Over the past month, leading US financial firms, including Blackstone, Apollo Global Management, CME Group, and Moody's, have been in the crosshairs of a sophisticated extortion campaign. Attackers employed phone-based tactics to impersonate IT help-desk staff, targeting employees to steal login credentials and authentication codes. The campaign affected more than 200 organizations, and some organizations reportedly paid ransoms following successful account takeovers.

Various industries have been transformed by AI. Purdue's online Master's in Artificial Intelligence equips students with these in-demand skills, providing hands-on experiences and preparing them for careers in the artificial intelligence field.

Microsoft plans to introduce the Maia 300 AI chip as early as next month, aiming to reduce reliance on Nvidia and compete with Alphabet and Amazon. Microsoft is in talks with TSMC to manufacture more than 300,000 chips for 2027 delivery, with a long-term goal of securing capacity for more than 1 million units.'

Digital employee experience should be measured through service-level objectives rather than employee sentiment, writes Mike Schumacher, CEO of Lakeside Software, who adds that SLOs should be tied to business goals and provide clear metrics for IT to improve productivity and satisfaction. Schumacher also emphasizes the importance of service-level indicators in achieving SLOs and suggests that business units should define SLOs while IT manages SLIs.

The transition to vSphere 9 marks a critical decision point for enterprises as vSphere 7 reaches the end of general support, writes Eric Helmer of Rimini Street, and says organizations must decide whether to migrate to newer platforms, modernize in place or maximize existing environments, considering the broader business implications beyond IT. Helmer emphasizes the importance of aligning virtualization strategies with business goals rather than reacting to vendor-driven timelines, highlighting the potential costs and disruptions associated with major infrastructure changes.

The era of fully upgradeable PCs is ending as soldered RAM becomes the industry standard, driven by the demand for thinner, more efficient designs and faster memory for AI workloads. While this shift offers benefits like lower power consumption and better performance, it limits the ability to upgrade components, turning PCs into appliances.

Ransomware attacks rose 19% to 799 in July from June, making it the second highest month this year, with the US the top target, Comparitech reports. Attackers targeted finance, technology, pharmaceutical and education sectors. In contrast, incursions on legal firms, government agencies and utility companies declined, as hackers pivoted towards industries with a higher likelihood of paying ransoms.

The US tech sector added 3,700 jobs in July, driven by the growth of AI services and infrastructure, even as overall employment declined by 23,000 jobs. Data center hiring surged by 39% year-over-year, and there was a 181% increase in demand for heavy truck drivers. However, the telecommunications sector continued to decline, with jobs dropping by 1.5%.