Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Presented by Tata Communications Enterprises are deploying AI agents, voice AI, and automation across messaging, voice, and digital channels faster than the architecture meant to support it. Most of that deployment has involved attaching conversational AI to legacy systems never built for it, says Gaurav Anand, global head of the Customer Interaction Suite at Tata Communications.”In the rush to deploy AI, organizations have largely bolted conversational AI onto legacy systems,” Anand says. “As a result, while many enterprises have adopted digital tools, very few have platforms that are truly integrated, scaled, and capable of seamless orchestration.”That gap creates a heavy…

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) has become one of cybersecurity’s most important controls. Roughly 70% of enterprise workforce users are now protected by it. But its success has created an unintended problem. Organizations increasingly treat successful authentication as proof of identity. They assume that because someone passed MFA, they have verified who that person is. They may also assume that the identity itself has not been compromised. Neither is it necessarily true. Attackers increasingly target the processes surrounding authentication. These include enrollment, account recovery, help desks, device registration, and session management. An attacker may bind an authenticator to the wrong person or…

Strategy, the Bitcoin treasury company formerly known as MicroStrategy, raised $2.0065 billion by selling common shares from Aug. 17 through Aug. 23 and bought no Bitcoin. The transaction left its $1.59 billion USD Cash balance at the center of a wider capital-allocation contest.The company sold 18,261,118 shares of MSTR, its common stock, then used $136.4 million to repurchase 1,431,212 shares of STRC, a variable-rate preferred stock. It transferred another $300 million to its separately designated USD Reserve. The remainder, $1.5701 billion, went into USD Cash, according to Strategy’s Aug. 24 filing.Strategy reported ending balances of $5.10 billion in the reserve…

NASA will provide coverage as two astronauts step outside the International Space Station on Tuesday, Sept. 1, to replace a spacecraft navigational aid and complete several maintenance tasks in support of space station operations. Watch live coverage beginning at 7 a.m. EDT. The spacewalk is expected to start at approximately 8:30 a.m. and last about six and a half hours. NASA’s spacewalk coverage will stream through a variety of platforms. Learn where to watch online: https://nasa.gov/live During U.S. spacewalk 99, NASA astronaut Jessica Meir and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Sophie Adenot will replace a retroreflector on the forward port…

Once home to a pristine and vibrant network of coral reefs, the Spermonde Archipelago off the coast of South Sulawesi in Indonesia has had its coral decimated by the illegal practice of blast fishing, in which improvised explosives are tossed into the sea to kill and stun fish en masse.A new study harnesses acoustic data to produce what is likely the first rigorous estimate of the frequency and intensity of bomb fishing in the archipelago.Using low-cost microphones and an easy-to-run algorithm, the researchers detected more than 3,500 so-called fish bombs going off in their study area within the archipelago…

In Idaho, parents who say their faith prohibits lifesaving medical care for their children can’t be charged with child neglect or manslaughter. Supporters of this protection over the years have included lawmakers who voiced support for “traditional” Idaho values. But from at least the 1880s through the early 1970s, it was illegal for parents in Idaho to choose prayer over medical care when a child’s life was at stake, newspaper archives and historical documents show. “Every parent of any child who willfully omits, without lawful excuse, to furnish necessary food, clothing, shelter, or medical attendance for such child, is guilty…

On Aug. 19, Iranian Central Bank Gov. Abdolnaser Hemmati offered one of the most candid accounts yet of the state of Iran’s economy, stating that Iran’s oil exports had almost stopped owing to the U.S. naval blockade. He added that Iranian industries had access to 30 percent less foreign currency than a year earlier. As a result, Hemmati said, the economic situation was even worse than in 2018 through 2020, when U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled his maximum pressure campaign against Tehran. That same day, Trump announced a new campaign of “Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale” against…

A long-running hoax claiming people are posing as “Home Affairs Officers” in order to rob houses in the UK has re-emerged on social media.We’ve seen several posts sharing identical or very similar text saying: “Please be aware that there is a group of people going door to door pretending to be Home Affairs Officers. They have documents and letterheads from the Home Affairs Department and claim that they need to verify that everyone has a valid ID for the upcoming census. They rob houses. They are everywhere and they look neat.” Not all of the posts give a specific location…

Trump insists that Ratcliffe’s surprise visit to Russia is ‘semi-routine’ despite mounting speculationThe president claimed that CIA director John Ratcliffe’s surprise visit to Moscow this week is “semi-routine”. Reports surfaced today, but the Trump administration had not formally announced the trip, but various outlets captured the flight tracking data of the US government jet and the Kremlin later confirmed the meeting – but noted that Ratcliffe did not hold talks with Vladimir Putin, who was informed of the meeting. It was not clear the purpose of the visit, but Trump sought to tamper concerns. “I hate to disappoint people,” he said.“Rumors…

The father of a civil service employee who took her own life the day after a meeting with her managers has said the lack of support given to her by the Treasury “beggars belief”.Chloe Moffat, 26, a personal assistant to a Treasury director, died on 20 May last year, after she was told of allegations she had shared sensitive confidential information about colleagues, which she denied.Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, David Moffat said he did not feel the Treasury had taken responsibility for its part in her death.He added that her loss was “devastating”, and had “torn such…