All Respondents Negatively Impacted by Voice Threats, but Most Tech and Security Professionals Unsure How to Protect Voice Network Against Cybercriminals

Mutare Inc., the Chicago-based market leader in voice threat defense, today released the 2023 Voice Network Threat Survey, which found that much uncertainty remains across industries over how to protect against voice network attacks.

With responses from cybersecurity and information technology professionals — 40% of whom are in leadership roles — at RSAC, Cisco Live and Customer Contact Week (CCW), Mutare found that 24% of respondents no longer answer their business phone as the amount of unwanted calls has skyrocketed in recent years. What's worse, 100% of respondents said they have been negatively impacted by voice threats, an eye-opening statistic emphasizing the severity of this problem, which comes in the form of robocalls, spoof calls, scam calls, spam calls, spam storms, vishing (voice phishing), smishing (SMS, or text, phishing) and social engineering.

The second annual Voice Network Threat Survey sought to gain greater insight into how nuisance and nefarious calls are impacting businesses across industries, as well as what steps businesses are taking to safeguard themselves against outside threats. It found people are actively changing how they interact with the voice channel. In addition to the 24% of people who don't answer their business phone, another 46% said they were cautious with unknown callers. About half of the respondents have turned to training to solve the problem, but training alone is inadequate to address this growing — and evolving — threat.

Mutare's Index of Unwanted Traffic shows year-over-year growth in the share of unwanted calls received by businesses, with this year's survey finding that an average of 10% of calls across industries are unwanted. Tellingly, 28% of respondents have no idea what percentage of their voice traffic is unwanted, and 31% believe it is greater than 1 in 10 — showing that even though people recognize the problem, they don't know how to measure it. Nearly 1 in 5 respondents (19%) confirmed their organization experienced a voice-based attack in the last 12 months, while 49% said theirs had not. However, a whopping 37% did not know if their organization faced an attack — which could indicate that companies are reluctant to disclose security incidents, even to their own employees.

Respondents came from a variety of industries, with most (39%) in the technology and innovation industry, followed by government, financial services, healthcare, education, utilities and energy, manufacturing, retail, and legal.

An overwhelming majority of the respondents — 85% — agree it is time to elevate voice as a threat vector, but the survey found limited use of proactive, technical solutions (which are readily available) to keep the problem at bay.

Partnership between Kissflow and Google Cloud signifies a commitment to delivering comprehensive, innovative, and future-ready solutions for enterprises across industries

Kissflow, a leading low-code work platform, has been a Google Cloud partner since its launch at Google I/O 2012. Kissflow announced its plans to further expand its partnership with Google Cloud to enable Google Cloud customers to accelerate their operational transformation with Kissflow's low-code platform.

Through this partnership, Google Cloud and Kissflow are highly committed to helping Google Cloud customers achieve their business objectives by positioning and delivering industry-specific, technically differentiated solutions to power customers' businesses.

"We are incredibly excited to enhance our partnership with Google Cloud," said Suresh Sambandam, CEO of Kissflow. "This alliance with Google has proven to be a game changer for Kissflow - combining Google Cloud's robust cloud services with our low-code platform further enables businesses to redefine their business processes and applications. Moreover, we are jointly able to empower businesses to attain operational excellence and foster consistent, sustained growth.”

Innovation and differentiation through collaboration

Key Highlights of the Partnership:

• Seamless Integration: This will further enable existing Google Cloud enterprise customers to seamlessly leverage Kissflow's intuitive low-code capabilities on Google Cloud's reliable and scalable infrastructure, unlocking new opportunities for operational efficiency and agility.
• Joint Go-to-Market Strategy: The partnership will involve collaborative go-to-market initiatives, including co-selling, field sales enablement, migration accelerators, and marketing activities. Additionally, Google Cloud will offer incentives and accelerators to support clients currently using Kissflow's Low-code Platform on-premises who wish to migrate to the Kissflow-Google Cloud solution.

The partnership between Kissflow and Google Cloud signifies a commitment to delivering comprehensive, innovative, and future-ready solutions for enterprises across industries. With a shared vision of driving operational excellence and digital transformation, the collaboration is poised to make a significant impact on the way organizations operate and grow.

This new solution enables media owners to more accurately measure audience impressions, reach and frequency for DOOH and provides advertisers with high quality impression data to better understand the impact of DOOH campaigns

Hivestack, the world's leading, independent programmatic DOOH ad tech company today announced a verified impression multiplier solution for digital out of home (DOOH) in select regions across APAC. 

With increasing demand for standardization of measurement and the need for a unified methodology in many emerging markets, Hivestack's impression multiplier methodology provides a turnkey, trusted solution for media owners across APAC. Independently backed by Nielsen, it allows media owners situated in emerging markets, such as Taiwan, to more accurately calculate reach, frequency and quantify impressions across their network of screens and more seamlessly integrate with buy-side partners, including the world's largest omnichannel DSPs. Furthermore, this provides advertisers, and the wider industry with credible, high-quality impression data and a consistent framework to better inform decisioning and measure the impact of DOOH.

Hivestack's proprietary methodology combines emerging market media-owner circulation data such as traffic data, dwell time and visibility assumption in combination with deterministic (anonymized) mobile device data sourced from leading telco carrier data and provides up-to-date screen level measurement of each ad play. Subsequent data verification service is to be conducted by Nielsen every two months which involves the assessment of Hivestack DOOH traffic against projected traffic estimates and impressions volume. The result is a meaningful, high-quality impression multiplier aligned with industry guidelines that is used for programmatic transactions to support media owners' growth across sales, inventory management and business development.

Troy Yang, Managing Director North Asia at Hivestack said, "There has been one common challenge in outdoor advertising for many markets across APAC, the need for a credible and unified measurement for outdoor impressions across all media owners. As one of the world's largest programmatic DOOH platforms, integrated across 12 APAC markets, we are proud to provide this important solution to all existing and new publishers integrated on our platform. Hivestack has a longstanding commitment to ensuring our inventory is of the highest standard and this is another offering that ensures the quality of supply remains top priority. This is a huge step forward for the industry as more DOOH buyers grow accustomed to impression-based buys in OOH."

In addition to Hivestack's rigorous internal processes to ensure inventory integrated within its Supply Side Platform (SSP) is of the highest quality it is also compliant with several industry standards, guidelines, and best practices to create an open and transparent environment for buyers and partners across the globe. Having the methodology for this new solution backed by Nielsen adds a level of credibility that is unparalleled in the industry and marks a significant step towards establishing a more trusted and credible standard of measurement across emerging markets that currently do not have third party verification or trade organizations with local guidelines. Hivestack will continue to work with existing global MRC accredited trade organizations that provide industry measurement for most mature markets. The solution will be available across select APAC markets in H2 2023.

Developers can now easily scale and maintain their applications from a central location

airSlate, a leader in document workflow automation solutions, today announced the launch of Document Automation Hub, enabling developers to access, manage, and automate all their document workflow APIs, from PDF editing and document generation to data collection and embedding eSignature and forms, from one location.

Document Automation Hub solves a persistent challenge for developers. When building applications, developers must often travel back-and-forth between siloed solutions, including subscriptions, portals, and log management, which can disrupt workflow. By providing a central location for embedding and automating all document workflow APIs, Document Automation Hub lets developers scale cost and maintain their applications seamlessly.

“Many companies only offer point solutions, forcing developers to use and manage multiple technologies to solve all their document workflow needs,” said Borya Shakhnovich, CEO and co-founder of airSlate. “Document Automation Hub gives the benefit of best-in-class APIs in a single place, decreasing the time to market and development cost for developers looking to automate different aspects of their document workflow.”

airSlate is committed to giving customers more configurability to automate more use cases. APIs in the Document Automation Hub open its platform to any organization that wants to leverage its powerful solutions within their applications or website. Users will benefit from a suite of API capabilities with Document Automation Hub, including:

• Forms API: Generate dynamic web forms that adapt based on user inputs, pre-fill fields with backend data, and provide a mobile-friendly experience, making filling out and signing documents easy across devices.
• DocGen API: Produce professional documents using DOCX templates, add dynamic fields, eSignature, iterators, conditionals, validation, custom tables, and pre-fill data with template tags.
• Flows API: Send a collection of documents for completion or signature, and automate sophisticated workflows with airSlate’s visual workflow designer.
• eSignature API: Insert legally-binding eSignature into your app to send documents for signing, create fillable templates, and track documents’ status.
• PDF Editing API: Embed editing features to allow users to annotate and make edits to PDF documents without leaving your application.

Customers can embed these capabilities in their applications or use them to move data to and from their CRM or ERP systems. For example, when building their proprietary apps, developers for insurance or home warranty companies can leverage the Forms API to gather customer details and then use DocGen API to create the contract, embed the eSignature, and get that signed during the agent’s visit. Document Automation Hub simplifies the entire process.

Kaleyra, Inc.  ("Kaleyra" or the "Company"), a rapidly growing omnichannel business communications platform, announced today that the WhatsApp Business Platform is now part of its omnichannel offering in the United States. Kaleyra has been a Solution Provider for the WhatsApp Business Platform since 2019, with successful implementations across sectors ranging from fintech to retail in India and Europe. Kaleyra will now enable US-based businesses to connect with customers on WhatsApp, the world's most popular messaging app with over 2 billion monthly active users.¹

The United States has the third largest WhatsApp audience in the world, with over 70 million users.² Since its launch in 2018, the WhatsApp Business Platform has been helping companies create rich experiences for their customers. As a Solution Provider, Kaleyra can now offer US-business the same secure, scalable service through easy integration with existing systems like helpdesk platforms and CRMs. Access to the WhatsApp Business Platform via Kaleyra offers:

• Implementation of conversational messaging through customized templates
• Optimization of workflows at scale with optional integrations
• Leverage of WhatsApp automation for better issue resolution and customer engagement
• Increased conversions with interactive CTAs and rich media

"We are excited to launch the WhatsApp Business Platform in the US via our proprietary omnichannel platform," said Mauro Carobene, Chief Business Officer of Kaleyra. "WhatsApp is a critical communication channel for businesses of all sizes, and our platform makes it easy for them to connect with their customers on WhatsApp and deliver a personalized and engaging experience."

The announcement comes just three months after bringing Kaleyra Video to the US, signaling Kaleyra's rapid expansion in the region. Kaleyra currently provides SMS, MMS, RCS, and push notifications to its US-based customers, and it continues to bring additional products stateside, most of which have proven track records in EMEA and APAC. The addition of the WhatsApp Business Platform to Kaleyra's integrated omnichannel product offering gives US enterprise brands an additional touchpoint to engage customers with personalized communications.

Remaining steadfast in its commitment to social responsibility and innovation, AI and analytics leader SAS continues prioritizing corporate citizenship to guide its business and climate strategy. Improving the world through the power of trustworthy technology is part of SAS' vision as a company – and through innovative solutions for its customers.

In addition to helping customers with their green business initiatives and sustainability needs, SAS has a long-standing reputation for supporting clean energy and the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) while also using its software to address economic, social and environmental issues. SAS has also received numerous awards for its innovative social good initiative, which used artificial intelligence and baseball to help kids improve their swing while boosting their data literacy through the Batting Lab.

"As a leader in social responsibility, SAS strives to help our communities and customers with their environmental, social and governance initiatives," said SAS CEO Jim Goodnight. "SAS has seen firsthand the impact our technology can have on protecting the environment, improving health outcomes, addressing bias and tackling other global priorities."

Leading through environmental excellence
For SAS, an environmentally friendly workplace incorporates a sustainable business model that supports the Paris Climate Accord and fosters employee curiosity and creativity. As a corporate sustainability leader and advocate, SAS works closely with employees, suppliers and customers to reduce its environmental footprint with programs focused on energy conservation, emissions management, pollution mitigation, water conservation, green building and other initiatives. SAS brings both its renowned analytic expertise and powerful software solutions to develop smarter and more efficient operations while passing those insights and tools to its customer for their business strategies.

In 2022, SAS' top environmental achievements included: 

• Earned ISO 14064-3 limited assurance for 2018 base year recalculation and 2022 calendar year GHG emission inventories.
• Awarded LEED Platinum existing building recertification for SAS Building Q. This is the third SAS building to earn the US Green Building Council's highest performance award.
• Expanded baseline GHG inventory to include emissions across all scope 3 categories material to the way SAS conducts business.
• Increased 2030 target from 50% to 52.6% as part of SBTi target revalidation.
• Received Science Based Targets initiative validation for SAS' 2050 net-zero emission reduction target.
• While post-pandemic operations increased emissions across all scopes in 2022, emissions are still down 41.7% from the 2018 base year.
• Despite expected post-pandemic increases in business travel, emissions are down 79.8% compared to the 2018 base year.
• Achieved 60% carbon use intensity from base year - down 19% the past year.
• Diverted 68.3% of operational and an astounding 99.9% of construction waste from landfills globally.
• Generated 3.4 million kWh of clean, renewable energy from rooftop and ground-mounted solar systems.

Improving society through positive contributions 
SAS has always been motivated by challenges to use its technology to ignite positive change and create a brighter future. SAS' social innovation initiative works to find creative ways to accelerate global progress and move the world toward a more sustainable future. By supporting the Data for Good movement, SAS encourages using data in meaningful ways to solve humanitarian issues around poverty, health, human rights, education and the environment. In addition, the SAS Data Ethics Practice (DEP) continues to expand, increasing efforts to bring trustworthy AI to customers and pursuing new Data for Good initiatives.

Contributing to meaningful work is just part of the award-winning workplace culture that is dedicated to treating employees like they make a difference and focusing on their well-being. SAS' supportive and inclusive reputation has been recognized for decades through numerous accolades and awards.

SAS also seeks ways to invest in the larger global community through its philanthropic philosophy of supporting data literacy and education initiatives for all. This can be seen by SAS' commitment to developing relevant resources for data literacy. In 2022, more than 273,000 educators and learners took advantage of free SAS^® software offerings. Also, 45,000 educators and students attended live global academic events and accessed free learning resources such as SAS Skill Builder for Students, an online portal for students to launch their analytics careers. For higher education and adult learners, SAS established more than 50 new partnerships with college and university programs around the world.

Mobiquity Technologies, Inc. ,a leading provider of next-generation data intelligence and advertising technology solutions, has today announced its strategic alliances with two top-tier Supply Side Platforms (SSPs) in the digital advertising space. These partnerships mark a significant step in Mobiquity’s mission to drive data-informed programmatic advertising forward.

The company’s proprietary AdHere platform, an innovative solution powered by forward-thinking architectural design, acts as the operational linchpin in this endeavor. AdHere integrates seamlessly with the Interactive Advertising Bureau's (IAB) Seller Defined Audience (SDA) protocol. This sophisticated tool unlocks the potential of first-party publisher data, such as location information, demographics, and user behaviors, converting it into actionable SDA codes in real-time.

AdHere’s distinctive architecture is centered on empowering publishers to maximize the utilization of their first-party data. This strategic use of first-party data is central to future-proofing digital advertising in an age where third-party cookies are being systematically phased out.

In a time of increasing concerns over privacy, the importance of using compliant, privacy-preserving data to enrich bid requests is more crucial than ever. AdHere addresses this concern with a meticulously designed two-tier process, analyzing the original data in tandem with lookalike data, and assigning relevant SDA codes that respect user privacy and deliver effective, data-informed advertising.

Mobiquity has observed improvements in both sell-through rates and Cost Per Mille (CPM). These gains suggest a promising revenue potential for both publishers and advertisers alike.

Mobiquity CEO, Dean Julia, said, " These strategic partnerships mark a new era for Mobiquity as it continues to deliver compliant, effective, and privacy-centric advertising solutions. Our SDA process has not only improved outcomes but also augments the revenue potential of each ad opportunity. We anticipate an acceleration in these trends as the digital advertising landscape evolves, with budgets increasingly pivoting towards compliant and privacy-preserving data solutions."