years is virtual networks. Specialized hardware and software were built from a single source in the earlier generations of mobile communications networks. A virtual 5G network, on the other hand, is just software that runs on standard servers. This has the same transmission properties, but it is much cheaper, and, especially with campus networks, it is also ready for operation more quickly. And it reduces the users’ dependence on the system suppliers. This technology is prevalent in Japan. One of the first cloud-native 5G campus networks has the co-creation space Ens? in Munich, the European innovation center of the NTT Group.

Also Read: Enterprise Software: How To Improve The Usability

Enterprise Software: How To Improve The Usability

Techno Rumours

September 27, 2021

Enterprise Software How To Improve The Usability

User interfaces are easy to use have become standard in consumer sector. there is still lot of catching up to do with Enterprise Software. Why this is so and how B2B companies can significantly improve the user experience for business applications.

Usability is a decisive criterion in the use of software and thus also in software development. But while the user interfaces of apps and online shops in the consumer sector are primarily self-explanatory, there is still some catching up with business software. Excel lists and faxes are still used for orders. In addition, the input masks on the web are often complex and confusing.

Enterprise Software And Business Software Is Characterized By Functionality

There is a simple reason why many business applications are not user-friendly: B2B Enterprise Software is traditionally characterized by its functionality. The software ergonomics came later. On the other hand, in the consumer area, the topic of usability was considered from the start. Because: The users are usually not particularly tech-savvy. If you use an app, its functionality must be immediately apparent via an intuitive interface.

However, approaches to optimization such as font size, color or buttons are not so easy to change with B2B software. Many applications map highly complex processes. Changes to the surface often affect the system architecture. The effort for improvements is therefore much higher than in the B2C environment.

The Boundaries Between B2C And B2B Enterprise Software Are Blurring

Despite these challenges, usability is also a must for business Enterprise Software today. Websites, apps, online shopping – everyone comes into contact with the software regularly. The private and business sectors are increasingly mixing up. The use of business tools alternates with personal purchases and the use of social networks. This direct juxtaposition of B2B and B2C applications increases users’ expectations: They want to be able to use business applications just as intuitively as they are used to in their private lives.

User-friendliness is also becoming more and more critical due to the increasing flood of information that users are confronted with today. The patience to familiarize oneself with company has noticeably decreased. Operating problems lead to frustration. With complex B2B applications – for example, payroll and financial accounting – it is, therefore, all the more important not to overload the user interfaces and menus.

Usability Leads To Cost Savings And Satisfied Users

Ultimately, an improved user experience saves time and money because users can complete their tasks faster. And it leads to higher user satisfaction – an aspect that should not be underestimated, especially in the cloud age. Companies can change Enterprise Software providers quickly and easily in the cloud if they are not satisfied with their user experience.

The transparency of the offers is also increasing. Intuitive systems that require neither training nor extensive tests are in demand. The user experience in the B2B environment always remains a compromise, especially when it comes to software for financial accounting with thousands of functions.

ALSO READ: Business Analytics: 5 Key Big Data Trends For 2021

Only Show What The User Needs Next

With systems that can be operated intuitively, it is always apparent what to do next to the user. This claim can also be implemented in complex Enterprise Software – in that, not all functions are displayed at once, but only the next step in each case. The surface becomes even tidier if it is tailored to the respective user. For example, if an employee only needs customer master data, this is displayed, including the corresponding operating elements. He can then use the settings to adapt the user interface to his way of working. This clarity saves time, as the user can concentrate better on his tasks and find the required functions more quickly.

Contextual Help With Business Software

Many B2B applications leave the user alone in the event of difficulties. Intuitive Enterprise Software, on the other hand, recognizes itself if there are problems. As soon as the user gets stuck at one point, the software offers contextual help that shows him how to proceed or that specific calculation processes are currently in progress in the background, and he has to wait. Explanatory texts or videos can be displayed in a context-sensitive manner that guides the next steps in the software – for example, how an invoice can be created or a booking can be made.

An analysis of user behavior is also functional. For example, if a user always navigates to the same area and never uses specific input masks, the software can hide these elements in the future. In addition, the company software can prepare settings that are used repeatedly, such as evaluations from data that the user regularly creates. Optimization options like this are possible through artificial intelligence, which practically evaluates telemetry, i.e. the recording of where the user often moves on the surface.

Chatbots Provide Interactive Help With Company Software

Chatbots, which meanwhile already support customer support on many websites, offer particularly timely user support. Often, speed is essential to prevent frustration for the user or customer. According to Forrester, 63% of customers leave a vendor after just one bad experience, and nearly two-thirds don’t wait more than 2 minutes for help. Chatbots can usually answer frequently asked questions automatically. This relieves the employees because customer support only receives inquiries that require human qualities. Speech recognition can also improve the usability of the software. Above all, the combination of chatbots with AI ensures better usability: Bots can learn to understand people and their problems with operation.

The Push Of User-Friendly Business Software

“In the past 20 years, user-friendliness in B2B software has often been neglected in favor of a variety of features. However, the developers are in a phase in which the software is taking the step into the cloud. In this step, the old desktop interface has to be adapted and modernized for use on the web,”.

“That’s why there is often a real boost in user-friendliness from B2B software: The step into the cloud offers an ideal opportunity to clean up, rethink and modernize. And it is time to update: Today, better usability is a necessity to survive the competition. Well-designed software ensures satisfied users who have also become more demanding with their expectations of the user experience of their work system. “

Sage is one of the market leaders for IT systems used in small and medium-sized companies. These enable more transparency and more flexible and efficient processes in the areas of accounting, company and personnel management. Millions of customers worldwide trust Sage and its partners regarding solutions from the cloud and the necessary support.

ALSO READ: No-Code And NLP: How Cloud-Based Software Can Relieve Developers

No-Code And NLP: How Cloud-Based Software Can Relieve Developers

Techno Rumours

September 27, 2021

No-Code And NLP How Cloud-Based Software Can Relieve Developers

Tools for no-code and natural language processing are becoming increasingly important in software development. Guest author Carsten Riggelsen from AllCloud explains how employees without programming knowledge can use it to advance their company’s digital transformation.

The interaction between man and machine often follows a pattern: At the beginning, new developments are complicated, expensive, and operation is a matter for experts. Innovations then continuously make them more accessible until laypeople can also use the latest technologies. The machine is adapted to the natural ways in which humans interact. We no longer interact with punch cards with a computer but with a mouse, keyboard, pen, touch or voice. New technological approaches such as No-Code and Natural Language Processing (NLP) can revolutionize the business world.

No-Code: Satisfies The Hunger For New Software

Startups developing tools for no-code are springing up like mushrooms and are being generously endowed with venture capital as they help satisfy the ever-growing hunger for software. Because no-code reduces the hurdles to developing new software: Easily understandable user interfaces serve as development environments within which, for example, individual applications can be created from prefabricated modules. Recommender algorithms also provide support with further recommendations, similar to “Apps that use this function also use …”

In the meantime, robots can even be programmed by using a particular solution that records the movements and actions of a person and uses them to create the code for the robot movement. A robot arm only needs training movements, for example, to solder, punch and screw in the proper order and the right places.

Make Data Queries Using Natural Language Processing

The well-known intelligent assistants have been working on call for a long time. They recognize and interpret simple verbal commands. With the computing power from the cloud, much more complex tasks can now be carried out, such as extracting information from complex amounts of data that would otherwise require queries in code. For example, there is an add-on to business intelligence software that runs in the cloud of a well-known hyper scaler that enables precisely that: users can query data in natural language.

You can’t just do this with ready-made questions and sentences or specific syntax. The add-on can process different speaking habits and industry-specific expressions and contexts because intelligent technologies convert natural language into queries that deliver the results that are searched for. So instead of waiting weeks for business intelligence analyzes, data-driven findings can be called up ad hoc and without prior technical knowledge.

NLP Paves The Way To Data Democratization

No-code and NLP are revolutionizing the way employees are involved in the digital transformation of companies. While no-code lowers the entry barrier for creating software, NLP paves the way to data democratization. This development is progressing rapidly, as the business mentioned earlier intelligence example shows: The interaction in natural language with the robust IT systems of a leading hyper-scale is an absolute game-changer. Because access to valuable information is difficult in the company, competitive disadvantages arise. This is where the Citizen Data Scientist enters the company’s internal stage. Now data analysis is also possible without much-asked and busy experts. In increasingly data-driven business models, this becomes more important with each byte stored.

No-Code And NLP: Smaller Budget And Faster Implementation

No-Code makes the toolbox of the developer access to users. A development team may need months to develop an application. On the other hand, an innovative citizen developer can use no-code tools with a small budget to set up applications that specifically address their daily pain points. Companies can leverage the innovation potential of their employees directly where the applications are used regularly.

But people will also be needed in the future for the most complex tasks. There is still demanding work involved in software and data analysis, as in training an algorithm. No-code and natural language processing relieve developers and data scientists of tedious, more straightforward tasks, and they can focus more on the important work that moves their organization forward.

No-Code And NLP Support Digitization Strategies

The advantages show that it is worthwhile for many companies to introduce No-Code or NLP as part of the digitization strategy. However, the solutions required for no-code or NLP are increasingly relying on cloud computing for hyper scalers. Cloud migration, therefore, lays the foundation for benefiting from these innovations. And then expertise in dealing with the solutions of the hyper scalers is required to operate the current applications and set up new ones. If there are no internal experts available for cloud migration, operation and setting up new apps, companies should look at cloud enablers. In today’s world, it is worthwhile to acquire such skills via outsourcing.

ALSO READ: Capital Group: 5G Will Change The World But In Phases

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