December 11, 2024 2024 was a remarkable year for elections as voters in more than 60 countries went to the polls. It also turned out to be a difficult year for incumbents and traditional political parties. Rattled by rising prices, divided over cultural issues and angry at the political status quo, voters in many countries sent a message of frustration. This analysis of the 2024 election year is based on global public opinion data from surveys conducted by Pew Research Center and independent research. Links to original sources of data – including the methodologies of individual surveys and the specific questions asked – are available here: In this essay, we analyze four major themes that emerged from this year’s busy slate of elections around the world: A tough year for incumbents South Africa’s general election results come in at the Gallagher Convention Center in Midrand on June 2, 2024. The African National Congress failed to win a majority of National Assembly seats for the first time since the end of apartheid. (Phill Magakoe/AFP via Getty Images) In one of the year’s highest-profile elections, Democrats in the United States lost the presidency, with Donald Trump, the Republican former president, defeating Vice President Kamala Harris. Republicans also won majorities in both houses of Congress. It was the third straight U.S. presidential election in which the incumbent party lost. And it was one of many notable losses for incumbents around the world in 2024: In the United Kingdom – unlike in the U.S. – political power swung to the left. The Labour Party won an overwhelming parliamentary majority, bringing 14 years of Conservative Party rule to an end. The most dramatic defeat for a longtime incumbent party may have occurred in the southern African nation of Botswana, where the Botswana Democratic Party lost power for the first time in nearly 60 years. In April, South Korean voters gave the opposition Democratic Party a majority of seats in the National Assembly in what was seen as a check on President Yoon Suk Yeol of the People Power Party. In early December, President Yoon imposed martial law and accused Democratic Party leaders of “anti-state” activities. The National Assembly quickly reversed Yoon’s decision, voting unanimously to lift martial law. Opposition parties of various ideological stripes won power in a diverse set of nations, including Ghana, Panama, Portugal and Uruguay. Elsewhere, incumbent parties held on to power but still suffered significant setbacks: What made 2024 such a tough year for incumbents? While every election is shaped by local factors, economic challenges were a consistent theme across the globe. That included the U.S., where the economy was the top issue for registered voters – especially for those who supported Trump. A survey we conducted in 34 countries earlier this year illustrated the extent of global economic gloom. Across these nations, a median of 64% of adults said their national economy was in bad shape. In several nations that held elections in 2024 – including France, Japan, South Africa, South Korea and the UK – more than seven-in-ten expressed this view. Inflation was an especially important issue in this year’s elections, although economic concerns were prevalent in many countries before the post-pandemic wave of global price increases. The past two decades have seen financial crises, the Great Recession, the COVID-19 economic downturn, inflation and ongoing economic inequality, all of which may have shaped the mood in nations around the globe. But the economy wasn’t the only thing driving voter discontent. Our global surveys over the past few years have highlighted a broader frustration with the functioning of representative democracy. Across 31 nations we surveyed in 2024, a median of 54% of adults were dissatisfied with the way democracy is working in their country. And in several high-income nations, dissatisfaction has increased significantly over the past three years. Our surveys have shown that many people feel disconnected from political leaders and institutions. Large majorities in many nations believe elected officials don’t care what people like them think. Many say there is no political party that represents their views well. And large shares say people like them have little or no influence on politics in their country. The staying power of right-wing populism Supporters of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party gather at a campaign rally in Erfurt, Germany, on Aug. 31, 2024. AfD went on to win in Thuringia, becoming Germany’s first far-right party to win a state election since World War II. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images) Frustrations with the political class have created opportunities for right-wing populists and other challengers to traditional parties and the political status quo. Several elections this year in Europe highlighted this trend: Right-wing populist parties, many of which campaigned on sharply anti-immigration platforms, gained ground in this year’s European parliamentary elections. Parties on the left and in the center worked together to keep Marine Le Pen’s right-wing populist National Rally out of power in France in this year’s parliamentary elections. But Le Pen’s party nonetheless significantly increased the number of seats it holds in the National Assembly. In early December, National Rally voted with New Popular Front, a coalition of left-leaning parties, to end the government of conservative Michel Barnier after just three months. In Austria, the far-right Freedom Party won 29% of the vote in September elections – a higher share than any other party and its best-ever result. It is unlikely, however, that any governing coalition will include the party. Three far-right parties had a strong showing in Romania’s Dec. 1 parliamentary elections. Also, right-wing candidate Calin Georgescu received the most votes in the first round of the country’s presidential elections. However, on Dec. 6, Romania’s Constitutional Court annulled the first-round results after evidence emerged of substantial Russian interference in the election. Portugal joined the list of European nations with a significant right-wing party following Chega’s success in the March elections. The party won 50 out of 230 parliamentary seats, up from just 12 in 2022 and one in 2019. Reform

As pure knowledge businesses that make money in billable hours worked, service providers are on the front lines of generative AI-powered disruption. GenAI-powered digital assistants supplement people’s work, augmenting their knowledge, skills, and experience as well as automating their tasks. The impact is more work completed in less time with fewer people. Over the next five years, service providers of all kinds — systems integrators, business process outsourcers, management consultancies, marketing agencies, tax advisors, financial auditors, lawyers, and more — must respond. Previous waves of service industry disruption — offshore labor and cloud computing — lowered costs and unlocked more demand for technology and for services. Will the same happen again? Only if service providers reinvent their business models as asset-based, solution-driven, and outcome-oriented. To compete and establish a new long-term value proposition, providers must cannibalize their existing time-and-materials commercial models, riding the cost curve down and reskilling their workforce while reinventing their offerings and business models for the era of AI computing (see figure below). Providers with scale and strong balance sheets will thrive and reinvent themselves as post-AI service providers, reconstructed to thrive in the AI computing era; smaller or less nimble providers will struggle.   What Tech Executives Should Do To Take Advantage Of AI-Powered Services As a technology executive, you might be able to negotiate lower rates, but that isn’t going to be the endgame for how genAI will change the role of providers in your success. Instead of scratching out discounts, focus instead on a stream of potential benefits that a provider can bring: projects delivered faster at lower cost, co-investment in IP that benefits you, new managed services, and help navigating the disruptive shift to an AI-powered enterprise. The key word is “ongoing.” You want to take advantage of providers’ investments today, and you want providers to keep investing to bring even more genAI benefits. source

Best provider offering robust AI-powered features: HubSpot Best for giving agents access to real-time data: Pipedrive Best for ticketing management and routing: Zendesk Best solution offering a self-service portal: Zoho Desk Best for managing employees and agents: Bitrix24 Best offering free live chat: Engagebay Best for providing omnichannel support: Kustomer Call center representatives use CRM software specifically designed for contact or help centers. These platforms host all customer information, including contact information, interaction history, purchase orders, and more. Call center CRM software helps manage ongoing customer relationships by streamlining support throughout the sales process. 1 monday CRM Employees per Company Size Micro (0-49), Small (50-249), Medium (250-999), Large (1,000-4,999), Enterprise (5,000+) Any Company Size Any Company Size Features Calendar, Collaboration Tools, Contact Management, and more 2 Creatio CRM Employees per Company Size Micro (0-49), Small (50-249), Medium (250-999), Large (1,000-4,999), Enterprise (5,000+) Medium (250-999 Employees), Large (1,000-4,999 Employees), Enterprise (5,000+ Employees) Medium, Large, Enterprise Features Dashboard, Document Management / Sharing, Email / Marketing Automation, and more 3 HubSpot CRM Employees per Company Size Micro (0-49), Small (50-249), Medium (250-999), Large (1,000-4,999), Enterprise (5,000+) Micro (0-49 Employees), Small (50-249 Employees), Medium (250-999 Employees), Large (1,000-4,999 Employees) Micro, Small, Medium, Large Top contact center CRM software comparison In addition to standard CRM features and capabilities, contact center CRM software include in-depth customer profiles, ticketing systems, multiple communication channels, and advanced reporting and analytics. Typically, a good general CRM provider can have all of these call center functionalities with the right configuration and integrations. Following CRM software best practices can assist in shaping top providers like HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zendesk, and more into effective contact center CRM. Software Starting premium price* Customer profiles Ticket management Communication channels Reporting and analytics HubSpot $15 per seat per month Yes Yes Yes Yes Pipedrive $34 per seat per month Yes Limited Yes Limited Zendesk $19 per seat per month Yes Yes Yes Yes Zoho Desk $14 per seat per month Yes Yes Yes Yes Bitrix24 $49 per 5 users per month Yes Yes Yes Yes Engagebay $12.74 per seat per month Yes Yes Limited Yes Kustomer $89 per seat per month Yes Yes Yes Limited *Price when billed annually. HubSpot: Best provider offering robust AI-powered features Image: HubSpot Within HubSpot’s Service Hub, the entire helpdesk and ticketing dashboard empowers reps and agents to manage and resolve queries in an AI-first and fully integrated workspace. Users can utilize AI-powered tools throughout their experience with the platform. With conversation intelligence, chatbots, and messaging, users can use AI to assist in not only strategizing support efforts but actually engaging with clients as well. Why I chose HubSpot HubSpot is a very popular CRM platform that offers a robust free version of its software. The call tracking, analytics, reporting, and playbook features help users manage end-to-end sales processes, including post-sale support. HubSpot also offers over 1,500+ potential integrations, making it an easy CRM provider to implement into any businesses’ current sales process and tech stack. While the HubSpot free tier is feature-rich, there still might be some advanced tools that are only accessible in premium plans. HubSpot’s premium subscriptions can be considered costly for startups or small businesses, so if that’s the case, we’d consider looking into Engagebay for similar support features. For more information, read the full HubSpot review. Pricing Free CRM: Free for up to 5 users with contact management, quotes, live chat, and more. Service Starter: $20 per seat per month, billed annually. The Starter plan includes all free tools, simple automation, e-signature, conversation routing, and more. Service Professional: $100 per seat per month, billed annually. This plan includes all Starter features, prospecting workspace, playbooks, forecasting, and more. Service Enterprise: $130 per monthly seat, with an annual commitment. Users of this plan receive all Professional tools plus advanced permissions, predictive lead scoring, conversation intelligence, and lead form routing. Features AI assistant: Increase rep and agent productivity and efficiency with AI built directly into the platform with response suggestions. Feedback management: Create NPS, CSAT, CES, and custom surveys to gather critical client feedback. Omnichannel messaging: Communicate with customers wherever they want by accessing multiple channels through one inbox and seamlessly switching between them. HubSpot content AI-assistant. Image: HubSpot HubSpot pros and cons Pros Cons 1,500+ app integrations. Premium plans can be costly compared to others on this list. Users report easy software deployment. Users report occasional bugs around data. HubSpot acts as an all-in-one software for sales, marketing, and administration support. Doesn’t offer live support for free users. Pipedrive: Best for giving agents access to real-time data Image: Pipedrive With Pipedrive as a contact center CRM, agents or sales reps can access real-time customer information and use the CRM data to better understand the customer’s needs and solve their submitted queries efficiently. Pipedrive offers this customer tracking software that collects data from every interaction with the customer, including emails, website visits, and more, and then provides valuable insights into their buying decisions. This will help reps close deals quickly and keep clients engaged and satisfied post-sale. Why I chose Pipedrive Pipedrive assists businesses that wish to prioritize customer satisfaction through contact management, real-time data, lead management and retention, and more. It is an easy-to-use sales CRM with powerful integrations, intuitive pipeline tracking, and more. With pricing tiers made for growing small businesses, Pipedrive is a scalable solution that can supercharge every step of your business’s sales cycle. Pipedrive doesn’t offer a totally free version of its platform, and some add-on features can quickly increase the monthly subscription. If you’re looking for a basic CRM with robust customer support features, starting with a free-for-life plan, consider looking into HubSpot for its robust free tier. What to learn more? Read our detailed Pipedrive review. Pricing Essential: $14 per user per month, billed annually, or $24 monthly. This plan supports 3,000 open deals, 15 reports per user, and multiple communication tracking features. Advanced: $34 per user per month, billed annually, or $44 per user when billed monthly. This plan offers all

By Christopher Cole ( December 10, 2024, 6:48 PM EST) — A coalition of state attorneys general called Tuesday for the Federal Communications Commission to take some of the “pain” out of customer service calls in FCC-regulated industries from internet and voice calls to broadcast satellite…. Law360 is on it, so you are, too. A Law360 subscription puts you at the center of fast-moving legal issues, trends and developments so you can act with speed and confidence. Over 200 articles are published daily across more than 60 topics, industries, practice areas and jurisdictions. A Law360 subscription includes features such as Daily newsletters Expert analysis Mobile app Advanced search Judge information Real-time alerts 450K+ searchable archived articles And more! Experience Law360 today with a free 7-day trial. source

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Google unveiled Gemini 2.0 today, marking an ambitious leap toward AI systems that can independently complete complex tasks and introducing native image generation and multilingual audio capabilities — features that position the tech giant for direct competition with OpenAI and Anthropic in an increasingly heated race for AI dominance. The release arrives almost exactly one year after Google’s initial Gemini launch, emerging during a pivotal moment in artificial intelligence development. Rather than simply responding to queries, these new “agentic” AI systems can understand nuanced context, plan multiple steps ahead, and take supervised actions on behalf of users. How Google’s new AI assistant could reshape daily digital life During a recent press conference, Tulsee Doshi, director of product management for Gemini, outlined the system’s enhanced capabilities while demonstrating real-time image generation and multilingual conversations. “Gemini 2.0 brings enhanced performance and new capabilities like native image and multilingual audio generation,” Doshi explained. “It also has native intelligent tool use, which means that it can directly access Google products like search or even execute code.” The initial release centers on Gemini 2.0 Flash, an experimental version that Google claims operates at twice the speed of its predecessor while surpassing the capabilities of more powerful models. This represents a significant technical achievement, as previous speed improvements typically came at the cost of reduced functionality. Inside the new generation of AI agents that promise to transform how we work Perhaps most significantly, Google introduced three prototype AI agents built on Gemini 2.0’s architecture that demonstrate the company’s vision for AI’s future. Project Astra, an updated universal AI assistant, showcased its ability to maintain complex conversations across multiple languages while accessing Google tools and maintaining contextual memory of previous interactions. “Project Astra now has up to 10 minutes of in-session memory, and can remember conversations you’ve had with it in the past, so you can have a more helpful, personalized experience,” explained Bibo Xu, group product manager at Google DeepMind, during a live demonstration. The system smoothly transitioned between languages and accessed real-time information through Google Search and Maps, suggesting a level of integration previously unseen in consumer AI products. For developers and enterprise customers, Google introduced Project Mariner and Jules, two specialized AI agents designed to automate complex technical tasks. Project Mariner, demonstrated as a Chrome extension, achieved an impressive 83.5% success rate on the WebVoyager benchmark for real-world web tasks — a significant improvement over previous attempts at autonomous web navigation. “Project Mariner is an early research prototype that explores agent capabilities for browsing the web and taking action,” said Jaclyn Konzelmann, director of product management at Google Labs. “When evaluated against the WebVoyager benchmark, which tests agent performance on end-to-end, real-world web tasks, Project Mariner achieved the impressive results of 83.5%.” Custom silicon and massive scale: The infrastructure behind Google’s AI ambitions Supporting these advances is Trillium, Google’s sixth-generation Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), which becomes generally available to cloud customers today. The custom AI accelerator represents a massive investment in computational infrastructure, with Google deploying over 100,000 Trillium chips in a single network fabric. Logan Kilpatrick, a product manager on the AI studio and Gemini API team, highlighted the practical impact of this infrastructure investment during the press conference. “The growth of flash usage has been more than 900% which has been incredible to see,” Kilpatrick said. “You know, we’ve had like six experimental model launches in the last few months, there’s now millions of developers who are using Gemini.” The road ahead: Safety concerns and competition in the age of autonomous AI Google’s shift toward autonomous agents represents perhaps the most significant strategic pivot in artificial intelligence since OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT. While competitors have focused on enhancing the capabilities of large language models, Google is betting that the future belongs to AI systems that can actively navigate digital environments and complete complex tasks with minimal human intervention. This vision of AI agents that can think, plan, and act marks a departure from the current paradigm of reactive AI assistants. It’s a risky bet — autonomous systems bring inherently greater safety concerns and technical challenges — but one that could reshape the competitive landscape if successful. The company’s massive investment in custom silicon and infrastructure suggests it’s prepared to compete aggressively in this new direction. However, the transition to more autonomous AI systems raises new safety and ethical concerns. Google has emphasized its commitment to responsible development, including extensive testing with trusted users and built-in safety measures. The company’s approach to rolling out these features gradually, starting with developer access and trusted testers, suggests an awareness of the potential risks involved in deploying autonomous AI systems. The release comes at a crucial moment for Google, as it faces increasing pressure from competitors and heightened scrutiny over AI safety. Microsoft and OpenAI have made significant strides in AI development this year, while other companies like Anthropic have gained traction with enterprise customers. “We firmly believe that the only way to build AI is to be responsible from the start,” emphasized Shrestha Basu Mallick, group product manager for the Gemini API, during the press conference. “We’ll continue to prioritize making safety and responsibility a key element of our model development process as we advance our models and agents.” As these systems become more capable of taking action in the real world, they could fundamentally reshape how people interact with technology. The success of Gemini 2.0 could determine not only Google’s position in the AI market but also the broader trajectory of AI development as the industry moves toward more autonomous systems. One year ago, when Google launched the first version of Gemini, the AI landscape was dominated by chatbots that could engage in clever conversation but struggled with real-world tasks. Now, as AI agents begin to take their first tentative steps toward autonomy, the industry stands at another inflection point. The question is no

Today’s enterprise architecture (EA) practices are critical to enable a firm’s customer-obsessed digital transformations. As more traditional EA practices become commoditized, enterprise architecture management suite (EAMS) vendors that show strong use cases to support real transformations will emerge as market leaders. These transformation-enabling use cases include AI-powered features, support sustainability goals, offer modeling and assessment capacities, and provide architecture-empowering functions. We just published The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Architecture Management Suites, Q4 2024, in which we evaluate the 12 most significant vendors — Ardoq, Avolution, Bee360, Bizzdesign, BOC Group, MEGA International, North Highland, Orbus Software, SAP LeanIX, Software AG, Sparx Systems, and ValueBlue — on their current offering, strategy, and customer feedback. Of these 12 vendors, four Leaders emerged: Orbus Software, MEGA International, Bizzdesign, and Software AG. Our assessment unveils that the leading vendors stand out because: They possess competitive AI use case capabilities. AI is in its nascent stage, and forward-thinking Wave Leaders have swiftly capitalized on this emerging technology. Key features offered by the Leaders include text recommendation engines, chatbots, smart agents, and AI-assisted roadmap capabilities. These functionalities leverage common large language models and incorporate the retrieval-augmented generation technique to enhance performance and accuracy. They offer ways to support sustainability goals. Sustainability features are a key differentiator for each Wave Leader. These include a hub capacity that enables strategic planning and measurement of the IT estate, from materiality assessment to carbon-footprint calculation, as well as integration with sustainability software. They provide the best modeling and assessment capacities. Diagramming and visual comparisons of objects are foundational features of EA tools, rooted in the core competencies of architects. Leading providers offer advanced capabilities such as process modeling, process mining, business capability mapping, and comprehensive assessments, all essential for effective analysis and communication. They empower architects, helping them be more proficient. Leaders consistently focus on empowering architects through various means, including digital twins, EA democratization, process mining, low-code/no-code solutions, demand management, strategic portfolio management, and architecture decision records. They also promote the use of APIs and microservices to encourage loose coupling. Forrester clients should use the report to create a shortlist of relevant EAMS vendors. Forrester clients can also book a guidance session or inquiry with me to discuss how to apply the Wave to their specific requirements. I would like to thank my colleague Paul McKay for his continuous support and editorial guidance and of course Min Say, who made this complex project a relatively easy task. source

The U.S. has sanctioned Sichuan Silence, a Chinese cybersecurity firm involved in ransomware attacks targeting critical infrastructure in 2020. One of its employees, Guan Tianfeng, has also been charged individually. Guan, a security researcher, discovered a zero-day vulnerability in a firewall product developed by U.K.-based security firm Sophos. He exploited the vulnerability, designated CVE 2020-12271, using a SQL injection attack that retrieved and remotely executed a script from a malicious server. Guan and his co-conspirators had registered legitimate server domains, such as sophosfirewallupdate.com. This script, part of the malicious Asnarök Trojan toolkit, was initially designed to steal data like usernames and passwords from the firewalls and the computers behind them and send them to a Chinese IP address. If the victim attempted to reboot their device, Ragnarok ransomware would automatically install, disabling antivirus software and encrypting every Windows device on the network. However, within two days of the attack, Sophos deployed a patch to impacted firewalls that did not require a reboot and removed all malicious scripts. Guan then modified the malware to install ransomware when it detected Sophos’ mitigation, but the patch prevented this from working. According to a now-unsealed indictment on Guan, his conspirators viewed information about the Sophos patch on the company’s website in May 2020 before testing an updated version of its exploit a few days later. The Treasury has sanctioned both Sichuan Silence and Guan Tianfeng, meaning all their U.S.-based assets will be blocked, and organizations and individuals will be prohibited from engaging in transactions of funds, goods, or services with them. “Today’s action underscores our commitment to exposing these malicious cyber activities—many of which pose a significant risk to our communities and our citizens—and to holding the actors behind them accountable for their schemes,” Bradley T. Smith, acting undersecretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a press release. Rewards of up to $10 million are available for information about Guan or other state-sponsored cyber attackers. Guan is believed to reside in Sichuan Province, China, though he may also travel to Bangkok, Thailand. Tens of thousands of firewalls used by critical infrastructure companies were compromised Between April 22-25, 2020, around 81,000 Sophos XG firewalls used by global companies were compromised. Over 23,000 of these firewalls were used by U.S. organizations, and 36 were used for critical infrastructure. Compromising critical infrastructure — such as utilities, transport, telecommunications, and data centres — can lead to widespread disruption, making it a prime target for cyberattacks. A recent report from Malwarebytes found that the services industry is the worst affected by ransomware, accounting for almost a quarter of global attacks. SEE: 80% of Critical National Infrastructure Companies Experienced an Email Security Breach in Last Year One victim was a U.S. energy company drilling for oil when the Sichuan Silence ransomware was deployed. The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control says that human life could have been lost if the attack had caused oil rigs to malfunction. Must-read security coverage Who is Sichuan Silence? Sichuan Silence is a Chengdu-based cybersecurity contractor primarily hired by Chinese intelligence services. China has denied hacking charges made by the U.S. in the past but has been consistently linked with cyber attacks in the U.S. This month, the Federal Bureau of Investigations and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency identified that China-affiliated threat actors had “compromised networks at multiple telecommunications companies.” SEE: China-Linked Attack Hits 260,000 Devices, FBI Confirms According to the Treasury, Sichuan Silence provides clients tools and services for hacking networks, monitoring emails, brute-force password cracking, and exploiting network routers. The organization’s website also states it has products that can scan overseas networks for intelligence information. A pre-positioning device — a tool that installs malicious code in a target network to set up a future cyber attack — was used by Guan in April 2020 and was found to be owned by Sichuan Silence. The attacker also competed on behalf of his company in cybersecurity tournaments and posted zero-day exploits he’d discovered on forums using the handle “GbigMao.” In November 2021, Meta reported dismantling a coordinated disinformation campaign linked to Sichuan Silence that falsely claimed the U.S. was interfering with World Health Organization investigations into COVID-19 operations. The disinformation was spread by hundreds of fake Facebook and Instagram accounts and amplified by Chinese state media and government-linked organizations. “The scale and persistence of Chinese nation-state adversaries pose a significant threat to critical infrastructure, as well as unsuspecting, everyday businesses as noted in Sophos’ Pacific Rim investigation report,” Ross McKerchar, CISO at Sophos, told TechRepublic. “Their relentless determination redefines what it means to be an Advanced Persistent Threat; disrupting this shift demands individual and collective action across the industry, including with law enforcement. “We can’t expect these groups to slow down if we don’t put the time and effort into out-innovating them, and this includes early transparency about vulnerabilities and a commitment to develop stronger software.” Critical infrastructure attacks are on the rise Attacks on critical infrastructure are ballooning in popularity. At the end of 2023, the FBI uncovered a wide-ranging botnet attack by the Chinese hacking group Volt Typhoon, created from hundreds of privately owned routers across the U.S. and its overseas territories. The threat actors targeted and compromised the IT environments of U.S. communications, energy, transportation, and water infrastructure. Volt Typhoon has conducted hundreds of attacks on critical infrastructure since it became active in mid-2021. SEE: Why critical infrastructure is vulnerable to cyberattacks Other notable attacks on critical infrastructure from recent years include the 2021 Colonial Pipeline incident. The company — responsible for 45% of the East Coast’s fuel, including gas, heating oil, and other forms of petroleum — discovered it was hit by a ransomware attack and was forced to shut down some of its systems, stopping all pipeline operations temporarily. Sandworm and affiliates of the Black Basta ransomware-as-a-service organization have also targeted critical infrastructure worldwide. Both firms have links to Russia. In May, the U.S. CISA and several international cyber authorities warned of

Given how central work is to the lives of many Americans, the federal government carefully and consistently collects information on job availability, job characteristics and the demographics of the workforce. This chapter presents some of the key indicators collected by federal agencies and, when available, how they have changed over the past couple of decades. These topics include: The share of U.S. workers who are looking for work, and how long employees have worked for their current employer How much workers earn, how they are paid, and how much control they have over their work goals and processes How the age diversity, racial and ethnic diversity, and education of the U.S. workforce has changed in recent decades How easy is it to find and keep a job? National unemployment rate The standard measure of the availability of jobs is the national unemployment rate, or the share of the labor force who is looking for work. A low unemployment rate implies that it is relatively easy for job seekers to secure employment. In 2023, unemployment was 3.6%. Over the past seven decades, there have been very few years with an unemployment rate lower than that. Though unemployment has ticked up during 2024, it remains relatively low – 4.1% in October 2024. By comparison, unemployment peaked at 9.7% in 2010 after millions of workers lost their jobs in the Great Recession that began in December 2007. Job tenure Job tenure data collected by the government also indicates that jobs have become more secure over the last few decades and that workers are not job-hopping more than in the past. Every other January, the U.S. Census Bureau asks workers how long they have been with their current employer. In January 2022, about a third of workers ages 18 and older (34%) reported that they had been with their current employer less than three years, while about one quarter (27%) had been with their employer 10 years or more. The average tenure of today’s workers is not much different than what was reported by workers 20 years ago. The tenure data captures workers who choose to leave their job (if they quit or job-hop) as well as those who leave involuntarily (if they get fired). Job tenure appears to have increased during the Great Recession. For example, in January 2008, 35% of workers had been with their employer less than three years. But by 2010, 31% of workers reported that short of tenure. During economic downturns, workers may stick with their current employer due to the lack of good alternative job opportunities. Furthermore, employees with short tenures are the ones who are most likely to be terminated during a recession and thus no longer included in the tenure calculation. Job tenure among adult workers partly reflects the characteristics of the workforce. Over many decades, the workforce has aged; that tends to boost the average job tenure, as older workers generally stay in their jobs longer than younger workers. Still, the job tenure of 18- to 34-year-old workers has not changed much over time. This suggests that today’s young workers do not job-hop to a greater extent than young workers of the past. Job characteristics How has pay changed over time? The past decade or so has been beneficial for workers in general. Unemployment has been trending down and employers have had difficulty finding workers to fill both lower-skilled and higher-skilled jobs. As a result employers have had to pay higher wages to find the workers they need. Today the typical adult working full-time, year-round earns about $60,000 a year. That’s a 12% pay boost above what they earned in 2000 ($53,480 after adjusting for inflation). Earnings outcomes are less rosy, however, over the short term. Since 2020, inflation has heated up and workers’ pay overall has not kept up. In 2021, the median adult full-time, year-round worker earned $64,321 after adjusting for inflation, above the $60,000 earned today. The 2021 figure refers to the earnings of workers during calendar year 2020. In 2020 there were 14 million fewer full-time, full-year workers than in 2019, the largest year-to-year decline on record. The Census Bureau asserts that the employment decline and earnings increase from 2019 to 2020 together suggest that many of the jobs lost due to the pandemic were lower-paying jobs, bumping up the estimated 2021 median earnings. How are workers paid? By far, wages and salaries are the most common type of pay arrangement. In 2023, 97% of workers ages 18 and older reported receiving this type of pay. Other types of pay included: Bonuses (10% of workers received this type of pay) Commissions (5%) Overtime pay (5%) Tips (2%) Pay arrangements vary by occupation, and workers can report multiple types of earnings. Decision-making on the job Another important aspect of work is the degree to which workers make their own decisions, or their autonomy on the job. The Federal Reserve has recently begun collecting information on job autonomy. In 2023, workers said they had more autonomy to choose how to complete their tasks than to choose which tasks to complete. Among workers ages 25 and older:  58% said they often or always chose how to complete tasks. 36% said they often or always chose which tasks to work on. Workers with more formal education reported greater autonomy on the job than their counterparts with less education. For example, 40% of workers with at least a bachelor’s degree said they often or always choose which tasks to work on versus 27% of workers who have not completed high school. Having multiple jobs In 2023, just 5% of workers ages 25 and older had multiple jobs. This share has not changed much over time: In 2000, 6% of workers ages 25 and older held multiple jobs. Surprisingly, workers in this age group who have completed at least a bachelor’s degree are more likely to work multiple jobs (6% in 2023) than those who have not completed high school (3%). Industry of employment Employment growth

Software engineering intelligence (SEI) tools provide insights into the software development process for development leaders. Using SEI tools, dev leaders can optimize their software development processes while improving the developer experience. The market growth in SEI tools directly corresponds to the explosive use of generative AI (genAI) TuringBots, commonly referred to as copilots for software development. GenAI’s promise to vastly improve software coding efficiency has spurred nearly every development leader to purchase these tools for their teams, with the hopes that they can finally move the needle on improving software release cadence. But there’s a catch: GenAI copilots cost money, and CFOs and CEOs who approved the purchase of copilots want to see the ROI. In a sense, the copilot bill has come due. Dev leaders scrambling to provide these productivity measurements are increasingly turning to SEI tools and their ability to measure software development process metrices, such as DORA, pull request cycle times, acceptance rates, and others. Value stream management (VSM) tools have similar capabilities to SEI tools, but their scope extends beyond software development to include the entire end-to-end process of software development. Many organizations don’t think of software delivery as a value stream, but that is a mistake. Software developers are not employed to simply code — they create value for the business and its customers through the development of software. Enterprises that use VSM are trying to solve bigger problems than developer productivity: They want to improve an entire business unit’s productivity, from planning to execution. These organizations often use multiple vendors to provide DevOps tooling and need a solution that can act independently from them, while at the same time providing uniform visibility and governance. At Forrester we see this intersection in this way: Here’s what you need to know: SEI tools help software delivery organizations improve with data and analytics that are ingested directly from development tools — typically Jira, GitHub, and CI/CD systems. VSM tools have very similar capabilities but capture data from a larger portion of the software development lifecycle, from planning all the way through delivery, to help all teams stay aligned towards business goals. Here’s what’s coming next: Coming in Q1 2025, “The Value Stream Management Solutions Landscape” will include both VSM and SEI tools to provide readers with an understanding of core and extended use cases, as well as mapping to capabilities. Coming in Q2, “The Forrester Wave™: Value Stream Management Solutions” will evaluate VSM tools (and possibly some broader SEI tools) to compare and evaluate their strategy and capabilities. IT leaders: Got questions about how an SEI or VSM tool can help you? Feel free to schedule a guidance session with me to learn more. Vendors: Got an SEI or VSM tool you want to brief me on? Please request a briefing to inform me of your offering. source

Perimeter 81 fast facts Our rating: 3.9 out of 5 starsPricing: Starts at $8 per user/month (annual)Key features: Zero-trust network access. DNS filtering. Device Posture Check (DPC). Malware protection. Automatic Wi-Fi security. Image: Perimeter 81 Perimeter 81 is a cloud-based network security solution designed to help organizations boost security on corporate networks. The solution takes network security beyond the capabilities of traditional VPNs and firewalls, with over 50 points of presence worldwide and a range of security features. These features include a zero-trust architecture, advanced malware protection, and device posture check. Continue reading to learn more about Perimeter 81 and what it offers as a network security solution. Semperis Employees per Company Size Micro (0-49), Small (50-249), Medium (250-999), Large (1,000-4,999), Enterprise (5,000+) Large (1,000-4,999 Employees), Enterprise (5,000+ Employees) Large, Enterprise Features Advanced Attacks Detection, Advanced Automation, Anywhere Recovery, and more ESET PROTECT Advanced Employees per Company Size Micro (0-49), Small (50-249), Medium (250-999), Large (1,000-4,999), Enterprise (5,000+) Any Company Size Any Company Size Features Advanced Threat Defense, Full Disk Encryption , Modern Endpoint Protection, and more ManageEngine Log360 Employees per Company Size Micro (0-49), Small (50-249), Medium (250-999), Large (1,000-4,999), Enterprise (5,000+) Micro (0-49 Employees), Small (50-249 Employees), Medium (250-999 Employees), Large (1,000-4,999 Employees), Enterprise (5,000+ Employees) Micro, Small, Medium, Large, Enterprise Features Activity Monitoring, Blacklisting, Dashboard, and more Perimeter 81 pricing Perimeter 81 offers four paid plans: Essentials, Premium, Premium Plus, and Enterprise. Here’s a brief overview of their feature and price differences: Plans Essentials Premium Premium Plus Enterprise Price $8 per user per month. $12 per user per month. $16 per user per month. Quote available upon request. Users Minimum 10 users. Minimum 10 users. Minimum 20 users. Minimum 50 users. Unlimited network tunnels Yes Yes Yes Yes Split tunneling Yes Yes Yes Yes Single Sign-On capabilities No Yes Yes Yes Logs retention 14 days. 30 days. 30 days. 60 days. Dedicated chat and email support During office hours only. Prioritized response. Prioritized response. 24/7 The Perimeter 81 pricing structure is similar to some of its competitors, like NordLayer. For example, the annual billing in the Premium and Premium Plus cost $12/user/month and $16/user/ month respectively. Meanwhile, their equivalents in NordLayer — Core and Premium — cost $11 per user/month and $14 per user/month, respectively. Perimeter 81 is costlier when you place it side by side with Twingate, whose highest pricing is $10 per user/month for annual billing. While there is no free trial available, I commend Perimeter 81 for offering a 30-day money-back guarantee for each of their plans. I also appreciate how prospective buyers can request a demo to join a call and receive a 15-minute walkthrough of the VPN. SEE: Free VPN vs Paid VPN: Which One Is Right for You? (TechRepublic) Is Perimeter 81 safe? Yes, I found Perimeter 81 to be a safe and secure VPN software solution. Perimeter 81 has a lot of advanced security features that make it a safe VPN for different organizations. The tool features multi-factor authentication (MFA), prompting employees to pass through a multi-step account login process before gaining access to a company’s resources. As an enterprise solution, I appreciate that Perimeter 81 offers single sign-on, which integrates with business services like Azure, Google Suite, LDAP, or OKTA to streamline safe login for company employees working remotely. However, I want to mention that SSO isn’t available on the Essentials plan — so keep that in mind when considering their subscriptions. The solution also employs AES-256 encryption using IPsec or WireGuard protocols and supports network security features such as split tunneling, web filtering, a firewall, and an Always On VPN option. Another notable security feature is Automatic Wi-Fi protection, which ensures that employees don’t get access to company resources when their connection is exposed. SEE: 10 Ways a Zero Trust Architecture Protects Against Ransomware (TechRepublic) One major safety concern I have about Perimeter 81 is its logs policy. The provider keeps IP log data for up to 60 days before it is deleted. However, Perimeter 81 claims only the workspace admin has access to that data. Key features of Perimeter 81 Below are some features of Perimeter 81 I found interesting. Agentless application access One of my favorite Perimeter 81 features is its Agentless Zero Trust Network Access. It works by giving employees or third-party contractors limited access to a company network. The feature can grant specific employees access through the browser to a particular application — not the wider company network. This helps admins monitor employee or third-party contractor access to company networks to know where and how access occurs. Perimeter 81 Agentless Application Access Dashboard. Image: Perimeter 81 SEE: How to Create an Effective Cybersecurity Awareness Program (TechRepublic Premium) DNS Filtering Another Perimeter 81 inclusion I like is its DNS Filtering. This feature limits users’ access to unauthorized websites that could harm a company’s network infrastructure. It helps IT teams determine which content or IP address will be whitelisted or blacklisted on employees’ devices. Perimeter 81 DNS filtering. Image: Perimeter 81 I envision this to be especially beneficial for hybrid workforces and businesses with fully remote workers. Device Posture Check If your department regularly handles sensitive data, I suggest looking into Perimeter 81’s Device Posture Check or DPC. DPC ensures the company’s most important resources are secured by granting access strictly to only devices that meet the security posture requirements. Perimeter 81 DPC rules can check Android, iOS, Windows, MacOS, and Linux devices before and during network access, and remove devices where there is a discrepancy between user policy and posture. Perimeter 81 Device Posture Check. Image: Perimeter 81 Advanced Malware Protection For more traditional threat protection, Perimeter 81’s Advanced Malware Protection is a welcome feature. It uses a combination of signature-based detection, heuristics, and advanced machine learning to identify and block malware and zero-day attacks. Personally, I appreciate how it enables admins to easily track user exposure to malicious content with extensive reports. Reports Dashboard. Image: Perimeter 81 SEE: How to Tell If Your