CS1803

tech trends
A TASTE OF THINGS TO COME
RAHUL POWAR AND RANDAL PINTO, CEO AND COO OF LONDON-BASED TECH START-UP RED SIFT,
SINGLE OUT THE THREE TECH TRENDS THAT THEY BELIEVE WILL DOMINATE IN 2018
Randal Pinto, Red Sift.
Last year saw wave after wave of tech
news hitting the headlines. Whether it
was documenting a huge technological
advancement, the publication of a high-risk
vulnerability or the announcement of a gamechanging
regulation, nowhere was this more
evident than in the cryptocurrency, Artificial
Intelligence (AI) and cyber security arenas.
Here is our forecast for how these trends will
come to fruition this year.
OPTIMISE BUSINESS PROCESSES WITH
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
The Economist's World in 2018 predicts the
next twelve months to be a 'landmark year' for
Artificial Intelligence. Continued huge leaps in
innovation are without question. However,
what we will also see this year, is that AI will
lose some of its shine and become part of the
everyday technology toolbox all organisations
use to automate arduous data-driven tasks.
One key trend we'll see is AI starting to write
AI. This is the idea of deep neural networks
designing and optimising other deep neural
Rahul Powar, Red Sift
networks, and will become mainstream in
machine learning. We won't really be any
closer to general-purpose AI, but hyperbolic
industry commentators will no doubt spin
‘AI writing AI’ as the start of it.
CONSIDER CRYPTOCURRENCY
Cryptocurrency has shot to fame in the past
few years and certainly became part of the
business vernacular last year. However, this
digital currency remains at the mercy of
criminals - as 2017 came to a close, we saw
reports of a hack attack in which $64 million
in bitcoin had been stolen. Guidelines are few
and far between, and regulators will have to
play catch-up this year. However, putting a
leash on a global, decentralised mechanism
will not be a straightforward task and some
stakeholders may resist being locked down.
That said, we'll also see broader adoption
of blockchain in the enterprise - finance and
insurance companies have already started
adopting this digital framework. IBM and
Microsoft, too, have joined the fray, offering
Blockchain as a service (BaaS) solutions, which
will see wider adoption across other industries
including energy, retail, real estate and the
public sector.
SOLIDIFY YOUR CYBERSECURITY
Although everyone knows what they should
be doing for GDPR, reports are already
suggesting that not only are millions of SMBs
in the UK still not compliant but, even as we
start off the New Year, they haven't begun
preparing for the EU-mandated regulation.
Until we see a landmark GDPR case, with an
organisation facing a headline-grabbing fine,
firms will probably continue to keep the
status quo, with minimum measures in place.
Many firms cite massive costs and resources
required as barriers to making the necessary
changes.
2018 will see a raft of companies declaring
breaches and opportunistic hackers ramping
up their attacks on vulnerable organisations.
This year, we will also observe a maturity in
quantum computing which will threaten
encryption and computing security - the
concern being that this level of computing
power will crack previously 'unbreakable'
passwords and encryption.
ABOUT RED SIFT AND ONDMARC
Red Sift is a London-based Platform as a
Service (PaaS) startup founded in 2015 by
serial entrepreneurs Rahul Powar and Randal
Pinto. The cloud-based platform offers both
businesses and individuals a powerful
dashboard of tools, plugging into various
data sources in order to receive personalised,
actionable insights. OnDMARC is the first
product built on the Red Sift platform; it's an
intuitive cloud-based cybersecurity tool that
helps organisations of all sizes and specialisms
secure their email domains against
impersonation.
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computing security March/April 2018 @CSMagAndAwards www.computingsecurity.co.uk