CrowdStrike (Nasdaq: CRWD) announced an expanded strategic partnership with Google Cloud to power Mandiant’s Incident Response (IR) and Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services leveraging the CrowdStrike Falcon® platform and the Google Cloud Security Operations platform. The partnership focuses on CrowdStrike’s market-leading Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) and Exposure Management solutions.

Cloud intrusions have grown 75% in the past year and adversaries are faster than ever, breaking into customer environments in as little as two minutes. To protect against modern cloud threats, customers need a holistic, intuitive managed security solution that eliminates complexity and serves as a force multiplier for security and DevOps teams. The combination of AI-powered Google cloud services and Google Cloud’s Security Operations platform with proactive threat hunting capabilities alongside CrowdStrike’s industry-leading protection delivers the outcomes customers need to stop breaches across multi-cloud and multi-vendor environments.

“When it comes to stopping breaches in the most critical moments of attack, CrowdStrike is the proven and recognized technology of choice. Our single platform, single agent architecture delivers the industry’s best protection while being the easiest and fastest to deploy,” said Daniel Bernard, Chief Business Officer, CrowdStrike. “Our expanded strategic alliance with Google Cloud is a watershed moment for cybersecurity: powering Mandiant’s industry-leading Incident Response and Managed Detection and Response services with Falcon in concert with Google Cloud’s Security Operations platform – integrating the best technology with world-class expertise, giving organizations access to the protection they need to stop breaches.”

“CrowdStrike has been a strategic technology partner for both Mandiant and Google Cloud for many years,” said Dom Delfino, VP Global Sales, Google Cloud Security. “We’re excited to deepen the collaboration across Google Cloud Security with enhanced threat intelligence sharing, a tighter integration between CrowdStrike and Google Chronicle, our Hyperscale Security Operations platform and Mandiant Managed Defense, and the ability to deploy CrowdStrike Falcon to support Mandiant Consulting.”

Lighthouse Learning (formerly known as EuroKids International), India’s leading Early Childhood and K-12 Education Group, and University College Dublin (UCD) in Ireland, announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a 5-year partnership today. This partnership marks a significant milestone in facilitating cross-border collaboration, signifying a pivotal moment in advancing shared academic endeavors.

The partnership aims to launch the collaborative program facilitating a comprehensive exchange of knowledge and expertise between Lighthouse Learning and University College Dublin (UCD), fostering a dynamic environment conducive to mutual learning and communication. Through this program, administrators, faculty, staff, and students from both the institutions will engage in collaborative endeavors, promoting cooperation and enabling invaluable cross-cultural exchange. Moreover, the program is meticulously crafted to equip students with the essential skills and knowledge required to thrive in the dynamic landscape of the global economy, while also preparing them for higher education pathways.

The MoU was signed by Prajodh Rajan, Co-Founder and Group CEO, Lighthouse Learning, and Professor Orla Feely, President, University College Dublin (UCD). University College Dublin is one of the Europe’s leading research-intensive universities and is recognised for its renowned expertise in advanced fields such as AI and cancer biology, among others. It is also known for its guided research projects, which will be extended to the students of Lighthouse Learning as a part of this partnership. Additionally, UCD will also conduct Summer School programs for the students to further enhance their academic growth and exploration.

Through this partnership, Lighthouse Learning students will benefit from a diverse array of opportunities aimed at enriching their academic journey. These include occasional guest lectures, workshop activities, and masterclasses delivered by esteemed faculty from University College Dublin (UCD). Additionally, UCD’s Recruitment & Admissions representatives will conduct sessions across all Lighthouse Learning schools network, offering guidance and promoting UCD as a premier study destination among students and parents. Furthermore, an annual knowledge workshop will be conducted, tailored for all Lighthouse Learning school counselors, aimed at equipping them with the necessary tools to guide students through their transition to university abroad. This workshop will also highlight program and scholarship opportunities offered at UCD.

Speaking about the partnership, Prajodh Rajan, Co-Founder and Group CEO, Lighthouse Learning, said, “We are extremely delighted to announce our partnership with University College Dublin, one of the most renowned and prestigious universities in Ireland. This partnership marks a pivotal moment for Lighthouse Learning, underscoring our commitment to providing unparalleled educational opportunities for both faculty and students. As we navigate an ever-evolving global landscape, this collaboration not only enriches our academic offerings but also equips our faculty and students with invaluable resources, cutting-edge research opportunities, specialised programs, and global perspectives. Together with UCD, we are committed to fostering a culture of innovation, inclusivity, and excellence in education.”

Professor Jeremy Simpson, Dean of Science at University College Dublin, present at the signing in Mumbai, added, “We are thrilled to embark on this transformative partnership with Lighthouse Learning. This collaboration represents a significant step towards fostering global educational excellence. By joining forces, we can leverage our collective expertise to create enriching opportunities for students and faculty alike, particularly focused in the STEM areas. Together, we are committed to nurturing a vibrant academic community, fostering innovation, and making a lasting impact on the educational landscape. This partnership signifies our shared dedication to pushing the boundaries of knowledge and preparing students to excel in an increasingly competitive world.”

Tessolve, a global provider of silicon and systems solutions for next-generation products, has collaborated with Renesas to advance their systems solution offering in Industrial market segment by introducing a new addition to its SMARC module portfolio based on Renesas’s high performance RZ/V2H MPU, enabling vision AI and real time control abilities.

Tessolve’s SMARC SOM compatible with SMARC standard 2.1 version is based on RZ/V2H MPU which incorporates four Arm® Cortex®-A55 CPU cores along with two Cortex-R8 cores, one Cortex-M33 and a dedicated AI Accelerator: DRP-AI3 capable of 8 TOPS/dense and 80 TOPS/sparse, runs on Yocto Linux and supports up to 16GB Low power DDR4 RAM and up to 64GB flash. Additionally, the module features high-speed interfaces including PCIe®, USB 3.2, SDIO, MIPI CSI, MIPI DSI and Gigabit Ethernet. The module is available in Industrial temperature grade.

The combination of these powerful cores enables efficient management of both vision AI and real-time control tasks. With lower power consumption and the elimination of the need for fans and other cooling components, the RZ/V2H is an ideal solution for autonomous robots, smart cameras, and machine vision in factory automation.

“Tessolve’s SMARC SOM, based on Renesas RZ/V2H MPU, aims to deliver an AI-powered computer vision system with a 360° surround view solution to the Industrial, robotics, and transportation markets, accelerating OEMs’ time to market. The computer vision system solution supports up to 4 camera inputs, enabling 360° surround view capabilities, making it ideal for demanding applications with AI requirements of the future. Built using Tessolve’s 3-D product engineering principle, which stands for Development platform, Deployable system, or Derivative solution, our system solution can be adopted by OEMs either ‘as is’ or can be customized for their needs. Tessolve accelerates OEMs’ time to market with exceptional ODM abilities, offering white labelling as well,” said Kiran Kumar Nagendra, AVP- Embedded Systems, Tessolve.

Technology collaboration delivers ready-to-integrate system on module & computer vision system solution for OEMs, streamlining product realization cycle

Amazon.in, with Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled, a leading non-profit organization committed to empowering persons with disabilities organized a unique cricket match for the persons with visual impairment in Bengaluru, today. The event was held as part of Amazon’s Global month of volunteering being observed in May, demonstrating the spirit of inclusivity and empowerment.

As part of the initiative, the team participated in two matches where the first featured a mix of Amazon volunteers and visually impaired players, while the second was between Amazon volunteers and persons with visual impairment. Samarthnam team was awarded the winning trophy and a cash prize of INR 1 lakh for their exceptional performance, sportsmanship and refined skills demonstrated throughout the matches.

Among others, one of the distinguishing features of this match was the use of a specially designed cricket ball embedded with sound-generating components to aid players with visual impairments, making the game more accessible and engaging for them.

While Global Month of Volunteering is being observed in May 2024 through multiple volunteering engagement initiatives across various geographies in India, Amazon remains dedicated to fostering a culture of volunteerism and community engagement throughout the year. The spirit of giving back continues to thrive within company’s culture, and are committed to making an enduring positive impact in the communities it serves.

The Global Month of Volunteering (GMV) is an annual global event where Amazon’s leaders, employees, partners and even some customers all over the world come together to support causes that can make a difference. In its third year in India, GMV 2024 focuses on Amazon’s key themes of education, food security, sustainability, and women empowerment.

With its three-fold mission of educating, inspiring and connecting, GMV 2024 will run through May 2024. Amazon has curated over 150+ volunteering events across India in partnership with over 40+ non-profits including DonateKart, Rosy Blue Foundation, Way For Life, GIVE Foundation, Bhumi, Robin Hood Army, CRY, Helping 2 hands, Indian Roots Foundation, Ramp My city, Vedanshi Foundation and KHUSHI.

• A cash prize of INR 1 Lakh was awarded to the team of Samarthanam Trust on winning the match
• Innovative use of sound-generating cricket ball to guide the visually impaired players on the field
• The match was held as part of Amazon’s Global Month of Volunteering being observed in May 2024
• Amazon India in collaboration with Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled spotlighted empowerment of the PWDs through sports

Honeywell (NASDAQ: HON) today released its 2024 USB Threat Report, which provides new insight into how “silent residency” is an increasing cyber threat for industrial and critical infrastructure facilities. In the report, Honeywell highlighted the growing risk of “living off the land” (“LotL”) attacks in which adversaries use USB devices to gain access to industrial control systems in order to hide and observe operations before launching attacks that evade detection and manipulate the target systems.

“Targeted cyber-physical attacks are more than zero-day exploits that take advantage of an unknown or unaddressed vulnerability. Instead, they are now also about silent residency – using LotL attacks to wait until there is an opportune moment to turn a system against itself,” said Micheal Ruiz, vice president of OT cybersecurity for Honeywell.

Now in its sixth year, the report underscores the severe risk USB-borne malware poses to industrial and critical infrastructure facilities. Key findings in the report indicate that adversaries now have a strong understanding of industrial environments and how they operate. According to the report, most of the malware detected on USB devices by Honeywell’s Secure Media Exchange could cause loss of view or loss of control of an industrial process, a potentially catastrophic scenario for operators.

“As digital transformation and automation accelerate, so does the exposure to sophisticated and malicious cyberattacks that can have devastating consequences in terms of reputation, safety and continuity,” said Ruiz. “There are numerous ways a bad actor can infiltrate an OT environment, including through USBs. With Honeywell’s advanced end-to-end technology and deep experience, we partner with our customers to improve their ability to protect their assets and data from these threats.”

The 2024 report is based on the Honeywell Global Analysis, Research and Defense (GARD) team’s tracking and analysis of aggregated cybersecurity threat data from hundreds of industrial facilities globally during a 12-month period.

Several of the report’s additional key findings included:

• USB devices continue to be used as an initial attack vector into industrial environments, as 51% of malware is designed to spread via USB, a nearly six-fold increase from 9% in 2019.
• Content-based malware, which uses existing documents and scripting functions maliciously, is on the rise, accounting for 20% of malware.
• Over 13% of all malware blocked specifically leveraged the inherent capabilities of common documents, such as Word, Excel and PDF documents.
• 82% of malware is capable of causing disruption to industrial operations, resulting in loss of view, loss of control, or system outages in OT environments.

Kia, India’s leading premium carmaker, today announced the launch of Kia Krystal, a new innovative digitized aftersales initiative. The initiative is aimed towards offering utmost transparency to the Kia customers through video consulting and live video streaming of the service of their cars.

The initiative also offers Kia customers easy access to all the details, including explanations of work, costs, and real time resolution to any query they have, all from their smartphone. This service is available through the ‘My Kia’ app, making it convenient for customers to stay informed.

• Real-time video-based updates of Kia vehicles, including live streaming is now available on ‘My Kia’ app

The Live Consultation service is now available at 237 Kia dealerships nationwide, while 25 dealers are already currently live streaming the service procedure. Kia India aims to start the live streaming in another 60 dealerships by the end of 2024. The overall customer rating of both platforms has exceeded expectations.

Mr. Hardeep Singh Brar, National Head – Sales and Marketing, Kia India, commented, “Our research indicated that most of our customers are opting for our Advance Pick and Drop Service or send their drivers for their vehicle service procedures. Due to this, they miss supervising the effort, which can lead to dissatisfaction in the longer run. Through Kia Krystal, we are aiming at building more trust by facilitating greater transparency to position ourselves as a customer-centric brand.”

Going forward, Kia India will expand Kia Krystal’s ambit to include a new process for welcome calls, aimed at onboarding new customers post-sales and keeping them informed about ownership programs and offerings. The initiative solidifies Kia’s commitment to innovation and customer satisfaction, further strengthening the bond between Kia and its customers. Earlier as well, the company has launched many customer centric digitised service offering, including Advanced Pick and Drop, My Convenience, My Convenience Plus, My Convenience Flexi, Kia Owner’s Manual (Digital), and ‘MyKia’ app to name a few.

Red Hat, Inc., the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today highlighted how organizations across the globe are using Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform to help smooth cloud-native operations, establish a wide-ranging automation culture and respond more quickly to potentially disastrous challenges.

Red Hat continues to make Ansible Automation Platform the mission-critical automation solution for operating complex hybrid clouds, from the datacenter to multiple public clouds to the edge, along with AI applications at scale. These customers and many others are using Ansible Automation Platform to deliver new and innovative solutions to meet today’s IT challenges while preparing for technology needs yet to come, like using AI as a natural progression of IT automation. These implementations include:

City and County of Denver manages and coordinates public services for residents and visitors of one of America’s most livable cities, with the population growing 20% in just the last decade. This work became even more important—and more challenging—when the COVID-19 pandemic forced a rapid, long-term shift to remote work. To support more than 15,000 employees working from home, the government sought to adapt its new collaboration tool, Microsoft Teams. By automating provisioning, scaling tasks, application deployments, creating playbooks and configuration management with Ansible Automation Platform, Denver supported 514% growth in Teams use. They also quickly launched a digital emergency operations center (EOC) with 75% completion over a single weekend early in the pandemic, providing a central facility for government leaders to strategically enact emergency management and policies. Now, Denver can react more quickly to potential disasters and establish future EOCs in just 15 minutes with the right people and documents ready.

After implementing an automation Center of Excellence and socializing the automation program, Denver continues to find new use cases, promote success and gather metrics to support change. The city is sharing details of its IT automation success with other cities in Colorado to set the standard in emergency management efforts.

At MAPFRE, a global insurance company headquartered in Madrid, customers need absolute confidence that when they have a question, issue or claim, they can quickly and easily receive the needed service. When MAPFRE created its cloud strategy, the company quickly realized the need for automation to achieve its goals, such as getting to new markets faster, optimizing infrastructure costs, reducing carbon footprint and maintaining resilience and security. Once MAPFRE onboarded Ansible Automation Platform, the company saw significant results that mattered for the business:

• Time to market saw a 55% lead time reduction and 85% error-rate reduction with 4,700 developer hours saved.
• Cost and sustainability enhancements by automatically shutting down PRE environments, eradicating unused environments after 30 days and deleting orphaned resources.
• Enhanced resilience by automating remediations and disaster recovery environments and the disconnection of environments at risk.

With these successes, automation at MAPFRE has grown from an experiment into mission-critical. Next, it plans to use Ansible Automation Platform to minimize issues caused by human error, which typically account for over 50% of incidents.

Navy Federal Credit Union, the world’s largest credit union with more than 13 million members and $171 billion in assets, is a leader in an ever-evolving industry, where the use of technology is key to serving US veterans, retired service members, active duty members in all branches of the armed forces and their families. The institution enlisted Ansible Automation Platform for its functionality and ease of use. By fostering a culture of openness, transparency and collaboration, Navy Federal met its technological and cultural goals by closing automation adoption gaps. Provisioning time to value dropped from 11 days down to 1 day, and the credit union improved consistency across teams and adopted an automation community of practice. Ansible Automation Platform became an accelerator of cultural change: Teams who were speaking different programming languages could now share code, ideas and workflows in a common format.

As Navy Federal expands usage across all infrastructure and targets AI implementation for the future, it plans to use Ansible Automation Platform as the foundation with transparency, innovation and flexibility.

TD Bank offers a full range of financial products and services to over 27.5 million customers worldwide. Through their network transformation roadmap, the bank sought to lead with an automation-first mindset at the center of their platform delivery capabilities – ranging from scalability of software upgrades, configuration management and deployment, as well as standing up new products. The internal evolution of their automation capabilities drove forward the reduction of repetitive tasks for engineering teams alongside bringing new standardization to their deployments.

First, TD Bank created a strategic architecture for building up the Ansible environment, writing purpose-built playbooks for certain key tasks and helping engineers onboard to a new platform. The Network Services team shifted to an automation-first mindset with the support of leadership and new team members with automation backgrounds. Integrating with third-party vendors, TD Bank automated the standardization of over 10,000 network devices against new-state standards – improving software deployment and compliance, as well as configuration management. The bank also has been successful in migrating and deploying entire platforms using API integration to speed up the delivery of projects in a shorter time frame.

Industry-leading Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform brings a trusted, effective, end-to-end automation solution to nearly every enterprise use case, from traditional datacenters to multiple public clouds to the network’s edge

Honeywell today announced its hydrocracking technology can be used to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from biomass, helping to make sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) that is 90% less carbon intensive than traditional fossil-based jet fuels . The new technology produces 3-5% more SAF ,3 enables a cost reduction of up to 20% , and reduces by-product waste streams as compared to other commonly used hydroprocessing technologies.

Honeywell’s Fischer-Tropsch (FT) UnicrackingTM technology takes liquids and waxes from processed biomass – including leftovers from crops, wood waste or food scraps – and can be used to produce SAF that complies with the strict standards of the aviation industry and with a lower environmental impact. This innovation demonstrates Honeywell’s alignment of its portfolio with three compelling megatrends, including the energy transition.

“As demand for SAF continues to grow, the aviation industry is challenged by limited supplies of traditional SAF feedstocks such as vegetable oils, animal fats and waste oils,” said Ken West, president and CEO of Honeywell Energy and Sustainability Solutions. “When combined with the existing Fischer-Tropsch process, our new technology will expand the feedstock options available in the industry to sources that are more plentiful, ultimately helping improve our customers’ ability to produce SAF.”

Recently, DG Fuels selected Honeywell’s FT Unicracking technology for its biofuels manufacturing facility in Louisiana – the largest in the world for making SAF from the FT process – that will produce 13,000 barrels of SAF each day when it begins operations in 2028.

“Using Honeywell’s advanced technology, DG Fuels will supply enough fuel for more than 30,000 transatlantic flights every year, contributing significantly to reducing the carbon emissions of global air travel,” said Michael Darcy, CEO of DG Fuels. “This is a big leap forward in supporting the airline industry’s goal of reaching net zero carbon emissions from international aviation by 2050.”

Honeywell helped pioneer SAF production with its EcofiningTM process, which has been used to produce the fuel commercially since 2016. The company now offers solutions across a range of feedstocks to meet the rapidly growing demand for renewable fuels, including SAF.

In addition to Honeywell Unicracking and Ecofining, Honeywell’s renewable fuels portfolio includes Ethanol to Jet technology and eFining™, which converts green hydrogen and carbon dioxide into e-fuels. More than 50 sites globally have licensed Honeywell’s SAF technologies, with refineries projected to exceed a combined capacity of more than 500,000 barrels of SAF per day when fully operational.

Godrej Electricals & Electronics, a business unit of Godrej & Boyce announces the acquisition of orders worth Rs. 1000 Cr plus in FY24 for their Power Infrastructure business. These orders predominantly entail both Air Insulated Switchgear (AIS) and Gas Insulated Switchgear (GIS) substations across India, with certain projects of up to 765kV capacity. Each of these projects ranges from 100 crores to 400 crores in value.

PIRE has made significant contributions in the domains of Power Transmission, Railways, and Solar Projects, aligning seamlessly with the government’s vision of a developed nation. These projects demonstrate a robust trajectory of growth and expansion for the business and showcase how Godrej & Boyce plays a pivotal role in advancing India’s journey towards sustainable energy.

Raghavendra Mirji, Executive Vice President & Business Head, Godrej Electricals & Electronics said, “We are delighted with our recent order acquisitions, which further solidify our presence in the segment of over 400kV and reflects our unwavering commitment to excellence and nation building. Securing our inaugural 765kV GIS order for execution in Khavda marks yet another significant milestone for us, symbolizing our dedication to pushing the boundaries of technological advancement.

India has set an ambitious target at the COP26 of transitioning to 500 GW of non-fossil fuel-based energy by 2030, which is one of the world’s largest expansion plans in renewable energy. Majority of our orders secured in FY’24 pertaining to renewable energy evacuation not only underscores our industry leadership but also resonates with the country’s commitment, echoing our collective vision for a greener and more resilient future.”

These substations play a pivotal role in augmenting the capacity of the existing grid infrastructure, facilitating seamless integration and evacuation of renewable energy sources. By bolstering the grid network, Godrej & Boyce contributes significantly to the nation’s energy goals while ensuring uninterrupted power supply for industries and communities.

As the business expands its footprint in Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Karnataka, a majority of future orders are anticipated to be around renewable energy evacuation.

Employing cutting-edge technologies such as Gas Insulated Switchgears (GIS), Substation Automation Systems (SAS), SCADA, RTUs, and Digital Substations, the business remains steadfast in its commitment to sustainability and environmental stewardship.

Through the execution of various substation projects, the business continues to play a vital role in advancing the nation’s economic development while facilitating access to renewable energy.