Productized Integrations Enable Access, Activate, and Integrate Data from Any Source to Generate Personalized Content

Movable Ink, the AI-powered content personalization platform, today announced the expansion of its Universal Data Activation partner integrations. Marketers now can access and activate any data point from any source to generate hyper-personalized experiences across email and mobile channels from an expanded list of leading martech vendors, including Airship, Amplitude, Branch, Criteo, Klaviyo, mParticle, Punchh, and Tealium. The news follows productized integrations with Adobe Experience Platform, Braze, and Twilio Segment.

"Martech has evolved beyond a one-size-fits-all solution. Modern marketers now have the flexibility to assemble a top-tier tech stack tailored to their organization's specific needs. The challenge, though, has been in ensuring these different technologies work seamlessly together," said Vivek Sharma, Movable Ink CEO & Co-Founder. "With Movable Ink, marketers are empowered to fully harness their marketing stack's capabilities, utilizing data from any source to dynamically personalize content for each customer across all touchpoints to build lasting customer experiences."

With Movable Ink's Universal Data Activation, brands can:

• Access any data from any source: Stream any data element (customer, behavioral, product or catalog, transactional, business, etc.) from any source, including, CDP, website, ESP, mobile app, loyalty platform or homegrown solution. By tapping into additional sources of real-time data, clients can unlock more sophisticated and higher ROI use cases - adding in new elements of personalized content to increase revenue, conversions, and clicks.
• Activate data without IT: Movable Ink automatically maps and transforms each data point removing the need to modify current data setups or schemas to personalize content. Marketers can now deliver higher-quality content more quickly than ever, thanks to greatly reduced setup and implementation times.
• Integrate across the martech ecosystem: Movable Ink seamlessly integrates with your existing martech stack. The new partner integrations make it quicker and simpler to transfer data from other systems into Movable Ink Studio for personalized content creation. These integrations help marketers boost ROI from their current investments without interrupting their everyday workflows.

The expansion of partner integrations is a further demonstration of Movable Ink's commitment to delivering cutting-edge data access and activation capabilities enabling brands to generate personalized content at scale. These are just a sample of the dozens of Movable Ink partners working to seamlessly deliver exceptional experiences for brands worldwide.

Data security leader unveils new AI-powered security analyst and natural language search to transform cybersecurity efficiency

Varonis Systems, Inc., a leader in data security, is expanding its AI and machine learning capabilities with the launch of Athena AI, a new generative AI layer that spans across the Varonis Data Security Platform.

Varonis Athena AI redefines how security teams protect data — from visibility to action. Using natural language, customers can conduct in-depth investigations and analysis more efficiently, transforming users of all skill levels into formidable defenders.

Athena AI initially provides two powerful generative AI capabilities:

• AI SOC analyst. Athena AI's insights and actions help your security team get to the root cause of an alert, resolve incidents, and proactively harden your environment in record time. Athena AI combines large language models (LLMs) with Varonis' unique context about your organization's data, identities, devices, and previous alerts to instantly generate tailored alert response playbooks.

• Natural language search. Athena AI enables users of all experience levels to see and reduce their blast radius with Varonis. Teams can use natural language to get fast and accurate answers to questions such as, "Do we have any files containing passwords that are open to the internet?" or "Which users have accessed our payroll files this week?"

Building on a Strong AI Foundation

Varonis has used AI for more than a decade, delivering security outcomes for customers with patented machine learning-powered threat detection and intelligent access control capabilities. This new generative AI layer builds on the success of the platform and its automation to take data security to new heights.

"Varonis is in a unique position. The metadata they collect and analyze is proving to be invaluable for AI and automation," said Ed Amoroso, CEO and Founder of TAG Cyber. "Now they're using generative AI to empower their customers to solve data security problems even faster."

SlashNext's QR Phishing Protection leverages patent-pending computer vision and natural language processing (NLP) to block the delivery of messages containing malicious QR codes and block malicious QR code URLs scanned by users' mobile phones

SlashNext, the leader in SaaS-based Integrated Cloud Messaging Security across email, web, and mobile, today announced the release of QR Code Phishing Protection to stop Quishing, QRLJacking and other scams distributed via malicious QR codes. SlashNext's QR Code Phishing Protection is the first security solution to offer multi-channel Quishing protection that blocks malicious QR codes in email, mobile, web and messaging channels such as Slack, iMessage, Microsoft Teams, and more.

The use of QR codes in cyberattacks has grown dramatically in the wake of widespread adoption of QR codes during the pandemic for legitimate, contact-free purposes. Unlike other security solutions that aim to address Quishing (QR code phishing) and QRLJacking (QR code login jacking), SlashNext's solution leverages both its patent-pending computer vision and a new QR code natural language processing (NLP) classifier and protects users from more than just credential Quishing. Its ability to detect malicious intent in both the QR code itself as well as the accompanying message makes it the most comprehensive and accurate protection against QR-code based attacks.

"In recent months, Quishing and QRLJacking have contributed to the huge growth we have observed in phishing," said Patrick Harr, CEO, SlashNext. "As a security company focused on phishing protection, we dedicate resources to continuously observe attack patterns, technology innovations leveraged by cybercriminals, and overall trends in the security landscape in order to anticipate and proactively address emerging threats. We are pleased to extend this critical protection to all existing and new customers."

In October 2023, SlashNext Threat Labs published a blog post detailing how threat actors leverage QR codes for various attacks and breach attempts. Quishing, a blend of QR code and phishing techniques, manipulates QR codes for nefarious purposes. With Quishing, the attacker generates a QR code embedded with a phishing link or malware download and then distributes the QR code to victims via phishing emails, digital ads, social media, or even posters in common areas. Believing the QR code came from a legitimate source, a victim scans the QR code with their mobile phone camera.

QRLJacking is a social engineering method that exploits the "login with QR code" feature available on many legitimate apps and websites and is leveraged by bad actors to gain full control of victims' accounts.

"Without proper protection, it is nearly impossible for the average user to distinguish a legitimate QR code from a malicious code," continued Harr. "It is unreasonable to expect employees and everyday users to avoid QR codes altogether when they are quickly becoming ubiquitous in many legitimate service industries and for login purposes. However, the cybercriminals know this as well, which is why we will only see increased reliance on Quishing and QRLJacking as attack techniques."

As the needs of modern marketers evolve, RRD is making significant investments in digital direct mail production capabilities and marketing automation solutions

R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company (RRD), a leading global provider of marketing, packaging, print, and supply chain solutions, has enhanced the go-to-market platform of its Direct Marketing Group (DMG) to deliver increased ROI to organizations focusing on optimizing their marketing strategies.

“Direct marketing has evolved from a linear process to a delicate science of understanding how each channel plays a unique role in the customer journey,” says Stefanie Cortes, Director of Strategic Analysis, Direct Marketing, RRD. “As marketers continue to feel the pressure to deliver and prove ROI, it’s critical we provide our clients with verifiable methodologies that match messaging and touchpoint strategies to the individual preferences of their target audiences."

With the direct mail channel being core to the DMG offering, this specialized group has developed a simplified three-phase approach — identify, create, deploy — that fuses audience insights and creative expertise with intentional delivery strategies to meet the needs of performance-minded marketers:

1. Identify, understand and prioritize the right audience
2. Create messaging and design that drives awareness and response
3. Deploy coordinated direct marketing campaigns via scheduled, automated or complete journeys

Evolving marketer requirements — quicker, more sophisticated personalization and deeper integration with all channels — have accelerated growth in digital direct mail utilization and automation solutions. As one of the largest digital print networks in the world, RRD’s recent installments of next-generation digital press technologies adds enhanced quality, capabilities, and capacity to deliver 1:1 marketing at scale. Combined with ongoing investments in automation, in both existing and new solutions, the company is committed to continually meeting the changing needs of its clients.

“With over 100 years of combined experience, our direct marketing strategists understand it takes a high-performance program to drive response,” says John Pecaric, Chief Operating Officer, RRD. “Whether the direct mail channel is a fundamental piece of your marketing program or an element you’re beginning to merge with your digital strategies, this group’s refined methodology is proven to drive consistent and continuous performance.”

A Decade-Long Dedication to 33Across, Mollura Drives 33Across' Marketing and Communications Strategy

33Across, an addressable infrastructure designed for the open web, today announces Lisa Mollura's promotion from Vice President of Marketing to Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). With nearly a decade of commitment to the company, Mollura has played an integral role in the company's transformation, guiding the marketing and communications efforts for the company from a programmatic platform to a leading addressable infrastructure, propelled by the innovative identity solution, Lexicon.

Mollura played a pivotal role in crafting Lexicon's go-to-market strategy, to a solution enabling publishers to effortlessly monetize their inventory across major supply-side platforms. The company now enriches over 54 billion bids daily, establishing Lexicon as a universal identity resolution technology for all programmatic stakeholders.

"We are well into the final fourth quarter of the third-party cookie era and at a critical moment for the industry. To guide programmatic advertising's path forward, we need to ensure a transparent and secure transition to using alternative identifiers. 33Across has become a trusted resource, and I'm truly honored to become CMO," said Mollura. "I look forward to elevating 33Across' visibility as the go-to for addressable infrastructure."

In the last year, 33Across has achieved resounding success with the launch of the Cookie Alternative Report led by Mollura and her team. This report has emerged as a primary resource for understanding programmatic buying behavior for cookie alternative buy and sell-side trends versus third-party cookie transactions. This report has garnered attention from analysts, journalists, and industry experts, including recognition from various thought leaders like Insider Intelligence. Mollura's innovative approach includes the ability to simplify technical language into accessible themes and informative visuals.

"In the past ten years, Lisa has held and led every position in marketing at 33Across, excelling at every opportunity to improve our customer relations and corporate brand. Lisa's promotion to CMO is a recognition of her incredible talent, an unwavering dedication to our customers, and to our company. She continues to translate complex technical products into easy-to-understand solutions that drive business outcomes for our publisher and industry customers," said Eric Wheeler, CEO of 33Across.

Given 33Across' impressive growth, Mollura's proficiency in diverse marketing strategies plays an important role in the company's plan for further expansion.  Prior to 33Across, Mollura held noteworthy roles at Rakuten Advertising and Zurich North America.

Survey finds 69% of consumers across the US and UK believe cyberattack methods will become more sophisticated in the year ahead, while only 6% feel defenses will improve to protect against them

New research released today from ThreatX, the leading API and application protection platform, revealed that the vast majority of consumers are concerned that cyberattacks will increase or remain consistent over the coming year (97%) and become more sophisticated (69%), outpacing the ability of cyber defenses to protect against these threats. In fact, only 13% reported feeling that they are going to be completely protected from cyberattacks in the year ahead.

ThreatX’s survey of 2,000 consumers across the US and UK sheds light on consumers’ predictions for cybersecurity in 2024, including their biggest concerns, and their plans to adjust their own practices. Results found that the majority of consumers (94%) predict that cyberattack methods become more difficult to defend against in 2024; at the same time, only 6% believe new cybersecurity defenses will be able to defend against these new and rising threats to ensure data remains protected and secure.

The results show that consumers are paying attention to the rising threat of cyberattacks and how the companies they do business with respond to and defend against them. Of the consumers surveyed, the majority (64%) are most worried about the rising threat of ransomware, followed by 51% worried about the volume of nation state attacks increasing, and 46% stated they are most concerned about identity theft in 2024. Half (50%) of consumers said that financial services will be the most targeted industry by cyberthreats in the next year, followed by SaaS/tech (45%) and government (22%).

“Every year, analysts, security, and technology experts put out their predictions on where the cybersecurity industry is going, the biggest threats likely to arise, and up and coming themes and technologies to watch out for, but we hardly ever gauge consumer sentiment on this topic,” said Gene Fay, CEO at ThreatX. “What we’ve found is that consumers are keeping a pulse on cybersecurity trends and have serious concerns around how their sensitive information is protected. As they look at the companies that they do business with, it’s clear they’ll be expecting more robust cybersecurity measures be put in place to meet the evolving threats of tomorrow.”

The report also presents several notable findings:

• Consumers are upping their personal security in 2024: 70% plan to be more consistent with their remote work security practices to ensure they increase online security next year. Consumers plan to adopt security-related behaviors including: different passwords for different accounts (56%), two-factor authentication (55%), and avoiding connecting to insecure or public Wi-Fi (53%).
• Trust in organizations that consumers do business with is questionable: 87% of consumers are at least somewhat concerned about whether companies they do business with – from banks to retailers to healthcare providers – will keep their data safe in 2024, but 33% are most confident that security vendors will best be able to defend and protect sensitive information against cyberattacks, while 25% believe that it’s up to the government to ensure protection. When it comes to an individual company or brand, only 12% of consumers believe they are best able to protect consumer data from cyberattacks.
• There is a generational divide with Gen Z less concerned about security: One in four Baby Boomers feel that attack methods will become more sophisticated and harder to prevent next year, while only 5% of Gen Z consumers feel the same way. What’s more, despite the ongoing shifts to remote work environments for enterprises and consumers, 97% of Gen Z consumers don’t plan to take any measures to increase their personal and professional security.

“The findings from ThreatX’s survey highlight where cybersecurity experts’ and consumers’ minds intersect. Results showcase that consumers aren’t turning a blind eye to the potentially damaging effects cyberthreats pose to their personal data,” said Jeremy Ventura, Director, Security Strategy and Field CISO at ThreatX. “Vendors across all industries spanning retail, financial services, cybersecurity, healthcare, education and more, must ensure 2024 cybersecurity investments and strategies factor in consumer concerns, which includes making sure the tools adopted meet the challenges of looming cyberattacks threatening sensitive information.”