In Case You Missed It:  Salesforce Acquisition of Informatica Telegraphs Future of AI, SEC Tosses SolarWinds Suit, AI Is Changing the Talent Pipeline

In a busy week, Salesforce finalized its acquisition of Informatica, offering a glimpse of SaaS and AI in the future and the Security and Exchange Commission dropped what was left of the lawsuit against SolarWinds. And even the best laid security plans can be thwarted by the human element, just ask Salesforce users.

Salesforce's $8 Billion Acquisition of Informatica Telegraphs the Future of AI, SaaS

Salesforce has made it clear that it wants to dominate AI marketplace by building a robust Agentforce 360 platform, which it touts as connecting humans and AI agents in the enterprise. The company has been making strategic acquisitions and partnerships for quite some time to expand and bolster the platform, but its acquisition this week of Informatica for $8 billion might be its most important, strategic deal yet. And it could very well indicate, industry experts say, where SaaS is heading.

Legacy Web Forms Leave Government Vulnerable

Government agencies are sitting on a ticking time bomb—outdated legacy web forms that collect citizen data are making them vulnerable to breach. The forms often garner data through channels that have not been secured and their creation predated modern-day encryption, authentication and compliance measures. Not only does legacy technology leave agencies in federal, state and local government agencies vulnerable, it is costly, accounting for 80 percent of IT budgets, according to Spider Strategies.

People Confound Salesforce Security

Organizations can lockdown technology and institute security measures, but humans often trip up the best laid strategies—nowhere is that more evident than in the spate of incidents involving Salesforce. The problem is threefold—as an independent platform, Salesforce has its own ecosystem of developers many of whom aren’t trained in security, creating a shadow ecosystems outside of the view of security teams. It is also plagued b misconfigurations, over-permissioning and confusion over shared responsibility. Bad actors have upped their assault on Salesforce users, expanding the attack surface.

SEC Tosses Remainder of Lawsuit Against SolarWinds

The remnants of a Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit against SolarWinds and its CISO Timothy Brown struck fear in the hearts of security professionals because it put the onus –and liability—on CISOs for incident disclosures has been dismissed by the agency. “Today marks the end of a transformative chapter for SolarWinds and the beginning of our next,” according to a blog post penned by SolarWinds President and CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna. The SEC’s decision to drop the case came after a district court threw out the bulk of it 15 months ago.

AI May Create Gaps in Cybersecurity Talent Pipeline

AI is changing cybersecurity entry level jobs but it’s also likely to have an impact on the talent pipeline. An ISC(2) study found that more than half of defenders think the AI is going to pare back the number of entry-level workers. But As AI automate tasks, the next generation of defenders may not be getting the hands-on experience that develops muscle memory and builds a foundation for a strong cybersecurity posture. That could compromise the training of future cybersecurity pros.

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