Archive for March 10, 2022

Pinterest Previews Its Future Of Personalized Shopping

Posted in Commentary with tags on March 10, 2022 by itnerd

Today, Pinterest hosted its second annual Pinterest Presents global advertising summit to preview a range of new product features set to bolster the platform as the personalized shopping destination along with more ways for brands to tap into the trends and creators that help them meaningfully connect with consumers.

Pinterest is building from a strong 2021, with brands leveraging the platform to reach their audiences with meaningful engagement and pushing Pinterest to surpass USD $2B in revenue for the first time. With nearly half a billion people across the world using Pinterest each month to find inspiration, Pinterest is developing its efforts to become the digital destination for personalised shopping, making it even easier for Pinners to bring their Pinterest boards to life, and purchase anything they see on the platform. 2022 is a year of further investments with a focus on growing an inspired content and shopping ecosystem.

Pinterest will be rolling out new features in 2022 to enhance its values based shopping experience and enable creators and advertisers target their audiences even more through a more taste-driven shopping journey, including:

  • Pinterest Trends Tool – Businesses in the US, Canada and the UK will see new features to the Pinterest trends tool, including real time search data, more trend types, more granular audience tools and personalized trend recommendations for your business. And later this year, we’ll launch the tool to additional countries all over the world.
  • Your Shop – a new entry point into shopping on Pinterest, powered by a taste-driven algorithm. Every Pinner will be served a customized shopping page, made up of content from creators and brands, based on their own unique preferences and styles. Your Shop is currently in beta for US Pinners and will launch to all US audiences later this year, with more countries to come after that.
  • Checkout – currently in beta, is a feature that allows shoppers to purchase without leaving Pinterest, avoiding a redirected experience Checkout is now available in beta for select Shopify merchants in the US.
  • Shopping API – Pinterest is making it easier for merchants to create and upload catalogs through Pinterest, so that the platform can be a commerce destination for merchants of all sizes. Sale season? Your pricing’s already updated on Pinterest. 

Pinterest also unveiled new research on the power of ‘inspiration’ proving that when people feel inspired, they’re also more likely to act. The study revealed: Canadian users perceive Pinterest as a space where they feel positive (77%)*, much more so than with other digital platforms, leading to shoppers on Pinterest in Canada outspending people on other platforms by 80% every month**. 

For more details on the upcoming products and what was unveiled at Pinterest Presents today, check out the Pinterest Business site for videos and more information.

*Source: Dynata, Canada, 2021, commissioned by Pinterest. Shopping among People who use Pinterest monthly and people who use other platforms, Fashion and Beauty verticals combined

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Drive with Christina Aguilera and Waze this March

Posted in Commentary with tags on March 10, 2022 by itnerd

This March marks the arrival of International Women’s Day around the world and Women’s History Month. It’s a time to celebrate trailblazing women throughout history. From the suffragettes to the #MeToo movement, women continue to fight against gender bias, discrimation and stereotypes. To mark this occasion, we’re welcoming feminist advocate and musical icon Christina Aguilera to Waze. 

Christina has a long history of advocating for women and underrepresented voices, using her platform to put them center stage in iconic songs and music videos — from “Beautiful” to “Let There Be Love” to “Can’t Hold Us Down.” 

“International Women’s Day is a significant reminder that we are still fighting against gender bias and stereotypes,” Christina says. “Partnering with Waze has allowed me to unify my voice with a community of people who care about helping one another.” 

Now, her messages of empowerment and self-love — and her Grammy-award winning voice — are on Waze to inspire the next generation of advocates.

Jump in the car with Christina 

Christina takes fans on a journey through her life and work, from her “Genie in a Bottle” beginnings to her breakout as a fierce and liberated woman in “Stripped,” to her current hits like “Pa Mis Muchachas,” that draw from her Latin roots. Plus, she’ll share some advice she’s learned along the way — in both English and Spanish. 

To get the full Xtina experience, choose from one of four Moods — Magical, Feisty, Sweet, or Strong — and drive in style in the Dirrty Bike or Pinkup Truck. You’ll be ready to take on whatever obstacles come your way, from potholes to traffic jams.

Sing your heart out to Christina’s favorites 

In honor of International Women’s Day, Christina has also curated a Spotify playlist that you can stream through the Waze Audio Player (the car isone of Christina’s favorite places to sing). The playlist is full of powerhouse women, including up-and-coming artists who are inspiring Christina today, and selections from her own library of belt-it-out hits. 


The experience on Waze launched March 1 and is available for a limited time with voice navigation in English and Spanish. Visit Waze or tap “My Waze” in your app and find the “Drive with Christina Aguilera” banner. And don’t forget to start streaming the Spotify playlist.

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Google Provides Details On Mandiant Purchase

Posted in Commentary with tags on March 10, 2022 by itnerd

You might recall that a couple of days ago Google announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Mandiant, Inc., a leader in dynamic cyber defense and response, for $23.00 per share, in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $5.4 billion, inclusive of Mandiant’s net cash. Upon the close of the acquisition, Mandiant will join Google Cloud.

Today, organizations are facing cybersecurity challenges that have accelerated in frequency, severity and diversity, creating a global security imperative. To address these risks, enterprises need to be able to detect and respond to adversaries quickly; analyze and automate threat intelligence to scale threat detection across organizations; orchestrate and automate remediation; validate their protection against known threats; and visualize their IT environment in order to identify and simulate new threats. The cloud represents a new way to change the security paradigm by helping organizations address and protect themselves against entire classes of cyber threats, while also rapidly accelerating digital transformation.

The acquisition of Mandiant will complement Google Cloud’s existing strengths in security. Google Cloud offers customers a robust set of services including pioneering capabilities such as BeyondCorp Enterprise for Zero Trust and VirusTotal for malicious content and software vulnerabilities; Chronicle’s planet-scale security analytics and automation coupled with services such as Security Command Center to help organizations detect and protect themselves from cyber threats; as well as expertise from Google Cloud’s Cybersecurity Action Team. With the addition of Mandiant, Google Cloud will enhance these offerings to deliver an end-to-end security operations suite with even greater capabilities to support customers across their cloud and on-premise environments. 

As a recognized leader in strategic security advisory and incident response services, Mandiant brings real-time and in-depth threat intelligence gained on the frontlines of cybersecurity with the largest organizations in the world. Combined with Google Cloud’s cloud-native security offerings, the acquisition will help enterprises globally stay protected at every stage of the security lifecycle:

  • Advisory Services: Mandiant’s proven global expertise in providing comprehensive incident response, strategic readiness and technical assurance helps customers mitigate threats and reduce business risk before, during and after an incident. 
  • Threat Detection and Intelligence: Mandiant’s experience detecting and responding to advanced adversaries offers customers actionable insights into the threats that matter right now. 
  • Automation and Response Tools: Security operations tools within Google Cloud’s Chronicle, Siemplify solutions and Mandiant’s Automated Defense help customers analyze, prioritize and streamline threat response and leverage Mandiant’s expertise as a virtual extension of their teams.
  • Testing and Validation: Mandiant Security Validation helps customers continuously validate and measure the effectiveness of cybersecurity controls across cloud and on-premise environments, and complements Google Cloud’s Security Command Center to help ensure strong risk management.
  • Managed Defense: Mandiant’s managed detection and response service acts as a seamless extension of customers’ security teams, delivering continuous monitoring, event triage and threat hunting that’s agnostic to customers’ endpoint and network tooling.

As a pioneer in offering multicloud technology, Google Cloud’s security operations suite will continue to provide a central point of intelligence, analysis and operations across on-premise environments, Google Cloud and other cloud providers. In addition, Google Cloud is deeply committed to supporting the technology partners of both companies, including the endpoint ecosystem. This acquisition will enable system integrators, resellers and managed security service providers to offer broader solutions to customers.

The acquisition of Mandiant is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of Mandiant stockholder and regulatory approvals, and is expected to close later this year. For more information, see Mandiant’s press release.

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Pro Russia Rebels Using Facebook For Nefarious Reasons…. It’s Seriously Time To #DeleteFacebook

Posted in Commentary with tags on March 10, 2022 by itnerd

Facebook appears to be in trouble again. It appears that Pro Russia rebels are using Facebook to spread propaganda and recruit people. And what makes this worse is the fact that one of the main people behind this is on the US sanctions list:

In the days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Aleksandr Zaldostanov, the leader of a pro-Putin biker club gang, the Night Wolves, turned to Facebook to disparage the Ukrainian president and push falsehoods about the war. 

“Ukraine is a torn off piece of Russia, which is shrinking in pain and bleeding still,” he posted on March 1 to more than 18,000 followers. “Russia did not start a war now!!!! Those who divided us started it!” 

A former physician known by his nickname, “the Surgeon,” Zaldostanov has been on the U.S. government sanctions list since 2014, amid allegations he helped Russian troops confiscate weapons during the country’s invasion of Crimea. 

The sanctions block Zaldostanov’s assets and generally prohibit U.S. citizens from “dealing” with him, but on Facebook he maintains a very active account, posting frequent support of Russia since the invasion.

That’s bad enough. But it gets worse if you’re Facebook:

The host of sanctioned entities and individuals who, like Zaldostanov, maintain a robust Facebook and Instagram presence is the subject of a pair of new whistleblower complaints, filed in December and February, arguing that Facebook parent company Meta engaged in “reckless or willful” violations of U.S. sanctions law by permitting the accounts, according to redacted copies reviewed exclusively by The Washington Post.

The existence of these accounts, the filings allege, allowed the users to cultivate global legitimacy and spread Russian propaganda. The complaints identify other posts appearing to recruit fighters and solicit funds to back pro-Russian separatists, which some legal experts suggest could violate U.S. sanctions laws, as well as Facebook’s rules. One post from a pro-Russian rebel called for volunteers with experience “in combat and armed conflicts.” Another video sought donations for separatist forces to pay for “equipment for soldiers on the front.” (The Post independently viewed this content on Facebook Tuesday.) 

Facebook really has some explaining to do here as this is really, really bad. And I hope it explains everything in front of a Congressional hearing. Or better yet in court. Because it’s beyond time that Facebook gets punished for all the trouble that it causes in places like Myanmar and now in the Russia/Ukraine conflict. Or you can just hand out your own punishment to Facebook by deleting them out of your lives.

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A Quick Conversation With Jack Koziol Of Infosec

Posted in Commentary with tags on March 10, 2022 by itnerd

Last week I got the opportunity to speak with Jack Koziol who is the CEO of Infosec. What is cool about Infosec is that they are really invested in training people in terms of IT & Security. Because it’s super important that everyone be aware of the risks and threats that exist due to threat actors that are out there who will take advantage of any weakness that they find.

One question that I had was if colleges and universities are missing the boat when it comes to getting people fully trained up in IT security. From a Canadian perspective, there are only a handful of degree programs based on a search that I did prior to the interview. What I did find was there were courses. Mr. Koziol noted that not a whole lot has changed. Back in his day, the closest thing to information security courses was a cryptography course. Which is just math at the end of the day. I have to admit that I laughed at that because when I was in university, it was the same thing. So clearly to make the world a safer place when it comes to information security, university need to up their game.

My next question was diversity. Does information security need diversity to thrive. According to Mr. Koziol the answer is yes. The more voices that come to the table that have diverse backgrounds makes us all safer. Related to that, my final question was getting people who are under 18 into information security. Back in my day, you got into information security by breaking the law and then becoming famous. A good example of this is Kevin Mitnick. Mr. Koziol agrees that needs to change by redirecting youth into information security so that they don’t have to do something extreme to break into the industry.

While this was a quick 15 minute conversation, it was an interesting conversation. I’d like to thank Mr. Koziol for his time for this interview.

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Guest Post: Consumer Protection Week Dedicated To Guarding Americans Against Scammers

Posted in Commentary with tags on March 10, 2022 by itnerd

This week is Consumer Protection Week. Annually observed during the first week of March, the Week was created with the intention of educating consumers of their rights and how to protect themselves from scams in the digital age. In 2020 alone, Americans lost a record-breaking 4.2 billion dollars in online scams. Despite consumers growing increasingly familiar with these scams, millions still give in to bad actors and put their information at risk.

If you are covering Consumer Protection Week, a Lookout expert is happy to comment on how to recognize consumer scams and share tips on how to protect themselves from hackers. Lookout is a cybersecurity company delivering integrated Security, Privacy, and Identity Theft Protection solutions. 

Lookout Suggests These Basic Tips For Common Scams:

Text Scam
If you receive a phishy text message that creates a highly urgent situation, find a way to validate the communication before tapping any links or downloading any apps.

WiFi Connections
Exercise caution when using public WiFi as there may be others snooping on network traffic. In particular, avoid making purchases and banking transactions—any communication that conveys a password, account number or credit card number—unless you are certain that you are on a secure connection.

Password Hacks
Use multi-factor authentication when signing into any account that offers it. This makes it harder for bad actors to get in, even if they compromise your username and password.

Verify The Source
If you are unsure whether an email request is legitimate, try to verify it by contacting the company directly. You can contact the company using information provided on an account statement or by visiting their website directly online, not information provided in an email. 

Install security software on your devices
Security protection, like Lookout, will automatically monitor and identify scam URLs in email, text messages, and on the web and block you from threats that can do harm.

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Silent Eight Raises $40m In Series B Round 

Posted in Commentary with tags on March 10, 2022 by itnerd

Silent Eight, a pioneer in the field of AI enhanced economic sanctions enforcement and financial crime prevention, today announces the closing of a $40m Series B funding round. The round was led by TYH Ventures and welcomed HSBC Ventures, the firm’s latest customer to also become an investor. 

OTB Ventures, Wavemaker Partners, SC Ventures (Standard Chartered Bank’s venture unit), Aglaia, and Koh Boon Hwee, Chairman and General Partner of Altara Ventures, continued their investment from previous funding rounds. Kolya Miller from TYH Ventures is joining the board.

Everyday millions of financial crime professionals work diligently to stop illicit funds from entering and moving through the global financial system. Silent Eight’s AI platform for financial crime investigates every suspicious transaction, beneficiary, and customer in real-time. Perfectly researched and explained every time at unparalleled speed and scale.  

Silent Eight has raised $55m to date. Today’s round brings the firm’s total valuation to four times its previous value in October 2020. In that time revenue has grown sixfold and headcount has tripled.

Today’s funding will predominantly be used to expand technology functions in support of Silent Eight’s rapidly expanding customer base. The firm expects to hire over 150 data scientists, developers and engineers in 2022.

Silent Eight is a technology company leveraging AI to create compliance platforms for the world’s leading financial institutions. Their mission is to empower our clients in their fight to eliminate financial crime. Founded in Singapore and with global hubs in New York, London, and Warsaw, they are deployed in over 150 markets. For more information, visit: www.silenteight.com

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