Nearly two-thirds (63%) of workers feel pressure to fix IT problems themselves before summoning IT experts to assist, and just shy of eight in 10 cite that as their first instinct, according to a recent survey by Sagiss.

At the same time, however, 86% of respondents said that they viewed IT as “either very important or essential” to organizational success—and 55% reported their impression of IT professionals has improved in recent years. Travis Springer, president of Sagiss, told IT Brew that the perception of IT as the “guys with the ponytail and the hoodie in the dark room that don’t talk to anyone” is fading.

Springer also said with Generation Z entering the workforce, the “users that we’re supporting are just very different than they were.” He didn’t find it surprising that more users are attempting to solve issues themselves, noting the survey also found nearly four out of 10 (37%) complained IT often failed to explain fixes to users.

“They understand that joke about, ‘Have you rebooted your computer yet?’” Springer said. These days, he added, “People reboot their computer before they call us.”

Read the rest here.—TM

Endpoint security in 2024 has advanced significantly from its “antivirus” days, when a tool had a signature of known malicious code and sounded the alarm upon detecting it.

Like stand-up comedians and retired athletes, today’s endpoint-security platforms are looking to do more acting.

Added endpoint security features like “detection and response” watch for suspicious behaviors (why is that Word doc running a script?) and initiate remediation (stop that script!).

As Chris Silva, VP and analyst at market intelligence firm Gartner, puts it: We’ve moved from passive tools to active passive tools.

“Tools that are going to look for behaviors and patterns, and as soon as something looks like it is moving in a direction that doesn’t make sense, some action can be taken,” Silva told IT Brew.

What’s EPP, doc? The National Institute of Technologies and Standards defines an “endpoint protection platform” (EPP) as “safeguards implemented through software to protect end-user machines such as workstations and laptops against attack.” NIST’s examples:

• Anti-malware: Software that scans for known signatures of malicious code.
• Personal firewalls: Tools restricting ports and services on a device.
• Host-based intrusion detection and prevention systems: An “application that monitors the characteristics of a single host,” detecting and stopping suspicious actions.

“What has changed has been the fact that we no longer see some of the biggest threats, things like ransomware, tying back to just a bad application,” Silva said. (IBM’s 2024 report, for example, found that stolen credentials led to 16% of its studied breaches.)

Read more here.—BH

The holidays shake up more than your travel schedule. They also mean new beginnings for the coming year, and that includes new career paths.

November in the tech corner office saw faces come and go, while December kicked off with one high-profile departure. Here are a few that caught our eye.

Sam Altman’s Tools for Humanity plucks Pickles

Nick Pickles, X’s former VP of global affairs, is joining Tools for Humanity, a startup from OpenAI’s Sam Altman, as head of policy. Pickles is the latest X executive to make the jump to Tools for Humanity, following former global comms head Rebecca Hahn, who joined as the startup’s chief communications officer, and X’s former deputy general counsel officer Damien Kieran who is now Tools’s head of privacy.

Pickles spent 10 years at X (formerly known as Twitter) in a variety of roles, including as global senior strategist for public policy and senior director of global public policy strategy for development and partnerships.

Intel’s CEO no longer inside (the company)

Intel veteran and current CEO Pat Gelsinger is retiring after almost four years at the helm of the US-based chipmaker. Gelsinger’s return was timed with a downturn in Intel’s chip business, which saw the company losing ground to competitors like Arm and Nvidia, and a stock value plunge of 50% year-over-year. Gelsinger's retirement announcement seemingly conflicts with reporting suggesting he was forced out by the company’s board, unhappy with the CEO’s sluggish progress in righting the company’s slow decline due to some poor long-term choices.

Keep reading here.—EH