FoondaMate, a rapidly growing AI-powered study aid known as “study buddy” in Zulu, has become an indispensable resource for middle and high school students in emerging markets. Leveraging the advanced capabilities of Meta’s Llama technology, this virtual assistant provides conversational support via WhatsApp and Messenger, helping students with schoolwork and academic challenges.

Meta has announced the launch of Purple Llama, an umbrella project promoting open trust and safety in generative AI. The project features tools and evaluations designed to enable developers to deploy generative AI models and experiences responsibly in line with best practices outlined in Meta’s Responsible Use Guide.

OpenAI has launched a prototype called SearchGPT, a new AI-driven search tool that integrates advanced AI capabilities with real-time web information. This temporary prototype, currently available to a select group of users and publishers, aims to enhance how people find information online by providing fast, accurate answers with precise citations. The ultimate goal is to gather feedback and refine these features before integrating them into the broader ChatGPT platform.

Over the past three years, the second Tuesday of each month has turned into a hectic period of planning and remediation, driven by a 25% average annual growth rate in CVEs. Just last Tuesday, Microsoft revealed a critical TCP/IP remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in the IPv6 stack, which has a CVSS score of 9.8 due to its criticality and ease of exploitation. For a more in-depth look, we recommend these resources.

In early 2021, a new vulnerability, identified as CVE-2021-27928, was discovered and published. It affects multiple versions of the open-source relational database management systems (RDMBS) MariaDB and Percona Server, and the wsrep (write set replication) plugin for MySQL. Fortunately, security professionals swiftly released a patch to ensure that affected systems could be updated to mitigate risks.

Patches are a way of life for any network administrator and are the most efficient method in place to ensure systems are running the most up-to-date and secure versions of their various software applications. For the most part, updates take place behind the scenes, with the average person only noticing a patch being installed when they are asked to reboot their machine to install the new version.

Veracode is pleased to announce the general availability of our new Azure DevOps Workflow integration. This new integration provides our customers using Azure DevOps Services with easy-to-configure, event-driven security testing of their application and infrastructure code managed in their Azure DevOps Repos.

External cybersecurity threats are a well-known problem, but organizations should also be aware of managerial insider threats. These threats originate from individuals with privileged access and authority and can cause devastating damage to an organization’s data, reputation, and bottom line. In this guide, we’ll examine managerial insider threats and offer insights and strategies you can use to detect, prevent, and mitigate these risks.

The field of AI has been around for decades, but its current surge is rewriting the rules at an accelerated rate. Fuelled by increased computational power and data availability, this AI boom brings with it both opportunities and challenges. AI tools fuel innovation and growth by enabling businesses to analyse data, improve customer experiences, automate processes, and innovate products – at speed. However, as AI becomes more and more commonplace, concerns about misinformation and misuse arise.

Top tips is a weekly column where we highlight what’s trending in the tech world today and list ways to explore these trends. This week, we’ll discuss quick and easy steps to keep your digital payments secure. Honestly, we think the world’s transition to digital payments was unsettlingly quick. Consumers were thrust into the world of digital payments without sufficient awareness of best practices or knowledge of what is trustworthy when it comes to online transactions.