Tuesday, 12 August 2025

CYBER DEFENCES FALTER AS ATTACK SUCCESS RATES SURGE - PICUS REPORT

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 12 (Bernama) -- In a troubling snapshot of the current cybersecurity landscape, Picus Security, in its Blue Report 2025, revealed a sharp decline in global cybersecurity defensive effectiveness despite an alarming rise in the volume and sophistication of cyberattacks.

Now in its third year, the report draws on over 160 million real-world attack simulations conducted in live production environments.

The security validation company found that 46 per cent of tested environments had at least one password hash cracked. Even more concerning, attacks using valid credentials succeeded 98 per cent of the time, allowing adversaries to bypass controls with ease and remain virtually undetected.

These trends, according to a statement, show how quickly compromised credentials can lead to large-scale data theft.

“We must operate under the assumption that adversaries already have access,” said Picus Security co-founder and Picus Labs vice president, Dr Süleyman Ozarslan.

He urged organisations to adopt an ‘assume breach’ mindset, improve identity control validation and strengthen behavioural detection.

Among the most staggering findings is that only three per cent of data exfiltration attempts were stopped, down from nine per cent in 2024. This comes amid a surge in infostealer malware and double-extortion ransomware, where attackers encrypt and steal data simultaneously to maximise leverage.

Ransomware remains a key threat, with BlackByte registering a prevention effectiveness rate of 26 per cent, followed by BabLock at 34 per cent and Maori at 41 per cent.

Detection capabilities also suffered, with discovery techniques such as System Network Configuration Discovery and Process Discovery blocked in fewer than 12 per cent of simulations.

Overall prevention effectiveness dropped to 62 per cent in 2025 from 69 per cent last year. Although logging coverage stayed at 54 per cent, only 14 per cent of attacks generated alerts, indicating that most malicious activities went undetected.

The report, compiled from simulations conducted between January and June this year, includes industry-specific findings and recommendations to strengthen security controls and improve threat readiness.

-- BERNAMA

Saturday, 9 August 2025

​Bank Negara Indonesia Strengthens Partnership with Cloudera to Scale AI-Powered Business Transformation

Cloudera’s secure, scalable platform to power BNI’s next phase of digital transformation, enabling real-time insights, advanced machine learning, and cross-agency collaboration.

SINGAPORE, Aug 7 (Bernama-GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- [EVOLVE25] –
 Cloudera the only company bringing AI to data anywhere, today announced that Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) is deepening its partnership with Cloudera to scale artificial intelligence (AI) innovation across the enterprise. By leveraging Cloudera’s open, hybrid data platform, BNI is streamlining its AI supply chain, bringing together data ingestion, governance, analytics, and machine learning into a single cohesive environment.

BNI is among the first adopters of Cloudera AI Inferencing, built on NVIDIA NIM microservices. This on-premises service enables secure, reliable deployment of open-source large language models (LLMs) on NVIDIA accelerated computing—empowering BNI to scale generative AI securely while maintaining full control over sensitive data. Full deployment is expected by the end of 2025, with BNI working closely with Cloudera and NVIDIA technology to ensure performance, compliance, and resilience at every step.

"We are proud to be among the first financial institutions adopting Cloudera’s AI Inference service. This technology gives us the infrastructure to scale our generative AI ambitions securely and efficiently, while staying compliant with Indonesia’s evolving regulatory landscape," said Toto Prasetio, Chief Information Officer of BNI. "It’s a major step forward in our goal to deliver smarter, faster, and more responsible digital banking services to Indonesians."

BNI chose Cloudera for its strong alignment with Indonesia’s regulatory requirements and its ability to support enterprise-scale AI. Cloudera’s unified data platform offers robust governance, end-to-end security, and hybrid deployment flexibility—ensuring compliance with Indonesian Financial Services Authority (OJK) and Bank Indonesia’s (BI) regulations while supporting BNI’s data sovereignty goals. Its AI and machine learning capabilities, coupled with an open-source foundation, allow BNI to scale predictive analytics, fraud detection, and customer personalization efficiently and securely.

While inference integration is underway, BNI is already using machine learning to:

· Product Recommendation: Suggesting relevant banking products based on customer history.
· Supply Chain Analytics: Optimizing material flows and vendor networks to improve efficiency and reduce operational risk.
· Online Gambling Detection: Using real-time monitoring and ML models to detect, freeze, and report suspicious accounts—contributing to national anti-gambling efforts in collaboration with Indonesia’s Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK), Kominfo, OJK, and BI.
· Chatbot for Product Knowledge: Equipping relationship managers with AI-driven responses to customer inquiries.
· Churn Prediction: Identifying at-risk customers and taking proactive engagement steps to boost retention.
 
“We are excited to deepen our partnership with BNI as they pioneer the next phase of AI-powered banking in Indonesia,” said Remus Lim, Senior Vice President for Asia Pacific and Japan at Cloudera. “By adopting Cloudera’s AI Inference and unified data platform, BNI is leading the way in securely operationalizing generative AI at scale. This collaboration underscores our commitment to empowering Indonesia’s financial institutions with trusted, scalable, and regulatory-ready AI infrastructure.”

As BNI continues modernizing its data architecture, Cloudera and its AI ecosystem are enabling the bank to lead securely and responsibly in Indonesia’s digital finance landscape.

About Cloudera  
Cloudera is the only data and AI platform company that large organizations trust to bring AI to their data anywhere it lives. Unlike other providers, Cloudera delivers a consistent cloud experience that converges public clouds, on-prem data centers, and the edge, leveraging a proven open-source foundation. As the pioneer in big data, Cloudera empowers businesses to apply AI and assert control over 100% of their data, in all forms, improving security, governance, and real-time and predictive insights. The world’s largest brands across all industries rely on Cloudera to transform decision-making and ultimately boost bottom lines, safeguard against threats, and even save lives.  
  
To learn more, visit Cloudera.com and follow us on LinkedIn and X. Cloudera and associated marks are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cloudera, Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.  

Contact
Jess Hohn-Cabana
cloudera@v2comms.com

SOURCE: Cloudera, Inc.

--BERNAMA 

Friday, 8 August 2025

Teledyne DALSA Launches Z-Trak Express 1K5 For High-speed 3D Inspection

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 6 (Bernama) -- Teledyne DALSA, a Teledyne Technologies company and a global leader in machine vision technology, has introduced the Z-Trak Express 1K5 3D laser profiler series.

The Z-Trak Express 1K5 is built for cost-effective, in-line 3D measurement and inspection, delivering high-speed 3D inspection with real-time processing and achieving a maximum profile rate of 5,000 profiles per second.

As the latest innovation in the Z-Trak family, the Z-Trak Express 1K5 is ideal for a wide range of industries, including secondary battery production, automotive, lumber inspection, factory automation, and logistics, according to Teledyne DALSA in a statement.

Featuring a 1,700-millimetre (mm) horizontal field-of-view, the Z-Trak Express 1K5 enables precise measurement and inspection of wide-body objects such as wooden planks, road surfaces, pallets, and automotive body parts, using a single sensor.

It also supports the integration of multiple sensors in a variety of topologies, enabling advanced measurement and inspection tasks such as measuring the thickness of moving parts, performing continuous 360-degree inspections, and extending the horizontal field-of-view, all without compromising Z-resolution.

In addition, the Z-Trak Express 1K5 synchronises multiple sensors using a data cable and supports content-based triggering for enhanced flexibility to simplify deployment and reduce costs.

To accommodate objects of varying sizes, shapes, colours, finishes, and material compositions, Z-Trak Express 1K5 includes real-time, user programmable profile enhancement functions, two-point HDR, and models with eye-safe red or blue lasers.

The Z-Trak Express 1K5 series comes bundled with Z-Trak 3D Apps Studio, a licence for a powerful suite of software tools; Z-Expert, a graphical configuration utility; and Sherlock 8 – a field proven rapid deployment platform for machine vision.

-- BERNAMA


Thursday, 7 August 2025

Menos AI Launches Institutional-Grade AI for Hedge Funds and Asset Managers, Starting with an AI Idea-Generation Agent

 


SAN JOSE, Calif., Aug 7 (Bernama-BUSINESS WIRE) -- Menos AI, an AI-native fintech built by and for investment professionals, today announced its public launch. Its flagship product, Sonαr, is an intelligent research agent that helps hedge funds and institutional investors uncover timely, differentiated ideas amid information overload. Sonαr is currently rolling out to select partner funds ahead of a broader release.

Founded by investment veterans and AI experts, Menos AI is backed by a $5.2 million oversubscribed seed round led by prominent Silicon Valley family offices and venture capital firms.

Sonαr: Distilling Alpha from Information Overload

Portfolio managers and analysts navigate a constant flood of market updates, sell-side content, third-party research reports, and internal memos. Sonαr cuts through the noise and surfaces alpha-generating insights that might otherwise be overlooked. Developed with leading global macro and multi-strategy hedge funds, Sonαr uses proprietary Alpha Signal Extraction to identify ideas with novelty, timeliness, and market relevance. Its forthcoming Voice Scoring capability can spotlight contributors who are consistently early and accurate — amplifying insights backed by proven track records and exposing areas where further due diligence can lead to an edge.

"Alpha doesn't scream. It whispers," said William Wu, Co-founder and CEO. "Sonαr helps investment teams hear it early — and act with clarity."

Built to Scale with Investment Teams

Menos AI's mission is helping institutional investors build firm-specific AI capabilities. Their secure, domain-specific agent platform delivers seamless enterprise integration with customers' workflows and preferred internal and external sources, delivering significant time savings from idea discovery to research and middle-office support — enabling managers to focus on strategic, differentiated thinking.

"The next generation of high-performing investment teams will be human–machine hybrids," said Chris Yang, Co-founder and Chief AI Scientist. "Menos AI helps firms build their AI edge."

"Our platform is designed for institutional-grade performance and security," added Xiang Pan, Co-founder and CTO. "We're building infrastructure investment teams can trust."

About Menos AI

Headquartered in San Jose, California, Menos AI builds intelligent agents that help institutional investors scale research, decision-making, and operations. Our team combines expertise from senior executives at leading financial services firms, top engineers from pioneering technology companies, and machine learning specialists with PhDs from premier research universities. Dedicated to "less noise, more signal," we help institutional investors focus on what matters most.

View source version on businesswire.com: 
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250806499043/en/


Contact

For more information:

Website: www.menosai.com

Email: info@menosai.com

Source : Menos AI

Wednesday, 6 August 2025

DUCK CREEK BILLING ENHANCES MEMBER EXPERIENCE WITH REAL-TIME INSIGHTS AT PURE

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 6 (Bernama) -- Duck Creek Technologies, a global intelligent solutions provider for the insurance industry, announced that PURE Insurance has upgraded to the latest version of the Duck Creek Billing platform.

In a statement, Duck Creek said the upgrade would enable PURE Insurance to enhance operational efficiency and financial management and deliver a more seamless billing experience for its members.

Duck Creek Technologies Chief Operating Officer, Chris McCloskey said the company was proud to support PURE in modernising its billing processes and elevating its service to members through the upgraded system.

“PURE Insurance is a valued long-time customer, known for consistently delivering an outstanding service experience,” he said.

Meanwhile, PURE Insurance Vice President, Finance Divisional Information Officer, Meenakshi Rungta said the enhanced platform strengthens existing capabilities by improving billing operations and supporting a more intuitive user experience.

“Upgrading to the latest Duck Creek Billing solution is a strategic step that reinforces our commitment to delivering exceptional service to our members,” she said.

PURE Insurance is a member-owned insurer catering to successful and responsible families in the property and casualty (P&C) and general insurance markets.

Duck Creek Billing is a software as a service (SaaS) solution designed to automate invoicing, premium collection and payment processes, while providing flexibility in billing options and configurations.

-- BERNAMA

Tuesday, 5 August 2025

LENDLEASE GLOBAL COMMERCIAL REIT SEES MODEST DPU UPTICK IN 2H FY2025

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 5 (Bernama) -- Lendlease Global Commercial Trust Management Pte Ltd, the manager of Lendlease Global Commercial REIT (LREIT), reports a 1.8 per cent rise in its distribution per unit (DPU) to SG$0.018 for the half-year ended June 30, 2025 (2H FY2025). (SG$1=RM3.28)

The DPU, scheduled to be paid on Sept 24, is driven by steady retail performance and a more favourable interest rate outlook, according to the REIT in a statement.

Lendlease REIT’s portfolio valuation rose 2.2 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to SG$3.76 billion, supported by its core Singapore assets. Following the Jem office divestment, Singapore retail will comprise over 85 per cent of portfolio value.

Its Chief Executive Officer, Guy Cawthra said this divestment is a strategic milestone—reducing leverage, enhancing flexibility, and reinforcing its commitment to long-term growth in prime retail.

While gross revenue and net property income (NPI) declined 6.5 per cent and 10.0 per cent YoY to SG$206.5 million and SG$148.8 million, respectively, this was largely due to the one-off recognition of supplementary rent from the lease restructuring of Sky Complex in FY2024. On an adjusted basis, revenue and NPI saw marginal YoY growth.

The REIT maintained an interest coverage ratio (ICR) of 1.6 times and reported that 68 per cent of its borrowings are hedged to fixed rates, with the average cost of debt at 3.46 per cent per annum.

Retail strength continued, with over 99 per cent occupancy and a 10.2 per cent positive rental reversion, despite weaker tenant sales due to outbound tourism and transitional refurbishments at Cathay Cineplexes.

In Milan, commercial Buildings 1 and 2 recorded a 1.7 per cent rental uplift tied to inflation-linked escalation clauses. These assets remain fully leased to Sky Italia until January 2033.

-- BERNAMA

Bitget Hosts Crypto Experience Month 2025 Targeting Gen-Zs Across Europe, Asia and Middle East

 


VICTORIA, Seychelles, Aug 5 (Bernama-GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bitget, the leading cryptocurrency exchange and Web3 company, officially launches Crypto Experience Month 2025, a global youth activation campaign under its Blockchain4Youth initiative. Now in its third year, the campaign takes a step away from classrooms and webinars, transforming crypto from a buzzword into something tangible, usable, and real. As part of the third-year celebration of International Youth Day in August, Bitget plans to host Crypto Experience events throughout the month of August across multiple cities in the Middle East, Europe, South East Asia, and South Asia.

Crypto Experience Month 2025 is built around a simple tagline: Look What Crypto Can Do. While headlines often frame digital assets around market movements, this campaign flips the narrative, focusing instead on how blockchain is being applied in payments, gaming, DeFi, identity, and creative expression. Across pop-up activations set to roll out globally this August, Bitget is inviting young people to try crypto for themselves, not on charts, but in checkout lines, in metaverse arcades, and through everyday interactions.

From university campuses to creative hubs, attendees will explore zones where they can mint NFTs, experiment with stablecoin lending, trade tokenized stocks in real-time simulations, and test drive PayFi’s QR-based retail transactions. They’ll receive digital badges, load up a Bitget Wallet Mastercard, and even stake assets in DeFi setups guided by in-person educators. The format is designed to merge experience with understanding, where every station is part demo, part discovery.

The shift from education to interaction marks a new chapter for the campaign. Launched in 2023 with Crypto Experience Day, the campaign expanded to an entire month in 2024, reaching over 15,000 participants across 12 countries. This year’s edition pushes further, prioritizing physical presence and hands-on engagement to help bridge the growing gap between Web2 curiosity and Web3 confidence.

Vugar Usi Zade, Bitget’s Chief Operating Officer and the executive sponsor of Blockchain4Youth, believes that relevance comes from application. “You can’t build belief in the future of crypto through theory alone. You need to let people feel it, use it, question it,” he said. “Crypto Experience Month is about making the technology real and giving young people a reason to care about where it’s going.”

Bitget Wallet will serve as the official campaign partner, integrating its latest features, including PayFi, and on-chain tools into the experience zones. Jamie Elkaleh, Chief Marketing Officer at Bitget Wallet, added, “The onboarding is just the start. It’s also about showing how crypto can empower everyday actions, from payments to creativity. We’re excited to bring that vision to life on the ground.”

Followers of the campaign can look forward to a recap video capturing highlights from each activation in early September. Until then, Bitget’s message is clear: crypto isn’t just coming to the real world. It’s already here, and this August, it’s handing over the controls to the next generation.

About Bitget

Established in 2018, Bitget is the world's leading cryptocurrency exchange and Web3 company. Serving over 120 million users in 150+ countries and regions, the Bitget exchange is committed to helping users trade smarter with its pioneering copy trading feature and other trading solutions, while offering real-time access to Bitcoin priceEthereum price, and other cryptocurrency prices. Bitget Wallet is a leading non-custodial crypto wallet supporting 130+ blockchains and millions of tokens. It offers multi-chain trading, staking, payments, and direct access to 20,000+ DApps, with advanced swaps and market insights built into a single platform.

Bitget is driving crypto adoption through strategic partnerships, such as its role as the Official Crypto Partner of the World's Top Football League, LALIGA, in EASTERN, SEA and LATAM markets, as well as a global partner of Turkish National athletes Buse Tosun Çavuşoğlu (Wrestling world champion), Samet Gümüş (Boxing gold medalist) and İlkin Aydın (Volleyball national team), to inspire the global community to embrace the future of cryptocurrency.

Aligned with its global impact strategy, Bitget has joined hands with UNICEF to support blockchain education for 1.1 million people by 2027. In the world of motorsports, Bitget is the exclusive cryptocurrency exchange partner of MotoGP™, one of the world’s most thrilling championships.

For more information, visit: Website | Twitter | Telegram | LinkedIn | Discord | Bitget Wallet
For media inquiries, please contact: media@bitget.com

Risk Warning: Digital asset prices are subject to fluctuation and may experience significant volatility. Investors are advised to only allocate funds they can afford to lose. The value of any investment may be impacted, and there is a possibility that financial objectives may not be met, nor the principal investment recovered. Independent financial advice should always be sought, and personal financial experience and standing carefully considered. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. Bitget accepts no liability for any potential losses incurred. Nothing contained herein should be construed as financial advice. For further information, please refer to our Terms of Use.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/26282002-8b06-4e5c-87a1-fd77694c6645 


SOURCE: Bitget Limited

DISCLAIMER: BERNAMA MREM are not accountable for any causes of website defacement, misuse, or illegal activities connected to cryptocurrency, blockchain, tokenisation, or bitcoin. This material should not be considered as guidance or an opinion, as it does not constitute financial or investment advice. Use this information at your own risk; we are not liable for any losses or damages caused by the republication of this article.