Channel leaders confident of ability to recruit and retain skilled staff Despite the widely acknowledged shortage of workers with good IT skills, the latest channel insight report from channel services provider Agilitas IT Solutions suggests that business leaders in the IT channel are optimistic about their ability to attract and retain talent. Almost two thirds (64%) of the 250 leaders working in UK-headquartered technology companies with more than £5 million in turnover surveyed for the EVOLVE for Your People report gave their ability to recruit skilled staff a rating of 8 out of 10 or above, contributing to an overall confidence rating of 7.8. When asked how confident they were that they had the right recruitment policies in place to appeal to potential recruits, business leaders returned a rating of 7.6, up from 7.3 in 2021. Channel leaders are also confident that they have the workplace culture to support the long-term retention of staff (7.9). When asked to select three things that could most improve workplace culture, the top rated initiatives were: hybrid and remote working (39.2%), diversity and inclusion (32.4%), team building/ social activities (31.2%), company-wide communication (30%) and responding to employee feedback (29%). The EVOLVE for Your People report can be downloaded from www.agilitas.co.uk/ agilihub/initiatives/evolve-peoplereport/ · · · · · · Cybersecurity teams spend half their time on manual tasks The third edition of Panaseer’s Security Leaders Peer Report looking at the concerns and constraints facing CISOs and other senior cybersecurity leaders across the US and UK highlights the growing burden of manually collecting and reporting on security data. Panaseer found that teams now spend 59% of their time on these tasks – a 9% increase on the previous year’s research and a 64% rise from the first survey in 2019. Overall, 70% of security teams spend more than half of their time on manual reporting, leaving less time for threat detection and vulnerability patching. Andreas Wuchner, Field CISO at Panaseer, said: “To reduce the significant amount of time spent manually reporting, CISOs and their teams need to be looking to automation. As well as freeing up qualified security professionals to dedicate time to higher value tasks – from threat detection to business continuity planning – automation provides the road to accurate, trustworthy data. We need to prioritise the maturation of automation, metrics and risk management in order to help teams cope with heavy reporting workloads.” Worst year yet for cyber attacks A surge in cyberattacks in the final three months of last year made 2022 the worst year on record for malicious online activity against UK businesses, according to Beaming, the business internet service provider (ISP). Its analysis shows that UK companies experienced an average of 687,489 online attempts to breach their systems in 2022, surpassing the previous record of 686,961 attempts set in 2020. October to December 2022 was the busiest quarter for cyberattacks on UK businesses since Beaming began tracking malicious web activity in 2016, with companies experiencing an average of 177,228 cyberattacks each in the quarter. Almost 1.2 million IP addresses were used to launch cyberattacks on UK businesses in 2022, according to Beaming, more than one fifth of which are in China (268,484 locations). Other prime launching pads include the USA (90,663), India (46,783), Brazil (46,783), Russia (35,842) and Taiwan (30,581). Sonia Blizzard, Managing Director of Beaming, said: “UK businesses have experienced a constant bombardment of NEWS 01732 759725 04 N E W S Nurturing a sustainable, people-first culture for the future. FOR YOUR PEOPLE 2023 REPORT Internet founder fathers share $3 million prize fund Internet founding fathers Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Bob Kahn, Vint Cerf, Sir David Payne and Emmanuel Desurvire were among the winners at the second VinFuture Prize awards ceremony held in Hanoi, Vietnam in December. The VinFuture Prize was established by the VinFuture Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation set up by Vietnam’s first billionaire Mr. Pham Nhat, founder of Vingroup, and his wife Mrs. Pham Thu Huong. It recognises inventors and researchers whose scientific and technological breakthroughs have the potential to positively impact the lives of millions of people and advance sustainable development. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Bob Kahn, Vint Cerf, Sir David Payne and Emmanuel Desurvire received the Grand Prize and a share of the $3 million prize fund in recognition of their contributions to network technology and the World Wide Web. Other VinFuture Prize winners chosen from nearly 1,000 nominations from 71 countries were: n Dr. Demis Hassabis and Dr. John Jumper, who received the Special Prize for Innovators with Outstanding Achievements in Emerging Fields for their work on AlphaFold 2, an AI program that has predicted the 3D structures of almost every protein; n Pamela C. Ronald, winner of the Special Prize for Female Innovators for her breakthroughs in the development of high yield, stress-tolerant rice varieties; and n Thalappil Pradeep, winner of the Special Prize for Innovators from Developing Countries for his development of a low-cost filtration system to remove arsenic and other heavy metals from groundwater. The awards ceremony was opened by Christina Aguilera. Christina Aguilera
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