Breakthrough technology enables mobile operators to make prediction runtime 3 times faster and deliver network plans that are 25% more accurate

Infovista, the global leader in network lifecycle automation, today announced the availability of its Artificial Intelligence Model (AIM), the world’s first commercially available AI-based propagation model that changes the way wireless networks can be planned and optimized.

“Operators are at different stages within the 5G rollout, but the majority are still faced with the massive task of selecting, testing and commissioning new sites,” says Régis Lerbour, VP Product & R&D, RAN Engineering at Infovista. “Our AI-based propagation model, successfully presented to our customers at Infovista RAN Summit, is, by design, cloud-ready and scalable to increase agility and the ability to adapt the network more dynamically, thus offering a way to automate and accelerate the planning and roll-out of 5G networks.”

Infovista’s AIM has been built around state-of-the-art machine learning frameworks such as TensorFlow to focus on training and inference of deep neural networks. The project utilised over 10 million data points collected by the company during the last 15 years and spans multiple sub-6 GHz and millimetre wave bands, geographic locations, antenna heights, weather conditions, seasonal foliage variations and hundreds of additional variables – across urban, mixed and rural environments.  The AI-model predictions have been extensively validated against real-world measurement sampling data and are proven to deliver network plans that are 25% more accurate compared to those delivered using traditional propagation models. The initial testing shows that this improved accuracy translates into up to 20% CAPEX savings when it comes to radio site investments.

AIM avoids labour-intensive and repetitive calibration and parameter manipulation. It fully fits with the Network Lifecycle Automation vision of Infovista that aims to expand the reach of automation beyond network and service operations, into planning, testing and deployment, and reporting and monetization.

AIM is embedded into Infovista’s award-winning Planet software, which also includes an integrated feed of crowdsourced subscriber-centric data available in all geographies. Combining both provides mobile operators with higher accuracy and more efficient network planning workflows.

“Over time the combination of AIM with crowdsourced data will mean the new platform will enable operators to fully automate network planning thus allowing them to deploy in new frequency bands faster than ever,” Régis Lerbour adds. “Automated data collection and processing contribute to significantly reducing the cost of propagation model calibration and optimizing drive testing, helping accelerate 5G deployments to new levels.”

By: Edwin Weijdema, Global Technologist, Product Strategy, Veeam

As we become more reliant on technology to work, communicate, and be entertained, we are having to place our trust in it more than ever before. When I choose to work from home instead of travelling to the office, I am trusting that my laptop is fully operational, my Internet connection is stable, and that my ability to access the cloud-based applications I need for my work are available. Subconsciously, however, it is natural to worry more about your devices and connectivity breaking down when working from home than it is when you are in the office, with the IT team sat in the same building.

This is because putting our faith in technology often requires putting confidence in the unknown. Ultimately, this is what trust is all about. Am I confident enough in someone or something that I can overcome the uncertainty of the outcome? If you do not trust, you will not take risks or take a step into the unknown, which means you will never change. So, as organisations continue with their Digital Transformation (DX) journeys, how can they ensure that a lack of trust towards technology does not prevent them from taking the necessary risks that come with any attempt to initiate change?

In some ways, the process of trusting a piece of technology is very similar to trusting another human. We have a number of mechanisms to draw on. The first is our gut instinct. You often know whether or not you find someone trustworthy within 30 seconds of meeting them. This is also true of technology. Everything from the brand logo to our first interaction with the user interface adds to our perception of whether or not a device, website or communication is trustworthy or not. Various studies suggest that we are more likely to accept phone calls from numbers we recognise. We become suspicious about providing personal information about ourselves when registering for services online, when we would have no hesitation giving the same details to a bank clerk or mortgage advisor.

While our instincts are indeed powerful attributes, they can sometimes let us down. In the real world, this might be believing one of our friends when the story they are telling us is really a joke or accidentally driving towards the office on a Sunday because our brains are on autopilot. In the digital sphere, the consequences of us trusting our instincts or not thinking properly can be clicking on phishing links, compromising personal security information, and accepting fake news as a truth.

However, trust is not all about our gut reaction. Trust is earned over time through our own experiences, but also through other peoples’. When you can read up on experiences shared by those other people, who you never have met, you can reduce your uncertainty and posed risk. This way you can take a confident step towards the unknown. This can be referred to as distributed trust. We are more likely to trust a professional decorator with a job in our home if he/she has a high rating and visible track record online where maybe even examples of their work are displayed. This is an example of distributed trust, and the same concept also applies to technology. For example, the majority of people are not early adopters. These are the fastest people to get on board with the latest products available or use new technology concepts before they become mainstream. Technology assists us with reducing the uncertainty by giving access to a huge pile of information. This information is what you can call a trust enabler.

The majority of technology users and IT teams prefer to wait and see. Whether it’s buying a new smartphone or migrating data to the public cloud, many of us seek endorsement from people who have tried it first – including our peers, other businesses, independent consultants, and total strangers on the other side of the world. There’s a reason the IT industry has a saying that no one gets fired for hiring certain brands. Those brands have built a visible track record through being reliable, consistent, and delivering a great customer experience. People trust that their products and services will do what they say they will, based on years of success, so perceive their risk of investment to be lower than working with a brand they are less familiar with.

One of the major trust issues organisations have regarding new technology is whether or not it is secure. Will their data be safe and protected? They also want to know what happens when things go wrong. What happens if the technology fails? How do we get our services back online and quickly recover our data? So, with DX on the agenda of every business boardroom, CIOs and IT teams need to feel reassured that the technology providers they put their trust in are fit for purpose. According to the Veeam Data Protection Report 2021, over a quarter of business leaders in the Middle East (26% in UAE and 27% in Saudi Arabia) see cyber threats as a challenge to their DX initiatives in the next 12 months. This heightened awareness towards the impact of cybersecurity breaches on their bottom line will weigh heavily on the minds of organisations when choosing their DX partner.

Furthermore, organisations are starting to understand that one of the most sure-fire ways for a business to lose trust is for their data to be compromised – whether it is stolen or simply lost. Our research indicates that 50% of business leaders in UAE and 45% in Saudi Arabia think downtime and data loss could negatively impact customer confidence. 40% of respondents in both countries fear damage to brand integrity. Over a third (34%) of UAE organizations think this could result in a loss of employee confidence and 35% of Saudi Arabian enterprises think this could result in reduced stock price. All this shows the inextricable link between data protection and trust.

In terms of how successfully organisations in the Middle East are currently protecting data, 27% of all backup jobs and 24% of all restore jobs fail leaving 45% of data potentially unprotected. The issues of data protection and cybersecurity, therefore, pose a threat to DX. It is clear that humans’ relationship with technology, whether they are a customer, a business decision maker, or an employee, is all about trust. So, businesses must turn to trusted technology advisors who can help them ensure that their DX is built on solid foundations, with a data protection that is fit for purpose.

In April, Kaspersky experts discovered a number of highly targeted attacks against multiple companies utilizing a previously undiscovered chain of Google Chrome and Microsoft Windows zero-day exploits. One of the exploits was used for remote code execution in the Chrome web-browser, while the other was an elevation of privilege exploit fine-tuned to target the latest and most prominent builds of Windows 10. The latter exploits two vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Windows OS kernel: Information Disclosure vulnerability CVE-2021-31955 and Elevation of Privilege vulnerability CVE-2021-31956. Microsoft has patched both yesterday as part of Patch Tuesday.

Recent months have seen a wave of advanced threat activity exploiting zero-days in the wild. In mid-April, Kaspersky experts discovered yet a new wave of highly targeted exploit attacks against multiple companies that allowed the attackers to stealthily compromise the targeted networks.

Kaspersky has yet to find any connection between these attacks and any known threat actors. Therefore, they have dubbed this actor PuzzleMaker.

All of the attacks were conducted through Chrome and utilized an exploit that allowed for remote code execution. While Kaspersky researchers were unable to retrieve the code for the remote execution exploit, the timeline and availability suggests the attackers were using the now-patched CVE-2021-21224 vulnerability. This vulnerability was related to a Type Mismatch bug in the V8 – a JavaScript engine used by Chrome and Chromium web-browsers. It allows the attackers to exploit the Chrome renderer process (the processes that are responsible for what happens inside users’ tab).

Kaspersky experts were, however, able to find and analyze the second exploit: an elevation of privilege exploit that exploits two distinct vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Windows OS kernel. The first is an Information Disclosure vulnerability (a vulnerability that leaks sensitive kernel information), assigned CVE-2021-31955. Specifically, the vulnerability is affiliated with SuperFetch—a feature first introduced in Windows Vista that aims to reduce software loading times by pre-loading commonly used applications into memory.

The second vulnerability—an Elevation of Privilege vulnerability (a vulnerability that allows attackers to exploit the kernel and gain elevated access to the computer)—is assigned the name CVE-2021-31956 and is a heap-based buffer overflow. Attackers used the CVE-2021-31956 vulnerability alongside Windows Notification Facility (WNF) to create arbitrary memory read/write primitives and execute malware modules with system privileges.

Once the attackers have used both the Chrome and Windows exploits to gain a foothold in the targeted system, the stager module downloads and executes a more complex malware dropper from a remote server. This dropper then installs two executables, which pretend to be legitimate files belonging to Microsoft Windows OS. The second of these two executables is a remote shell module, which is able to download and upload files, create processes, sleep for certain amounts of time, and delete itself from the infected system.

Microsoft released a patch for both Windows vulnerabilities yesterday as part of Patch Tuesday.

“While these attacks were highly targeted, we have yet to link them to any known threat actor. That’s why we’ve dubbed the actor behind them “PuzzleMaker” and will be closely monitoring the security landscape for future activity or new insights about this group. Overall, of late, we’ve been seeing several waves of high-profile threat activity being driven by zero-day exploits. It’s a reminder that zero days continue to be the most effective method for infecting targets. Now that these vulnerabilities have been made publicly known, it’s possible that we’ll see an increase of their usage in attacks by this and other threat actors. That means it’s very important for users to download the latest patch from Microsoft as soon as possible,” comments Boris Larin, Senior Security Researcher with the Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT).

Kaspersky products detect and protect against the exploit for the above vulnerabilities and associated malware modules.

Learn more about these new zero-days on Securelist.

To protect your organization from attacks exploiting the aforementioned vulnerabilities, Kaspersky experts recommend:

Update your Chrome browser and Microsoft Windows as soon as possible and do so regularly

Use a reliable endpoint security solution such as Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business that is powered by exploit prevention, behavior detection and a remediation engine that is able to roll back malicious actions.

Install anti-APT and EDR solutions, enabling capabilities for threat discovery and detection, investigation and timely remediation of incidents. Provide your SOC team with access to the latest threat intelligence and regularly upskill them with professional training. All of the above is available within Kaspersky Expert Security framework.

Along with proper endpoint protection, dedicated services can help against high-profile attacks. The Kaspersky Managed Detection and Response service can help identify and stop attacks in their early stages, before the attackers achieve their goals.

The share of STEM course enrollments by women in the UAE also increased from 33% pre-pandemic to 41% in 2020

According to Coursera’s Global Skills Report 2021, the UAE ranks #1 in the MENA region and #2 globally in overall business skills, only after Luxemburg. This year’s study draws on performance data since the pandemic’s onset from more than 77 million learners on the platform to benchmark skills proficiency across business, technology, and data science for over 100 countries.

Communication, Entrepreneurship, Leadership and Management, and Strategy and Operations are areas where UAE learners have placed within the top 97 percentile or higher in business skills. These proficiencies are fundamental to accurately interpret and respond to the opportunities and challenges that determine an organization’s success.

While UAE’s overall business skills proficiency ranks near the top of the list globally, technology and data science skills represent areas for continued growth. With the UAE government’s prioritisation of digital transformation as a driver of national development and economic advancement, the Global Skills Report highlights a significant opportunity for UAE professionals to upskill in these fields — the country’s talent pools for technology and data science skills ranked just #72 and #71 respectively.

 “In recent years, the UAE government has implemented numerous initiatives, aimed at promoting a skills-based economy. These are having a positive impact on the economy as evidenced by the UAE’s business leadership position in our rankings,” said Anthony Tattersall, Coursera Vice President of EMEA, “When it comes to technology and data science skills, access to a variety of job-relevant credentials, including a path to entry-level digital jobs, will be key to help reskill at scale, not just in the UAE but worldwide”.

It was, however, promising to see an increase in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) course enrollments – which account for many foundational digital skills – by women in the UAE. The share of STEM enrollments from women in the UAE rose from 33 percent in 2018-19 to 41 percent in 2019-20. 

Another notable outlier in the overall technology skills performance of the country was its competitiveness in Security Engineering, where the UAE ranked in the 77 percentile. With the country witnessing a 250% increase in cyberattacks through the pandemic^[1], there has been a strong emphasis on attracting and developing cybersecurity skills within the UAE, which helps explain this high ranking.

Similarly, despite scoring in just the 34 percentile in overall data science skills, UAE learners have demonstrated strong capabilities in the highly-valued area of Data Analysis (82 percent), which is increasingly playing a part in everything from streamlining business processes and enhancing employee productivity, to recognising market trends, and adapting to customer behaviours and preferences.

Based on the performance data of millions of learners on Coursera globally, the report also reveals the skills and time required to prepare for entry-level roles:

• Recent graduates and mid-career changers can develop entry-level, digital job skills in as little as 35 to 70 hours (or 1-2 months with 10 learning hours per week). On the other hand, someone with no degree or technology experience can be job-ready in 80 to 240 hours (or 2-6 months with 10 learning hours per week).

• Learners must invest in both soft and technical skills to stay job-relevant in a rapidly evolving labour market. For example, an entry-level cloud computing role like a Computer Support Specialist requires learning both soft skills like problem solving and organizational development, and technical skills such as security engineering and computer networking. Similarly, entry-level marketing roles require data analysis software and digital marketing skills in addition to soft skills like strategy, creativity, and communication.

• The most transferable skills across all future jobs are in human skills like problem solving and communication, computer literacy, and career management. Foundational skills like business communication and digital literacy enable workers to participate in increasingly tech-heavy and global work environments. As people change jobs more frequently, job search and career planning skills will be critical to role transitions and sustaining employment.

To download the full report, visithttps://www.coursera.org/global-skills-report

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/06/middle-east-facing-cyber-pandemic-amid-covid-19-uae-official-says.html