November 15, 2023

The IT Jobs AI Could Replace and the Ones It Could Create

Knowledge base managers and data scientists will be essential roles for enterprises as more and more data is fed into large language models (LLMs). “It's still a garbage in, garbage out problem, and if AI will now do more of our work, what we feed them is more important than ever,” says Katz. De Ridder expects to see prompt engineering to emerge as an important skill in the IT field rather than a distinct job. He describes new jobs that could come of the AI boom: agent and multiagent engineers. Agent engineers would maintain and adjust the AI agent processes, while multi-agent system engineers would function as project managers overseeing the complex processes and outcomes supported by multiple AI agents. These jobs will have myriad specializations tied to different fields, according to De Ridder. As more and more AI use cases emerge, IT workers could increasingly be looked at as AI co-pilots. How will they work alongside this technology to improve productivity, and how will they oversee AI capabilities to ensure the desired outcomes?

Microsoft Zero-Days Allow Defender Bypass, Privilege Escalation

But as with every Microsoft monthly update, there are several bugs in the latest batch that security experts agreed merit greater attention than others. The three actively exploited zero-day bugs fit that category. One of them is CVE-2023-36036, a privilege escalation vulnerability in Microsoft's Windows Cloud Files Mini Filter Driver that gives attackers a way to acquire system-level privileges. Microsoft has assessed the vulnerability as being a moderate — or important — severity threat but has provided relatively few other details about the issue. Satnam Narang, senior staff research engineer at Tenable, identified the bug as something that is likely going to be of interest to threat actors from a post-compromise activity standpoint. An attacker requires local access to an affected system to exploit the bug. The exploitation involves little complexity, user interaction, or special privileges. Windows Cloud Files Mini Filter Driver is a component that is essential to the functioning of cloud-stored files on Windows systems, says Saeed Abbasi, manager of vulnerability and threat research at Qualys.?

How to infuse strategy into everything your company does

The strategic goal-setting landscape is evolving, moving beyond global companies like Patagonia. It’s shifting from top-down mandates to a dynamic, bidirectional model that fosters ambition and collaboration at all levels. In highly successful organizations like LeanIX, an enterprise architecture management firm, we have watched how OKRs have been both a philosophy and a recipe for success and growth. LeanIX’s use of OKRs is not just a way to break down the company’s strategy and to agree on a common focus for the quarter; it’s an integral part of adopting a growth mindset. This ensures that the entire organization is continuously thinking big, aiming high, and trying out new approaches to achieve the next significant leap. ... Contemporary boardrooms have to echo the aspirations and values of Gen Z, emphasising both diversity and innovation. Merely having organizational strategies and cultural values framed and displayed on walls won’t suffice. They must be actively lived and practiced. Over a third of Gen Z expect leaders to not just lead but inspire. They demand a transparency that goes beyond open communication.?

The Art of Digital Continuity: Ensuring Data Availability in Disasters

During disasters, managers and IT employees bear the emotional burden of maintaining a calm and efficient work environment. This emotional labor can lead to stress and burnout, so managing it is key to maintaining productivity and data security during disasters. Here are some ways these professionals can cope with the emotional toll: Communication - Open and honest communication about the disaster’s impact is key for managing emotions. Keeping employees informed can help them feel more in control of the situation. Support - Providing psychological support, such as counseling or mental health resources, can help employees cope with stress and anxiety during a disaster. Training - Prioritizing training on disaster response and emotional management can prepare IT professionals for high-stress situations better. ... Remember that disaster preparedness is not a one-time effort — it requires continuous monitoring, testing, and adaptation to protect valuable data.?When disaster strikes and data is lost, the first step is to create a new and improved information security plan.?

Four Levels of Agile Requirements

Visioning: This is the initial step of gathering requirements. The goal is to help identify all the Themes and some features desired. This exercise begins to define the scope of what is expected. Brainstorming: The goal of this step is to identify all the features and stories desired. The key here is Breadth First, Depth Later. So instead of discussing the details of each feature and story, our main goal is to FIND all the features and stories. Breakdown: The goal of this step to break down and slice the stories that are still too large (EPICs) into smaller chunks. You probably have already done a lot of slicing during brainstorming, but as you comb your backlog, the team will realize that some stories are still too large to be completed within an iteration. Slicing stories is an art and I will dedicate an entire blog to it! Deep Dive: This is the step everyone wants to jump into right away! Yes, finally, let’s talk about the details. What will be on the screen, what are the exact business rules and how will we test them, what will the detailed process look like, what are the tasks we need to get done to complete this story.

Dynamic Availability: Protocol-Based Assurances

The distinctive feature of proof-based consensus protocols is the fact that the protocol continues to function even when there is only one miner. Therefore miner nodes are free to leave and re-enter the competition at any time. Thus, the protocol maintains availability even under undesirable network conditions. To deal with cases where there are multiple leaders (concurrent solvers of the puzzle), honest nodes follow a simple rule: select the ledger with the highest number of blocks (i.e., the longest chain). In cases where chains have equal lengths, pick the one that you witnessed the earliest. Note that, in the given scenario, there is no way to determine whether there is a set of adversaries that are processing a parallel ledger without informing the rest of the network until their ledger becomes longer than the chain of the benevolent node. When they have a longer chain, they reveal their chain, waiting for the rest of the network to adapt to it, thus effectively ignoring all transactions that were in the neglected blocks. Due to this, one can never be sure whether a transaction is irreversible.

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