• Ducati enters the Web3 world: a new opportunity to extend the experience of Ducatisti around the world and engage with new fans
• The program, powered by Web3 Pro's Hub platform, includes the release of a sequence of digital collectibles dedicated to telling the history of Ducati, the Company's present, while keeping an eye on the future
• Since the first generation of the digital revolution, Ducati has been a pioneer in embracing new technologies to engage, entertain and nurture the passion of the large community of Ducatisti
• The release of the first Ducati digital collectible is scheduled for July 26: all enthusiasts who register on web3.ducati.com within seven days of this date will receive it as a gift to the community

Web3 Pro, a white-label SaaS company offering community-as-a-service and blockchain solutions for enterprises, is pleased to announce their client Ducati's upcoming community-focused digital collectible program. The new initiative, utilizing Web3 Pro's Hub platform, is set to leverage digital channels to offer a new kind of experience to enthusiasts and tell the story of the company's past, present, and future.

This project, which brings the Bologna-based motorcycle manufacturer into the Web3 world, combines Ducati's heritage of excellence and craftsmanship with cutting-edge digital technology. The aim of the program is to open the doors of Borgo Panigale even wider to fans from all over the world and offer motorcyclists, racing enthusiasts and technology lovers the chance to get in touch with the brand and discover the beauty of belonging to the Ducati community.

The sequence of digital collectibles tells the legendary story of the Ducati brand to engage fans with the history and future of the brand. The collections will be available on the XRP Ledger, an open-source, energy-efficient, and decentralized layer-1 blockchain powered by a global developer community.

The first digital collectible presented by the Bologna-based motorcycle manufacturer is a video-sequence of all the Ducati logos that have appeared on the tanks of motorbikes produced in Borgo Panigale from 1946 to the present day. This first release is a gift the brand wishes to give to its fans, allowing enthusiasts to carry the symbol of their passion with them at all times while welcoming the community on this journey into the Web3 world.

The release of this first free digital collectible is scheduled for Wednesday 26 July: all persons who register on web3.ducati.com within seven days of the release date will receive it and will also gain access to subsequent releases of the project. Those who will register on the website after Wednesday, 2 August will still be able to participate in the releases of the following limited edition Ducati digital collectibles.

Ducati's commitment to digital innovation is deeply rooted in the culture of the Company and this program is a natural progression of this legacy. Since the first generation of the digital revolution, Ducati has been a pioneer in embracing new technologies to engage, entertain and nurture the passion of the large community of its fans around the world. Some examples of Ducati's first digital era are the sale of the first motorcycle online on 1 January, 2000, the creation of a blog dedicated to an exchange of views between Ducatisti and the company's top management (Desmoblog) or chats with Ducati Corse riders.

The entry into the Web3 world therefore represents the natural evolution of Ducati's digital strategy towards an experience that, while maintaining the pleasure of riding a motorcycle and sharing one's passion with other members of the community at the center, will also be able to take advantage of new products and services created in collaboration with Web3 Pro to build on and engage with the Ducatisti.

To stay updated on the digital collectibles project and the dates of each release, a dedicated Twitter profile will be created. MyDucati subscribers will be the first to be informed of the specific calendar with all the appointments of this journey.

Former SSI and market research industry veteran will leverage 30-year Asia-Pacific career to drive Dynata's growth and leadership in the region

Dynata, the world's largest first-party data company for insights, activation and measurement, today announced Mark Lepine as the new managing director of its Asia-Pacific (APAC) business. With deep-rooted experience in market research and the region, Lepine will oversee the company's APAC operations, advancing Dynata's growth and leadership across the market. 

Lepine brings nearly 30 years of APAC expertise to his new role, including four years as managing director of APAC at Survey Sampling International (SSI), which merged in 2017 with Research Now and later rebranded as Dynata. Previously, he served in regional management positions at Gartner, WGSN and Forrester. With Lepine's arrival, Dynata looks to continue to leverage its unrivaled expertise and resources, shaping the future of data-driven decision-making and solidifying its position as the premier provider of first-party data and insights in the region. 

"At this pivotal moment in our industry, Dynata stands proudly at the forefront of the first-party data ecosystem — and Mark's market research experience, abilities to lead and drive growth align perfectly with our strategic goals," said Chris Watson, Dynata's international managing director. "Mark will have a pivotal role in expanding our reach, elevating our market position and driving continued success across the APAC region. We have complete confidence in Mark's ability to deliver outstanding results for our clients."

"I'm thrilled to join Dynata and lead our talented APAC team during this exciting phase of growth," Lepine said. "Our unmatched capabilities and advanced solutions are truly differentiated assets, presenting us with endless opportunities to drive innovation, unlock transformative insights and deliver unparalleled value to clients across the vibrant and diverse APAC market."

Synthesized Inc, pioneers in generative modeling for structured data, has announced the availability of their products for enterprise customers on Google Cloud. Learn about the release in this video.

As artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning is commoditized, data becomes an enterprise's competitive advantage. Accessing high-quality data is expensive, takes a long time, and sometimes is not even possible. Once obtained, data can be unbalanced, low in density, or of inadequate quality. Through AI-driven data transformations, Synthesized enables you to quickly access high-quality data to use in BI/Analytics, machine learning, application development, and testing workflows, in a compliant manner.

Synthesized Scientific Data Kit (SDK) is now available on Google Marketplace.

The SDK helps you create compliant statistical-preserving data snapshots for BI/Analytics and ML/AI applications, and right-size your data with AI-driven data generation.

With the SDK, you can:

• Improve data quality - benefit from up to ~15% uplift in ML/AI model performance with data rebalancing, data imputation, and high-quality synthetic data generation. The SDK helps increase revenue across conversion, fraud, revenue recovery, and more.
• Enable fast data access and lower data acquisition cost - extract data insights faster for BI/Analytics. Increase developer productivity and speed-to-market.
• Ensure data privacy and data compliance - codify complex data privacy requirements into concrete data transformations. Ensure compliance when using sensitive data in cloud initiatives. Rapidly migrate your data pipelines and workflows to the cloud faster.

Dr. Nicolai Baldin, Founder and CEO at Synthesized emphasized: "We have the expertise and know-how to enable companies to confidently add sensitive data and applications to the cloud faster, as well as facilitate the sharing of statistically preserving copies for BI/Analytics and machine learning in the cloud."

AI/Automation cut breach lifecycles by 108 days; $470,000 in extra costs for ransomware victims that avoid law enforcement; Only one third-of organizations detected the breach themselves

IBM  Security today released its annual Cost of a Data Breach Report,¹ showing the global average cost of a data breach reached $4.45 million in 2023 – an all-time high for the report and a 15% increase over the last 3 years. Detection and escalation costs jumped 42% over this same time frame, representing the highest portion of breach costs, and indicating a shift towards more complex breach investigations.

According to the 2023 IBM report, businesses are divided in how they plan to handle the increasing cost and frequency of data breaches. The study found that while 95% of studied organizations have experienced more than one breach, breached organizations were more likely to pass incident costs onto consumers (57%) than to increase security investments (51%).

The 2023 Cost of a Data Breach Report is based on in-depth analysis of real-world data breaches experienced by 553 organizations globally between March 2022 and March 2023. The research, sponsored and analyzed by IBM Security, was conducted by Ponemon Institute and has been published for 18 consecutive years. Some key findings in the 2023 IBM report include:

• AI Picks Up Speed – AI and automation had the biggest impact on speed of breach identification and containment for studied organizations. Organizations with extensive use of both AI and automation experienced a data breach lifecycle that was 108 days shorter compared to studied organizations that have not deployed these technologies (214 days versus 322 days).
• The Cost of Silence – Ransomware victims in the study that involved law enforcement saved $470,000 in average costs of a breach compared to those that chose not to involve law enforcement. Despite these potential savings, 37% of ransomware victims studied did not involve law enforcement in a ransomware attack.
• Detection Gaps – Only one third of studied breaches were detected by an organization's own security team, compared to 27% that were disclosed by an attacker. Data breaches disclosed by the attacker cost nearly $1 million more on average compared to studied organizations that identified the breach themselves.

"Time is the new currency in cybersecurity both for the defenders and the attackers. As the report shows, early detection and fast response can significantly reduce the impact of a breach," said Chris McCurdy, General Manager, Worldwide IBM Security Services. "Security teams must focus on where adversaries are the most successful and concentrate their efforts on stopping them before they achieve their goals. Investments in threat detection and response approaches that accelerate defenders speed and efficiency – such as AI and automation – are crucial to shifting this balance."

Every Second Costs 
According to the 2023 report, studied organizations that fully deploy security AI and automation saw 108-day shorter breach lifecycles on average compared to organizations not deploying these technologies – and experienced significantly lower incident costs. In fact, studied organizations that deployed security AI and automation extensively saw, on average, nearly $1.8 million lower data breach costs than organizations that didn't deploy these technologies – the biggest cost saver identified in the report.

At the same time, adversaries have reduced the average time to complete a ransomware attack. And with nearly 40% of studied organizations not yet deploying security AI and automation, there is still considerable opportunity for organizations to boost detection and response speeds.

Ransomware 'Discount Code'
Some studied organizations remain apprehensive to engage law enforcement during a ransomware attack due to the perception that it will only complicate the situation. For the first time this year, the IBM report looked closer at this issue and found evidence to the contrary. Participating organizations that did not involve law enforcement experienced breach lifecycles that were 33-days longer on average than those that did involve law enforcement – and that silence came with a price. Ransomware victims studied that didn't bring in law enforcement paid on average $470,000 higher breach costs than those that did.

Despite ongoing efforts by law enforcement to collaborate with ransomware victims, 37% of respondents still opted not to bring them in. Add to that, nearly half (47%) of studied ransomware victims reportedly paid the ransom. It's clear that organizations should abandon these misconceptions around ransomware. Paying a ransom, and avoiding law enforcement, may only drive-up incident costs, and slow the response.

Security Teams Rarely Discover Breaches Themselves
Threat detection and response has seen some progress. According to IBM's 2023 Threat Intelligence Index, defenders were able to halt a higher proportion of ransomware attacks last year. However, adversaries are still finding ways to slip through the cracks of defense. The report found that only one in three studied breaches were detected by the organization's own security teams or tools, while 27% of such breaches were disclosed by an attacker, and 40% were disclosed by a neutral third party such as law enforcement.

Responding organizations that discovered the breach themselves experienced nearly $1 million less in breach costs than those disclosed by an attacker ($5.23 million vs. $4.3 million). Breaches disclosed by an attacker also had a lifecycle nearly 80 days longer (320 vs. 241) compared to those who identified the breach internally. The significant cost and time savings that come with early detection show that investing in these strategies can pay off in the long run.

Additional findings in the 2023 IBM report include:

• Breaching Data Across Environments – Nearly 40% of data breaches studied resulted in the loss of data across multiple environments including public cloud, private cloud, and on-prem—showing that attackers were able to compromise multiple environments while avoiding detection. Data breaches studied that impacted multiple environments also led to higher breach costs ($4.75 million on average).
• Costs of Healthcare Breaches Continue to Soar – The average costs of a studied breach in healthcare reached nearly $11 million in 2023 – a 53% price increase since 2020. Cybercriminals have started making stolen data more accessible to downstream victims, according to the 2023 X-Force Threat Intelligence Report. With medical records as leverage, threat actors amplify pressure on breached organizations to pay a ransom. In fact, across all industries studied, customer personally identifiable information was the most commonly breached record type and the costliest.
• The DevSecOps Advantage – Studied organizations across all industries with a high level of DevSecOps saw a global average cost of a data breach nearly $1.7 million lower than those studied with a low level/no use of a DevSecOps approach.
• Critical Infrastructure Breach Costs Break $5 Million – Critical infrastructure organizations studied experienced a 4.5% jump in the average costs of a breach compared to last year – increasing from $4.82 million to $5.04 million – $590K higher than the global average.

Additional Sources

• To download a copy of the 2023 Cost of a Data Breach Report, please visit: https://www.ibm.com/security/data-breach.
• Read more about the report's top findings in this IBM Security Intelligence blog.
• Sign up for the 2023 IBM Security Cost of a Data Breach webinar on Tuesday, August 1, 2023, at 11:00 a.m. ET here.
• Connect with the IBM Security X-Force team for a personalized review of the findings: https://ibm.biz/book-a-consult.
• For a closer look at the report recommendations visit: Cost of a Data breach Action Guide.

Former Stackline VP to spearhead revenue operations for independent converged TV advertising platform

Innovid , an independent advertising platform for the delivery, personalization, and measurement of converged TV across linear, CTV and digital, today announced the hire of Jeff Austin as Senior Vice President of Revenue Operations.

In this role, Austin will be responsible for overseeing and optimizing revenue-generating processes and platforms, aligning Innovid's strategic functions across sales, marketing, customer success, and operations to maximize revenue growth and efficiency. 

With nearly 20 years of experience across sales, marketing, and operations, Austin joins Innovid from Stackline, where he served as VP, Business Operations. Specializing in high-growth cloud software companies, he has successfully spearheaded revenue-driving efforts and efficient go-to-market strategies – leveraging his expertise in operational optimization to ensure efficient and profitable growth across the customer experience.

"The connected TV advertising technology industry continues to experience monumental change, rewarding innovation that addresses market challenges within an environment focused on value creation and performance," said Dave Helmreich, Chief Commercial Officer at Innovid. "Jeff has a proven track record of accelerating revenue growth, building high-performing teams, and brings a wealth of expertise and passion that will be invaluable as we continue to support our customers through the next phase of industry disruption and growth.

"I'm joining Innovid at a pivotal time as dollars continue to shift toward digital video formats, putting the company in an ideal position to drive impactful outcomes for clients in today's increasingly complex converged TV landscape," said Austin. "I look forward to helping Innovid maximize the opportunity in front of them by continuously improving the effectiveness of our team's interactions with customers in realizing the future of TV."

Rightpoint, a global experience leader and Genpact company, has been honored with the prestigious 2023 Microsoft US Partner of the Year Award for Modern Work: Employee Experience, in recognition of its Total Experience approach. This marks the second consecutive year that Rightpoint has been acknowledged by Microsoft for its exceptional work.

The company has also been named as a finalist in two worldwide categories, Employee Experience and Modern Workplace for Frontline Workers. These accolades highlight the company’s dedication to delivering exceptional results and its expertise in leveraging Microsoft's technology to meet the evolving needs of clients.

“This accomplishment is a testament to our strong relationship with Microsoft," said Ron Shamah, Chief Executive Officer at Rightpoint. "With US companies losing a staggering $700 billion annually due to employee attrition, investing in the employee and customer experience has become a pressing need. That's why we prioritize delivering the Total Experience, recognizing the connection of customer satisfaction and employee engagement in driving overall organizational success.”

Rightpoint firmly believes that organizations must prepare for a workplace where generative AI and Microsoft Viva, an employee experience platform, create an environment in which employees can thrive and be more engaged and more productive. Generative AI will revolutionize the employee experience by enabling personalized and streamlined interactions. Microsoft Copilot for Viva will automate repetitive tasks, provide intelligent recommendations, and facilitate seamless communication and collaboration. The future of employee experience powered by generative AI and Microsoft Viva will enable organizations to transform employee engagement and business performance.

The Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards recognize Microsoft partners that have developed and delivered outstanding Microsoft-based applications, services, and devices during the past year. Awards were classified in various categories, with winners chosen from a pool of more than 4,200 submitted nominations received from more than 100 countries worldwide. Rightpoint was recognized for its outstanding solutions and services in Employee Experience and modernizing the workplace for frontline workers.

“Congratulations to the winners and finalists of the 2023 Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards!” said Nicole Dezen, Chief Partner Officer and Corporate Vice President of Global Partner Solutions at Microsoft. “The innovative new solutions and services that positively impact customers and enable digital transformation from this year's winners demonstrate the best of what’s possible with the Microsoft Cloud.”