A non-profit is helping young mothers enter the IT workforce in under a year with the help of tai chi, high tea, and a slew of other non-rhyming resources.

I.c.stars, a non-profit technology training and placement program, is piloting a new program that will help young mothers jumpstart their careers in the IT field. The program, which kicked off in August with 12 students in its inaugural cohort, offers participants a combination of technology, business training, and leadership training, as well as financial and parent coaching.

The program was launched in partnership with New Moms, a Chicago-based nonprofit that supports young mothers. Sandee Kastrul, president and co-founder of I.c.stars, told IT Brew that the collaboration has been in the pipeline for a long time.

“We’ve always wanted to recruit from New Moms, but [our] program wasn’t really conducive to moms who had just had babies and things like that,” Kastrul said. “We spent about two years designing a program just for New Moms and this is our inaugural cycle.”

Read the rest here.—BM

Election cybersecurity is a risk, and in a tight contest, all eyes are going to be on how organizations fight back against threats.

With a day to go before the 2024 general election, there’s an understandable nervousness about the safety of election systems. And government officials are warning that while the chance for interference or other difficulty is low, it’s not impossible.

But there are reasons to be optimistic. Jen Easterly, CISA director, told NPR’s Weekend Edition that “election infrastructure has never been more secure.”

“There are cyber threats, there are physical threats to election officials, but we’re at a point now with our election infrastructure secure and the election community prepared to meet the moment on the 5th of November,” Easterly said.

Chaotic politic. Sarah Cleveland, a public sector strategic advisor at ExtraHop, told IT Brew that in her view the possibility of cyberattacks meant to sow chaos is high, as is the potential for general instability around the election process. Cleveland told IT Brew that “chaos” is a top motivator, warning that, for example, Russian attacks on Ukraine “have kind of waned a bit, and the theory is that they’re taking their their talent and starting to swing them over to to the United States to focus on the election and then post election chaos.”

Read the rest here.—EH

When security researcher Kyla Cardona recently signed onto Threads, she saw an unexpected post weaving its way into her feed: detailed credit card information.

Since September, Cardona and pros at cybersecurity company SpyCloud have seen new accounts—some with up to 12,000 followers, Cardona said—posting stolen financial data, and even photos of physical cards.

“I didn’t follow any of their accounts. So, that’s what is really surprising to me,” Cardona told IT Brew.

The unexpected appearance on Cardona’s and at least one Reddit user’s feed, suggests cyber fraudsters are brazenly moving to populated public platforms—and those same sites are struggling to detect the posts and keep them out of feeds.

“There is an actual marketplace to be had on these social media platforms for criminal activity,” said James Turgal, former FBI pro and current VP of global cyber risk and board relations at cyber advisory leader Optiv. “And there’s so much data and so many accounts that the platforms themselves can’t keep up.”

Read the rest here.—BH

AI is everywhere, reaching every application, device, and employee. There’s excitement, there’s uncertainty, but there’s also just a mess of AI that IT leaders need to untangle on the path to productivity. While the current state of AI adoption is a web of complexity, the future must prioritize productivity and clear ROI. Join us to discuss how to ride the wave of AI adoption into a more unified and productive future. Register now!