Stay ahead of the headlines

Mar 5, 2024·CIO Dive

Dell focuses on on-prem AI & generative AI to boost PC business amid declining growth, sees enterprise demand for AI-optimized servers, aims for AI integration in PCs and edge networks, faces production challenges due to chip shortages.

Mar 1, 2024·CSO

50 years ago, businesses were paper-native; all processes were executed on paper. As computers and networks rose in popularity, businesses became compute and network-native. This digital transformation led to the rise of the CIO, but IT expenses increased under their leadership. The rise of the internet shifted corporate revenues to online sources, prompting CIOs to cut costs, resulting in less agile IT teams. This spurred engineering teams to create innovative applications unsupported by IT, prompting the birth of CISO. The rising popularity of cloud-native enterprises disrupted the traditional CIO model, leading to various teams managing their own cloud environments.

Feb 26, 2024·Starbridge Advisors

"Technology debt," compromising IT infrastructure due to underfunding and investment compromises, causes operational issues over time. In health systems, tech debt may lead to massive downtime costs, budget overruns, and compromised efficiency. Addressing tech debt necessitates comprehensive assessment, business-focused approach, regular budget allocation, and possibly switching to new technology stacks. Regained control over tech debt allows organizations to refocus tech resources on value creation for employees and patients.

Feb 20, 2024·eWeek

Providence Healthcare revamped its network for digital transformation by adopting Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN), boosting performance and reliability across its 51 hospitals and 829 clinics. The SD-WAN solution provides dynamic remediation, transport and routing separation, simplified management, and standardized configuration and design. VMware emerged as their chosen SD-WAN vendor following extensive testing. The updated network enables Providence to swiftly accommodate new opportunities and demands, expanding healthcare delivery beyond hospitals to its network of clinics.

Feb 19, 2024·The Register

Microsoft will retire Azure IoT Central by March 31, 2027, halting new application creation from April 2024 while keeping existing apps functional. The IoT Central is an IoT aPaaS that reduces work and costs of building, managing, and maintaining IoT solutions. IoT Central is a part of Microsoft's Azure IoT offering consisting of IoT Hub, IoT Edge, and IoT Central. The company hasn't specified if IoT Hub and IoT Edge will continue.

Feb 14, 2024·Oracle

Seema Verma, newly appointed executive VP and GM of Oracle Health and Oracle Life Sciences, plans a patient-centered approach to bridge clinical research and care, using technology including data science, AI and ML. Through the Cerner acquisition, Oracle gained technology to revolutionize healthcare systems and de-identified data from over 2,608 facilities across the U.S. Verma emphasizes the importance of interoperability in healthcare, predicting provider access to organized patient data, analytics, AI, and proactive interventions for disease prevention. Oracle aims to reduce clinical trial burdens, increase accessibility, eliminate manual data re-entry, meet regulatory demands, reduce administrative costs with technology, and align financial incentives with value-based care.

Feb 13, 2024·WSJ

AI-driven cloud revenue growth reported; early-stage AI projects boost cloud use. Despite AI's enterprise adoption challenges, Amazon, Google and Microsoft credit AI for their cloud business growth. AI tests and proof of concepts boost infrastructure demand. Risks persist due to failure of translating proof of concepts into ROI generating solutions.

Feb 13, 2024·MedCity News

Johns Hopkins University and its health system were sued over data breach due to inadequate IT security, implicating the MOVEit file transfer system. Other healthcare systems like Harris Health also affected. The breach led to increased SaaS adoption by healthcare providers, yet attackers already exploit SaaS vulnerabilities, as shown by the Jumpcloud incident. Enhanced security for healthcare SaaS services necessitates Zero Trust architectures, security-focused UX, user control over security policies, data segmentation and multi-tenancy, and accessible security event analysis for institutional customers.

Feb 9, 2024·IDC

IDC predicts AI PC shipments to grow from 50 million units in 2024 to 167 million in 2027, making up nearly 60% of all PC shipments globally. Enhanced performance, lower costs, privacy and security drive interest in AI PCs. PC silicon vendors have introduced AI-specific silicon (NPUs) to run AI tasks efficiently. IDC identifies three NPU-enabled AI PCs; hardware-enabled AI PCs, next-generation AI PCs, and advanced AI PCs. IDC expects Next-generation AI PCs to dominate the market by 2027.

Feb 7, 2024·FierceHealthcare

Oracle appoints former Trump administration health policy leader Seema Verma to head Oracle Health and Cerner EHR business after acquiring Cerner in $28bn deal in 2022. Challenges in growing EHR business as Cerner drags Oracle's Q2 revenue. Oracle plans to modernize Cerner's EHR platform and transition it to the cloud. Oracle also adopted a massive IT project with the Department of Veterans Affairs through Cerner acquisition. Layoffs reported at Oracle Health.

Feb 5, 2024·CISA

CISA offers free cybersecurity assessments to evaluate resilience, practices and management of infrastructural elements. Available to government and critical infrastructure, the Assessment Evaluation and Standardization program trains individuals to conduct cybersecurity assessments according to industry or federal standards. Services include Vulnerability Scanning of public IPv4s, resulting in weekly vulnerability reports. The Cyber Resilience Review assesses organizational operational resilience and cybersecurity practices across 10 domains. Resources for conducting self-assessments are available. Also available is the External Dependencies Management Assessment evaluating an organization's management of external dependencies. The Cyber Infrastructure Survey assesses services against 80+ cybersecurity controls over 5 domains. The Cyber Security Evaluation Tool is also available for systematic evaluation of Operational Technology and Information Technology. No collected data will be used for regulatory purposes or publicly disclosed.

Feb 4, 2024·Yahoo News

"Microsoft Q4 profit rocketed 33% due to AI, cloud-computing investments, primarily in cloud-computing unit. Net income was $21.87 billion, exceeding expected $2.79/share. Revenue surged 18% to $62.02 billion, surpassing predictions. Microsoft’s expected ad revenue growth is 12%, potentially adding $14.93 billion in worldwide ad revenues. The results include Activision Blizzard's finances, acquired for $69 billion. The merger increased revenue growth by four points but trimmed operating profits by $440 million. Despite initial share drop, analysts believe investors are worried about Microsoft's aggressive investment plans."

Feb 2, 2024·DarkReading

CISA orders Federal Civilian Executive Branch agencies to remove all Ivanti appliances within 48 hours due to multiple security flaw exploitations. Chinese state-backed cyberattackers exploited at least two vulnerabilities causing CISA to instruct agencies to disconnect Ivanti products. CISA directive applies to 102 agencies, includes Homeland Security, State, Energy, and SEC. All entities using Ivanti appliances urged to prioritize network protection. Appliances can't reconnect until rebuilt and upgraded. Agencies must report steps by Feb. 5, 2024. CISA mandates double password reset, Kerberos tickets revocation, device token revocation, and reports by March 1, 2024.

Jan 30, 2024·HealthTech Magazine

MemorialCare's IT VP, Kevin Torres, boosts cybersecurity by partnering with experts, concentrating on basics and updating defenses quickly. Torres benchmarks against peers using annual benchmarks and direct evaluations, following the NIST framework and monitoring systems using 24/7 SIEM systems to detect adverse events. They use CDW's insights for tool and process implementation. MemorialCare and CDW work closely through timely communication on cybersecurity issues. In their cloud journey, CDW aids with off-site backups and system recovery.

Jan 24, 2024·The Register

Microsoft's network was breached by Russian group Cozy Bear, marking their second intrusion since 2020. The breach happened in late November 2023 and was detected in January 2024, resulting in stolen emails and files of Microsoft's leadership and cybersecurity and legal employees. Despite such incidents, Microsoft's stock prices remain unaffected and the company continues to secure government and enterprise contracts, rising to be one of the largest cybersecurity vendors globally. US Senator Ron Wyden criticized Microsoft's lack of multi-factor authentication and called for a reassessment of the US government's dependence on Microsoft.

Jan 24, 2024·BankInfoSecurity

Russian state hackers accessed senior Microsoft executives' inboxes for six weeks; no customer data, production systems accessed. Microsoft discovered attack in January, linked with Russian hacking group Midnight Blizzard. Incident currently not affecting company’s financial condition or operations.

Jan 22, 2024·Beckers Hospital Review

Financial pressures force health systems to lay off IT workers, marking a shift from previous trends in unfilled roles. Despite IT's potential for reducing expenses through automation, it is still often considered a first place to cut costs. Some systems outsource IT roles for tasks like transitioning to new services. While AI possesses promising potential, it hasn't yet matched the hype in yielding expected benefits.

Jan 15, 2024·BleepingComputer

Ukrainian man arrested for hacking accounts, creating 1 million virtual servers to mine $2 million cryptocurrency. Europol and Ukrainian police seized equipment, cards, and illegal activity evidence. Cryptojacking scheme involved hijacking others' computing resources, leading to CPU, GPU performance degradation and increased power usage. Cloud service provider initially reported attack. Cryptocurrency mining risk mitigation includes monitoring unusual activity, implementing endpoint protection, intrusion detection systems, limiting access to critical resources, timely security updates, and enabling 2FA on administrative accounts.

Jan 12, 2024·CNBC

Google Cloud offers free data migration, undercutting Amazon, Microsoft by abolishing "punitive" fees. Move incentivizes customer cloud service switch based on quality, counteracting contract restrictions and licensing practices. AWS claims majority clients pay nothing for data transfer; Microsoft stays silent. Google Cloud turned profitable under Thomas Kurian's leadership, inciting competition through free transfers. Reflects on Google's criticism of competitors' "anti-competitive" practices; demands restrictive licensing end for fair cloud market.

Jan 10, 2024·Beckers Hospital Review

Healthcare CIOs in 2024 plan to reinforce IT foundations, having innovated rapidly during COVID-19, according to a Forbes article. Need for advancements like AI are driving this focus shift. Annapolis Luminis Health's CIO, Saad Chaudhry, notes return to a pre-pandemic state is impossible. Providence's CIO, B.J. Moore, and Boston Children's Hospital's CIO, Heather Nelson, echo these sentiments, stressing a strong IT base for tech progress and innovation.