Retailers Targeted for 62 Percent of Commerce Attacks.

 Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the cloud company that powers and protects life online, released a new State of the Internet report today that spotlights the increasing number and variety of attacks on the commerce sector. Entering through the Gift Shop: Attacks on Commerce finds that commerce remains the most targeted web attack vertical, accounting for over 14 billion (34 percent) of observed incursions.

As commerce organizations increasingly rely on web applications to drive customer experience and online conversions, adversaries target vulnerabilities, design flaws or security gaps to abuse web-facing servers and applications. Retail remains the most targeted subvertical within commerce, accounting for 62 percent of attacks on the sector. This impacts both organizations and consumers.

The new Akamai research also finds that Local File Inclusion (LFI) attacks - that involve attackers exploiting vulnerabilities in how a web server stores or controls access to its files - increased by more than 300 percent between Q3 2021 and Q3 2022 and are now the most common attack vector used against the commerce sector. Just a few years ago, SQL injection (SQLi) was the most common incursion. This indicates an attack trend toward remote code execution and hackers leveraging LFI vulnerabilities to gain a foothold for data exfiltration.

Other key findings of Entering through the Gift Shop: Attacks on Commerce include:

• Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF), Server-Side Template Injection (SSTI), and Server-Side Code Injection (SSCI) have emerged as critical attack techniques to defend against and pose great threats to commerce organizations.
• Half of the JavaScript that the commerce vertical uses comes from third-party vendors, and this introduces the increased threat of client-side attacks like web skimming and Magecart attacks. It is critical to put mechanisms in place that detect these attacks to remain compliant with new PCI DSS 4.0 requirements.
• Attackers could also abuse security gaps in scripts, enabling a pathway for criminals to infiltrate bigger, lucrative targets in supply chains.
• Akamai observed malicious bot requests surpassing 5 trillion events in 15 months, with assaults against commerce customers proliferating via credential stuffing attacks that can lead to fraud.
• Over 30 percent of phishing campaigns targeted commerce brands in Q1 2023.
• Attacks in Europe, Middle East, Asia and Africa (EMEA) are heavily skewed toward the retail subvertical, which accounts for 96.5 percent of attacks vs 3.3 percent for hotel and travel.
• Commerce is the second most frequently targeted web attack vertical in Asia-Pacific and Japan (APJ) at over 20 percent.

"The commerce sector is characterized by a complex ecosystem that leverages web applications and APIs to drive business," said Rupesh Chokshi, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Application Security at Akamai. "Entering through the Gift Shop: Attacks on Commerce examines various attack types that commerce organizations and their customers face. We highlight elements such as web applications, bots, phishing and the use of third-party scripts to gauge what is happening in this sector and to help both cybersecurity leaders and practitioners understand the critical threat trends impacting this industry."

Tessian, a Cloud-Native, API-enabled Email Security (CAPES) company, received the highest scores possible in the Vision, Support and Customer Success criteria according to report.

Tessian, Inc. today announced that it has been named a Strong Performer by Forrester Research, Inc. in The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Email Security, Q2 2023 – The 15 Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up. According to the Forrester report, "S&R pros interested in linking email security with security coaching and culture should consider Tessian as an additional (human) layer of protection."

As the Forrester report states, "Tessian has refined its superior vision to not only focus on protecting the human layer but also to frame email security as a means to elevate security culture within organizations. Roadmap items include expanding DLP capabilities to file-sharing applications; API-integrated remediation orchestration with major SIEM, SOAR, EDR, and XDR players; and expansion of protection to messaging and collaboration applications."

In Forrester's evaluation of the Enterprise Email Security Space, Forester suggests "email security customers should look for providers that:

• Offer flexibility in deployments and integrations.
• Make it easy for security teams to respond.
• Look beyond email to deliver holistic human protection."

Tessian's recognition as a Strong Performer in The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Email Security report comes on the heels of Tessian's two most recent major announcements at RSA Conference 2023 this past April. First, as the First Email Security Platform to Fully Integrate with M365 by integrating via both M365 Add-In (Office Add-In) and M365 API (Microsoft Graph API), on top of Tessian's existing deployment/integration options. April also delivered Tessian's Official Launch of Advanced Email Threat Response capabilities, Tessian Respond, offering a dramatically faster solution that quickly identifies and responds to email threats through proactive threat hunting capabilities and automated response to end-user reported emails.

"Tessian's vision is to secure the human layer, empowering people to do their best work without security getting in the way, by eliminating human influenced cyberattacks, accidents, and insider threats from the enterprise.", said Tim Sadler, Co-Founder and CEO at Tessian, "Our product strategy is to provide the most complete CAPES solution in the market, by not solely focusing on inbound email security, but also offering outbound data loss prevention, real-time security coaching, and the fastest response capabilities in the enterprise email security space."

International Data Corporation (IDC) has named Deloitte a global Leader for the third time in a row in their report entitled, Worldwide Artificial Intelligence Services 2023 Vendor Assessment. IDC recognized Deloitte as a Leader based on the organization's ability to provide industry and technical insights and competency, and help deliver innovation that produces results for clients.

In assessing the Artificial Intelligence (AI) services market, IDC notes, "Organizations increasingly look to AI solutions to drive revenue and profit growth as well as improve outcomes in areas such as customer satisfaction, operational efficiency, sustainability, process speed and accuracy, and speed to market for new products and services. However, many challenges persist, including employees' lack of data literacy and technology training, technical complexity, lack of resources to support end users and maintain AI systems, and issues related to security, privacy, and governance. Professional services firms remain a critical source of expertise, skills, and tools to incorporate AI into digital business strategies, build production-grade solutions, and realize ROI."

"We are honored to be recognized as a global AI services Leader for the third year in a row by IDC," says Costi Perricos, Deloitte Global AI and Data leader. "We are teaming with our clients and privileged ecosystem partners to shape agendas in the digital economy and architect and deliver complex, enterprise and functional transformations focused on driving business outcomes."

On the vendor inclusion criteria, the report notes, "This research includes analysis of AI services providers with global scale and broad portfolios spanning IDC's research coverage. This assessment is designed to evaluate the characteristics of each firm — as opposed to its size or the breadth of its services."

"As a leading provider of AI services and solutions, we are helping our clients scale AI across their organizations and achieve tangible business results," says Nitin Mittal, Deloitte Global Consulting Emerging Markets leader. "We are supporting our clients as they harness the transformative power of emerging disruptors, such as Generative AI, and use it to develop and deploy new and innovative AI-fueled solutions."

"This recognition from IDC underscores Deloitte's ability to provide the strategies, skills, experience and tools our clients need to realize positive business outcomes and ROI from integrating AI throughout their organizations," says Irfan Saif, Artificial Intelligence Strategic Growth Offering lead and principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP. "Our focus on the responsible, ethical and trustworthy implementation of AI helps our clients put the right guardrails in place to mitigate potential risks and negative outcomes from AI."

Merkle, dentsu's leading technology-enabled, data-driven customer experience management (CXM) company, announces the launch of its "Marketplaces Center of Excellence," a specialist unit that is the newest addition to Merkle's Experience & Commerce practice, a team of more than 4,500 experts globally.

Marketplace platforms and businesses – known for their ability to quickly onboard third-party sellers and offer a broad assortment of goods and services – have grown at six times the rate of traditional ecommerce business models within the past year and are now at the forefront of digital commerce expansion for many B2B and B2C brands. Appointed to lead the Center of Excellence is Paul Lynch, Merkle's Experience & Commerce practice leader for the United Kingdom and Ireland, orchestrating a global team of experts.

Merkle has been a marketplace transformation, design, and technology implementation partner for numerous brands, including supporting Saks Fifth Avenue's evolution from a traditional online department store toward a marketplace business by implementing the Mirakl technology platform. Another example is Merkle's collaboration with global aviation leader Satair in designing, launching, and optimizing a full-service B2B marketplace for its aircraft spare parts sales. In total, marketplaces implemented by Merkle for B2C and B2B brands generate over $2 billion in GMV (gross merchandise value) yearly.

"Merkle is already a global leader in realizing the potential of marketplace business models for B2C and B2B brands," said Holden Bale, global head of Experience & Commerce for Merkle. "But the journey can be complex. For many brands we work with, operating a marketplace business is a totally new way of working, and success requires more than just a technology implementation. This Center of Excellence solidifies our commitment to being a trusted commerce transformation partner globally. It ensures our clients have access to the best talent, expertise, and partnerships, like Mirakl, as they seek to deliver customer-centric business and operating model transformations that materially grow their bottom line."

"Having the right technology to power your marketplace growth is fundamental – but having the support of trusted partners with deep expertise is also essential to unlock the full benefits of the platform economy," said Adrien Nussenbaum, co-founder and co-CEO, Mirakl. "Merkle has long been a key partner of Mirakl's and a leader in helping enterprises achieve their full marketplace potential, and we are excited to see their continued investment in this dynamic space."

Merkle also recently partnered with Party City to launch a new marketplace concept as a part of the retailer's business evolution. In addition to being consumers' one-stop shop for party planning supplies to celebrate life's moments, Party City now delights consumers by providing services such as cakes through its new marketplace offering, which is local to the markets they are celebrating.

Merkle has also been an early adopter of marketplace technologies, including being a platinum partner for leading marketplace technology platform Mirakl. Merkle will be sponsoring the Mirakl B2C Platform Pioneer Summit on June 13, 2023 in Brooklyn, New York.

Merkle's global Experience & Commerce practice has brought together leading agencies from around the world, including Isobar, LiveArea, Shift7, HelloWorld, and DEG into one global community.

With financial backing from Capital One Ventures, HSBC Ventures, Santander, NatWest and DBW, Lightico solidifies its dominant position in the digital completion sector

Lightico, market-leading provider of digital customer interactions, today announced its acquisition of Europe's leading customer experience technology provider, Vizolution, which positions the joint company as the global leader in B2B2C Digital Completion for the financial services and telecom industries. With a robust, combined platform, the company enables businesses to fully engage remotely with their customers through any channel in an automated and mobile-first manner.

The joint company's solutions are already in use by leading companies in the financial services sector, including Capital One, GM Financial, HSBC, Santander Consumer Finance, NatWest, BNP Paribas, TD Bank, and by telecom companies including, BT/EE, VMO2, and Three, to reduce transaction times, increase efficiency and improve bottom-line profitability. Customers have seen over 80% faster turnaround times, 45% improvement in completion rates and an ROI of 360%.

"As customer expectations for service companies to offer seamless, digital experiences continues to soar, bringing Vizolution into the Lightico fold will result in a more robust platform devoted to helping businesses deliver world-class digital experiences," said Zviki Ben Ishay CEO and Co-Founder of Lightico. "With this acquisition, we are combining the leading digital completion solutions in North America and Europe to become the de facto global leader, and are well-positioned and fully funded to scale rapidly across the financial services and telecom industries where demand is at an all-time high."

The deal will combine Vizolution's transformational agent-assisted and self-serve solutions with Lightico's powerful Compliant Digital Completion Platform, including its workflow-integrated eSignature, document collection, and identification & verification services. This will provide clients with a unified solution to deliver an end-to-end, seamless, digital and complete solution for the entire customer lifecycle. Additionally, Vizolution's team will join Lightico's organizational structure with Zviki Ben Ishay, Lightico's CEO, at the helm and Bill Safran, Vizolution's CEO, transitioning to Chief Strategy Officer for the 150-person strong company. Additional shareholders; HSBC Ventures, Santander Consumer Finance, Natwest and Development Bank of Wales join Lightico's current backers Capital One Ventures, Crescendo, Lool Ventures, Mangrove Capital, Oxx, and Spinach Angels.

"Vizolution has been providing customer experience services to market-leading enterprises to help them transform and improve digital experiences for millions of their customers," said Bill Safran, CEO of Vizolution. "By joining forces with Lightico, we'll leverage the best of both technologies, people and organizations to deliver a strong, scalable, cloud-based offering that will deliver even greater value to our clients and their customers."

"As early backers of Vizolution, we've long believed that streamlining complex customer-facing interactions, especially in the financial services industry, is critical to success," said Terecina Kwong, Chief Operating Officer, HSBC Bank plc and HSBC Europe and Vizolution Board Member. "Lightico's acquisition of Vizolution is a significant step towards bringing this change to the entire industry and we look forward to continued success together."

"Vizolution's technology as well as the team behind it has enabled Santander Consumer Finance to provide customers with an exceptional digital consumer lending experience," said Santander Consumer Finance CEO José Luis De Mora. "We have no doubt that consumer demand for more seamless end-to-end digital experiences will grow, and with Lightico and Vizolution combining forces, we're confident that the new, larger company will help Santander Consumer Finance further its digital footprint and be one of the most important leaders in digitizing the consumer lending market."

Report looks at "The 15 providers that matter most," evaluating current offering, strategy, and market presence

Barracuda, a trusted partner and leading provider of cloud-first security solutions, today announced it has been named a Strong Performer in "The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Email Security, Q2 2023." The report specifically cited Barracuda for, "Security and risk pros looking to manage both email threat preventions and response in a single solution should consider Barracuda Networks."^1.  

"With the rising complexity and severity of email attacks, cybercriminals are continuously devising new methods to evade conventional email security solutions," said Don MacLennan, SVP, Engineering & Product Management, Email Protection, Barracuda. "Through our innovative use of machine learning, we empower businesses to proactively stay ahead of these threats and safeguard their valuable data. We believe the recognition of our product in the report validates our approach and the way we optimize packaging based on the needs our email security customers."

According to the Forrester report, "Reference customers rave about Barracuda's efficacy – especially against impersonation attempts – and built-in incident response capabilities, including SOAR for fast, intuitive investigation and remediation activities." ^1.  

Get a complimentary copy of The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Email Security, Q2 2023: https://www.barracuda.com/reports/email-wave-2023 

Customer case studies:
"With the advanced anti-phishing protection and security awareness training, we have built the best security against ransomware getting in," said Lacey Gosch, Assistant Superintendent of Technology Judson Independent School District. See customer case study, here: https://assets.barracuda.com/assets/docs/dms/CS_Judson-School-District_US_Final.pdf

"What really spoke to us and made the biggest difference was the Phishing and Impersonation Protection part that uses AI to detect the kind of account-takeover threats that were our biggest immediate problem," said Jon Smallwood, IT Manager Hunt Brothers Pizza. See customer case study, here: https://assets.barracuda.com/assets/docs/dms/CS_Hunt_Brothers_Pizza_final.pdf

Experian is the first identity technology provider to integrate with Vault’s interoperable data sharing and measurement technology

Tatari, a leading platform for buying and measuring advertising across both linear and streaming TV, today announced the launch of Vault, a new sister company focused on privacy-first technology solutions for connected TV (CTV) advertising.

Vault’s first product is a data clean room (DCR) solution that provides publishers, advertisers, and measurement companies with a secure and neutral space for data collaboration. At launch, The Vault DCR is interoperable across leading publishers and comes natively enabled with Experian’s Consumer Sync identity, which covers more than 200 million IDs in CTV.

Amid increased privacy regulation, both CTV publishers and advertisers need to share data and insights in a secure and privacy-compliant fashion. DCR solutions are widely available today but remain unique and isolated to each publisher. This creates fragmentation, preventing ad buyers from looking across campaigns and publishers.

The Vault DCR is the first and only compatible solution that allows CTV publishers and ad buyers to share data in a tokenized, privacy-compliant fashion, solving the problem of fragmentation for both sides. This ensures that advertisers can measure their results and assess their return on ad spend across all ad buys. Publishers in turn get proper credit for aiding in those outcomes while meeting the spirit and letter of privacy standards. Above all, the Vault DCR ensures no interruption in measurement capabilities as new privacy laws and regulations go into effect in the future.

The more than 200 brands and agencies that use the Tatari platform for buying and measuring TV advertising also gain free turnkey interoperability as the Vault DCR allows for cross-publisher measurement, without the heavy lift of multiple integrations.

“While data clean rooms are a fantastic product for collaborating on viewership and performance data, their growth is forcing ad buyers to manage several integrations,” said Philip Inghelbrecht, founder, and CEO of Tatari. “This complexity introduces an immediate challenge, slowing down the advertiser’s speed to scale. The Vault DCR product solves this, easily connecting the Tatari platform to all publishers. The integration with Experian gives brands reassurance that they are using a powerful, trustworthy identity to ensure addressability. This smooths the way for privacy-compliant, data-driven, outcomes-focused TV ad buys. In other words, the future of TV.”

By leveraging Experian Consumer Sync, the Vault DCR does not require any heavy lifting or tech infrastructure changes for either publishers or brands. All parties can simply submit their PII data to the privacy-safe environment. Experian’s resolution technology enables a pseudonymized, privacy-compliant data collaboration. Experian is the first identity resolution technology provider to integrate with Vault, with more partners to be added later.

“Experian’s strategy is to be a neutral enabler of addressability and measurement across the entire ecosystem, particularly as it evolves in a more privacy-forward direction” said Chris Feo, SVP Sales & Partnerships at Experian. “We are thrilled to be a part of these efforts to establish a privacy-first infrastructure for TV as it continues to emerge as the leading channel for activation.”

As part of the launch, Tatari also announced the formation of a new holding company, Infra. Tatari and TheViewPoint will now operate as subsidiaries of Infra, alongside Vault.

CGPT Online, a leading provider of AI solutions, is thrilled to announce the launch of ChatGPT Online, an extraordinary website that leverages the power of the GPT-3.5 (Generative Pre-training Transformer 3.5) platform. This groundbreaking offering allows users to engage in captivating conversations with AI-powered chatbots without the need for registration or account login.

ChatGPT Online (https://cgptonline.io/) represents a significant advancement in AI chatbot technology. With the GPT-3.5 platform at its core, this innovative website provides users with an unparalleled chatbot experience that is remarkably human-like. Powered by OpenAI's GPT-3.5, ChatGPT Online is capable of generating real-time responses and engaging in meaningful conversations with users, transforming the way we interact with AI.

The GPT-3.5 platform, renowned for its advanced natural language processing capabilities, enables ChatGPT Online to comprehend and respond to user queries with exceptional accuracy. Users can enjoy dynamic conversations, receive code snippets in popular programming languages such as Python, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS, and effortlessly communicate in multiple languages including French, Spanish, German, Hindi, Japanese, and Chinese.

What sets ChatGPT Online apart is its ability to provide an immersive conversational experience that closely resembles human interactions. The GPT-3.5 platform empowers the chatbot to understand context, deliver relevant responses, and engage users in a natural and engaging manner. This breakthrough technology opens up a world of possibilities for businesses and individuals alike.

Businesses can leverage the power of ChatGPT Online to revolutionize their customer service operations. With the chatbot's capability to swiftly address frequently asked questions, provide order tracking information, deliver product/service details, share shipping updates, and offer promotions, businesses can enhance customer satisfaction, streamline support processes, and foster brand loyalty. The AI-powered chatbot ensures faster response times and round-the-clock assistance, empowering businesses to deliver exceptional customer experiences.

Moreover, ChatGPT Online provides a customizable and scalable solution. Leveraging the GPT-3.5 platform, businesses can train custom models tailored to their specific requirements, enabling the chatbot to provide product-specific information or deliver text output in a desired style. From startups to enterprises, ChatGPT Online empowers businesses of all sizes to personalize the AI chatbot experience according to their unique needs.

CGPT Online places utmost importance on user privacy and data security. Stringent security protocols have been implemented to safeguard user information, ensuring privacy and confidentiality. Additionally, a dedicated team continuously monitors and improves the chatbot's performance to provide accurate and relevant responses.

"We are excited to introduce ChatGPT Online, powered by the GPT-3.5 platform, to users worldwide," said Ernest George, CEO of CGPT Online. "This remarkable technology opens up endless possibilities for businesses and individuals, transforming the way we interact with AI. We invite users to visit our website and experience the future of AI-powered communication."