Python came out on top in an index highlighting the most popular programming languages of 2024.

Taking a page from political analysts’ aggregation of survey data, ZDNet Senior Editor David Gewirtz set out to create a more accurate snapshot of the most popular languages in the industry by aggregating raw data from nine different language popularity indexes, including TIOBE and the PopularitY of Programming Language (PYPL) index. The result was the creation of the ZDNet Index of Programming Language Popularity, which contains 19 languages in total.

In a September article analyzing his findings, Gewirtz said it is no surprise that Python scored the highest on the popularity index, referring to the high ranker as an “elegant language.”

“It’s simple yet enormously powerful and has become the go-to language for AI and data scientists, as well as general web development,” Gewirtz wrote.

JavaScript and Java rounded out the top of the list with Python, while R, Dart, and Swift capped off the bottom.

Read the rest here.—BM

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Every year in Las Vegas, hundreds of attendees at hacker conference DEF CON gather to watch teams of social engineers compete to see who can extract the most data from unwitting employees picking up their phones.

Some permutation of Social Engineering Community (SEC) voice phishing (“vishing”) contest and its signature sound booth has been a fixture of DEF CON for over a decade. But 2024 was the third year spouses JC Carruthers and Stephanie “Snow” Carruthers were in charge.

JC is the president of security firm Snowfensive, while Snow is the global lead of cyber range and cyber crisis management at IBM X-Force. They also happen to be experienced social engineers and penetration testers who have sought to expand the contest by bringing in new sponsors like Microsoft and initiatives like coaching for qualifying teams.

“One of the biggest things that I’ve learned is people just assume social [engineering] is not gonna work. They’re like, ‘No, we do training for this,’” Snow told IT Brew. “When you go back and look at what’s covered in that only one-hour-a-year training, it’s bad. It doesn’t cover any of the tactics competitors are always doing.”

Read more here.—TM

It’s almost as if that really cool pommel horse performance at the Olympics meant nothing.

On September 10, US News and World Report selected the “best” country—a ranking effort, now in its ninth year, that evaluated 89 nations across more than 70 attributes—and found Switzerland on top.

The analysis, conducted by the media company and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, also revealed differing levels of AI enthusiasm around the globe. Comparing respondents’ feelings to separate AI-readiness data from 2023 suggests an intriguing conclusion: Countries considered more prepared for AI deployments often have less optimism about the technology than their eager, less-ready-for-AI counterparts.

“Countries that are wealthier and more developed are more likely to read our ranking criteria and may also be more likely to see AI integration, both the pros and the cons of it. While poorer, less developed countries may see the pros of AI integration, but maybe have yet to experience the cons,” Elliott Davis Jr., a US News and World Report reporter, told IT Brew.

Keep reading here.—BH

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