As companies ruminate about refreshing their Covid-era computers, industry practitioners expect AI PCs to get consideration—even if orgs don’t quite know how to use them yet.

IT pros who spoke with IT Brew see the appeal of AI-equipped computers in their enterprise, following Microsoft’s announcement of Copilot+ PCs, which provide localized AI processing and aim to help employees handle their day–to-day data, from email to health records.

“I really do think that clients that refresh and don’t do an AI PC…are going to be regretting it and wanting to replace them in a shorter term than their standard life-cycle,” Megan Amdahl, senior vice president of client experience and North America COO at the solutions integrator Insight Enterprises, told IT Brew.

A favorite time-saving feature found in the newly announced PC line, according to Amdahl: Copilot’s summarization of long email threads.

Insight, a Microsoft partner, announced it will be among the first to adopt Windows-based AI PCs, which feature dedicated neural processing units (NPU) powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite processors.

Read more here.—BH

Do you work in IT or have information about your IT department you want to share? Email [email protected].

Here’s the truth: Cyberattacks and data loss among Microsoft 365 users are more common than you think. In fact, 53% of companies experienced data loss in SaaS applications in the past 12 months, according to ESG.

Even worse, less than 25% of those affected companies can recover 100% of their Microsoft 365 data during a data loss incident. Do you have a solid data protection plan in place? Let Veeam help you get there.

They’ve got a ton of resources that can secure the fort, such as:

• this infographic on 7 Critical Reasons for Microsoft 365 Backup
• this e-book covering 8 Benefits of a Backup Service for Microsoft 365

Veeam also has the (super-insightful) Agile Microsoft 365 Data Protection report that’s packed with practical deets.

Give it a read.

A CISA official issued a “highly unusual” filing warning that US telecommunications networks are far more vulnerable to location tracking exploits than they have acknowledged, according to 404 Media.

The CISA official in question wrote in a public filing with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that malicious parties are exploiting holes in internetworking protocols used to communicate between telecoms—Signaling System No. 7 (SS7) and Diameter—to track people in the US and intercept calls and texts, 404 Media reported. The filing detailed a number of such attacks, warning they may be “just the tip of the proverbial iceberg,” and that “numerous incidents” have already occurred.

SS7 and Diameter, which date to the 1970s and 1990s respectively, are foundational technologies that enable interconnection between fixed and mobile service providers—but which the Department of Homeland Security warned in 2018 could be vulnerable to “nefarious actors.” In 2017, European telecom O2-Telefonica confirmed SS7 exploits were behind a successful scheme by hackers to drain German bank accounts.

Read more here.—TM

Do you work in IT or have information about your IT department you want to share? Email [email protected]. Want to go encrypted? Ask Tom for his Signal.

Car and EV manufacturers are taking artificial intelligence for a spin.

This month, Toyota announced it would invest over $10 billion in AI, EVs, and more, according to Nikkei Asia. Chinese EV manufacturer Xpeng said it would bring on 4,000 employees this year as it, too, invests in AI. And Wayve, an AI autonomous vehicle startup, is looking to “build the next generation” of AI-powered vehicles, according to the Guardian. The UK-based startup recently raised over a billion dollars in funding from investors like Microsoft and Nvidia.

Erez Dagan, president of Wayve, told IT Brew in an email via senior PR manager Tilly Pielichaty, that at the moment, “We are seeing alignment between the automotive industry’s roadmap and the embodied AI technology that we have been developing at Wayve since 2017,” adding that capital raised “will therefore propel the launch of the first embodied AI products for OEMs, starting with advanced driver-assistance systems.”

To better understand AI’s impact on the car and EV industry, IT Brew caught up with Alyssa Altman, the senior vice president and auto industry lead for Publicis Sapient, a global digital transformation consulting company.

Keep reading here.—AF

Do you work in IT or have information about your IT department you want to share? Email [email protected].

Dodge DDoS attacks. DDoS attacks wreak havoc on orgs and could cost you big time—we’re talkin’ thousands per minute. Dig into Zayo’s DDoS report to get the info you need to protect your org. See who is being targeted, how frequently the attacks occur, and how to prepare in this report.