Latest news with #AnitaManwani
Economic Times
4 days ago
- Business
- Economic Times
‘If cyber crime was a country, it would be the third largest GDP'
When it comes to cyber crime, the numbers are stark: ADVERTISEMENT It currently costs the world $9.2 trillion On average, it takes a threat actor 72 minutes to gain access to user data, and that number is going down About 20% of data breaches today are as a result of insiders As the world's largest security company, Microsoft tracks 7,000 password attacks each second. That's 600 million attacks a day The number of attackers (such as unique nation state actors and financial crime actors) Microsoft is tracking has gone from an average of 300 every day to 1,500 increase. These were some of the eye-opening statistics Microsoft's CVP of Security, Vasu Jakkal, underlined in her revelatory keynote address on day two of TiEcon 2025, the world's largest tech conference, and the biggest in its 32-year history, took place this May in the heart of Silicon Valley. The conference brought together 3,000-plus entrepreneurs, investors, and industry leaders from around the globe. With over 180 speakers and this year's theme, 'AiVerse', the conference showcased the transformative power of innovation. Under the leadership of TiE Silicon Valley President Anita Manwani, TiEcon continues to drive a culture of transformational change, fostering new ideas, connections, and opportunities for the next wave of global entrepreneurs. In keeping with the AiVerse theme, Jakkal underscored the importance of security as a foundation for AI. Because Microsoft has a $20 billion security business that processes 84 trillion signals every day, it is uniquely positioned to observe emerging threats such as wallet abuse, word prompt injections, and large language model (LLM) poisoning. Other highlights from the keynote included: How agentic AI can bolster securityAgentic AI, designed to autonomously make decisions and accomplish given goals with minimal human supervision, is already addressing challenges in healthcare, education, transportation, and security. In the near future, both individuals and organisations could have agentic AI in the form of unique, interactive personas. Think an agent that helps with deep research for your startup, an analyst agent that converts raw data into insights, a chief staff agent that manages schedules every day, or even a home companion agent that can tutor children and plan family such agents become digital colleagues and thought partners, the question to ask is: what risk can their prevalence pose to us? This is where critical security considerations come in. The questions to ask are: ADVERTISEMENT What is your identity strategy? What permissions do such agents have? How are you protecting your data? Do you have the right data leakage policies If agents are working across teams, companies, or homes, what are the privacy considerations? As agents become pervasive, human defences will need to scale at the speed and scale of AI. Which is why we need to think about agents for security, and AI for security in general. In 2023, Microsoft began focusing on security-focused AI by launching the GPT-4-based Security Co-Pilot. It takes open source models, grounds them on the trillions of security signals and data in its repository, and refines them on security skills. The result is faster and more accurate threat prevention. ADVERTISEMENT How agentic AI can address gaps in security Around 4.6 million jobs in security remain unfulfilled globally. In this context, AI agents can enable potential talent to develop required today is largely reactive. Agentic AI agents can predict and stop novel attacks before they happen. As an example, they can identify data risks when an organisation puts data structures in place. They can autonomously apply identity and access policies so the right people can have access to the right things at the right time, for the right reasons. And such policies can be dynamically adjusted. ADVERTISEMENT In workplaces, such agents can also be part of SaaS AI apps or custom enterprise offerings such as the Azure AI Foundry, Amazon Bedrock, or Google Vertex. What more Microsoft is doing to secure the future of AI In November 2023, Microsoft launched the Secure Future Initiative, a multi-year cybersecurity effort that shapes how it designs, builds, tests, and operates products and services to meet security standards. Apart from operating the largest security initiative in the world, Microsoft ties executive compensation to security and has 14 deputy Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) who oversee security engineering teams. Employees across the company are also taken through a security skill academy. ADVERTISEMENT 'We review our security updates with Satya [Nadella, CEO] every other week and send a report every week. And we have a meeting with the board, of course, every quarter. The first meeting starts with security,' Vasu Jakkal shared. 'Security is a team sport. It deeply matters and turbocharges our product flywheel of defence, because we use all these learnings from security to build better products.' TiEcon 2025, which ran from April 30 to May 2, featured eminent tech executives as other grand keynote speakers. ICYMI, here are the takeaways from Satya Nadella's discussion on what makes a generational company in the AI age.
Time of India
4 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
‘If cyber crime was a country, it would be the third largest GDP'
When it comes to cyber crime, the numbers are stark: It currently costs the world $9.2 trillion On average, it takes a threat actor 72 minutes to gain access to user data, and that number is going down About 20% of data breaches today are as a result of insiders As the world's largest security company, Microsoft tracks 7,000 password attacks each second. That's 600 million attacks a day The number of attackers (such as unique nation state actors and financial crime actors) Microsoft is tracking has gone from an average of 300 every day to 1,500 increase. These were some of the eye-opening statistics Microsoft's CVP of Security, Vasu Jakkal, underlined in her revelatory keynote address on day two of TiEcon 2025. TiEcon 2025, the world's largest tech conference, and the biggest in its 32-year history, took place this May in the heart of Silicon Valley. The conference brought together 3,000-plus entrepreneurs, investors, and industry leaders from around the globe. With over 180 speakers and this year's theme, 'AiVerse', the conference showcased the transformative power of innovation. Under the leadership of TiE Silicon Valley President Anita Manwani, TiEcon continues to drive a culture of transformational change, fostering new ideas, connections, and opportunities for the next wave of global entrepreneurs. In keeping with the AiVerse theme, Jakkal underscored the importance of security as a foundation for AI. Because Microsoft has a $20 billion security business that processes 84 trillion signals every day, it is uniquely positioned to observe emerging threats such as wallet abuse, word prompt injections, and large language model (LLM) poisoning. Other highlights from the keynote included: How agentic AI can bolster security Agentic AI, designed to autonomously make decisions and accomplish given goals with minimal human supervision, is already addressing challenges in healthcare, education, transportation, and security. In the near future, both individuals and organisations could have agentic AI in the form of unique, interactive personas. Think an agent that helps with deep research for your startup, an analyst agent that converts raw data into insights, a chief staff agent that manages schedules every day, or even a home companion agent that can tutor children and plan family trips. Live Events You Might Also Like: Culture, compassion, compute: Satya Nadella on what makes a generational company in the AI age As such agents become digital colleagues and thought partners, the question to ask is: what risk can their prevalence pose to us? This is where critical security considerations come in. The questions to ask are: Discover the stories of your interest Blockchain 5 Stories Cyber-safety 7 Stories Fintech 9 Stories E-comm 9 Stories ML 8 Stories Edtech 6 Stories What is your identity strategy? What permissions do such agents have? How are you protecting your data? Do you have the right data leakage policies If agents are working across teams, companies, or homes, what are the privacy considerations? As agents become pervasive, human defences will need to scale at the speed and scale of AI. Which is why we need to think about agents for security, and AI for security in general. In 2023, Microsoft began focusing on security-focused AI by launching the GPT-4-based Security Co-Pilot. It takes open source models, grounds them on the trillions of security signals and data in its repository, and refines them on security skills. The result is faster and more accurate threat prevention. How agentic AI can address gaps in security Around 4.6 million jobs in security remain unfulfilled globally. In this context, AI agents can enable potential talent to develop required competencies. Security today is largely reactive. Agentic AI agents can predict and stop novel attacks before they happen. As an example, they can identify data risks when an organisation puts data structures in place. They can autonomously apply identity and access policies so the right people can have access to the right things at the right time, for the right reasons. And such policies can be dynamically adjusted. In workplaces, such agents can also be part of SaaS AI apps or custom enterprise offerings such as the Azure AI Foundry, Amazon Bedrock, or Google Vertex. What more Microsoft is doing to secure the future of AI In November 2023, Microsoft launched the Secure Future Initiative, a multi-year cybersecurity effort that shapes how it designs, builds, tests, and operates products and services to meet security standards. Apart from operating the largest security initiative in the world, Microsoft ties executive compensation to security and has 14 deputy Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) who oversee security engineering teams. Employees across the company are also taken through a security skill academy. 'We review our security updates with Satya [Nadella, CEO] every other week and send a report every week. And we have a meeting with the board, of course, every quarter. The first meeting starts with security,' Vasu Jakkal shared. 'Security is a team sport. It deeply matters and turbocharges our product flywheel of defence, because we use all these learnings from security to build better products.' TiEcon 2025, which ran from April 30 to May 2, featured eminent tech executives as other grand keynote speakers. ICYMI, here are the takeaways from Satya Nadella's discussion on what makes a generational company in the AI age.
Time of India
26-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Culture, compassion, compute: Satya Nadella on what makes a generational company in the AI age
From April 20 to May 2, the world's most seasoned executives, founders, venture capitalists (VCs), innovators, and technologists converged at the Santa Clara Convention Centre in California for TiEcon 2025. The theme for this year's edition, AiVerse, explored the vast potential of applied artificial intelligence (AI) across 11 tracks ranging from AI in mobility and entertainment to AI in manufacturing, retail and supply chains. The highlight of day two of the annual extravaganza was the grand keynote by Satya Nadella, who expounded on the importance of cultural capital and empathy in times of revolutionary change. The Microsoft honcho was also presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award by TiE Silicon Valley (TiE SV) chairperson Anita Manwani and deemed 'CEO of the decade' by Naveen Chaddha, Managing Partner, Mayfield Fund. Here are some takeaways from Mr Nadella's keynote: On what accounts for institutional strength 'If you're an established company or founding a company, you have to come up with an idea whose time has come. In order to build that new concept, you also need to have a new capability. And in order to build that new capability before it's conventional wisdom, you need culture. Live Events Whether you're a VC, entrepreneur, executive, or an engineer, it's all the same thing. You have a cultural posture that allows you to either skill yourself up or get associated with other people with complementary skills that are needed to build something new that is needed in the world. That framework is how I evaluate where we are as a company, and where we need to go. And it's a harsh thing, because you kind of have to be in this continuous journey of renewal.' Discover the stories of your interest Blockchain 5 Stories Cyber-safety 7 Stories Fintech 9 Stories E-comm 9 Stories ML 8 Stories Edtech 6 Stories On empathy as a critical workplace skill 'If you want to learn it all and not [just] know it all, that is the foundation of a growth mindset. This means you have to have empathy more than anything else, to be able to see through other people's eyes. We think of it as a soft skill for life, but it's also a critical soft skill for innovation. Because, after all, what is innovation if not meeting the unmet, unarticulated needs of customers? You can call this a design mindset or design thinking; but really, it's empathy. It does ultimately come down to us having the ability at scale [after] seeing the world through other people's eyes.' On AI computing being distinct from other technological breakthroughs 'When I came to the Valley in early 1990, it felt like a golden age of systems. We're back at that again. You're adding system software, whether it is what's happening at the ASIC [Application-Specific Integrated Circuit] or chip level, system level, or with model architectures. Who would've thought two years ago that soon enough, it'd be about test times and compute? OpenAI set the pace by their innovation, and we were obviously thrilled to partner with them. But it's also great to see what's happening in open source. You're seeing reasoning models that weren't there even just a year ago. Now they're in all models, weight, and sizes. Just yesterday, we launched five new models with reasoning. I look at my capex budget and say, 'Whoa, what happened there?' Nevertheless, the cooling in data centres is one of the biggest challenges we have. And the point is, it's differential cooling. There's an AI accelerator rack, then there's the rest.' On AI applications in the physical sciences 'There are three broad domains for AI application. One is cognitive and knowledge work. That's our bread and butter. The other is physical: robotics, the autonomous domain, drones, and what have you. The third is science. The way we have been able to deal with this domain is by doing simulations. High performance computing (HPC) was fundamentally born underneath scientific simulation. But it turns out that to simulate nature right on a Von Neumann architecture, you just have approximations. There's no such thing as a perfect simulation. That's why we are very excited about even quantum because ultimately, the quantum computer is the real breakthrough at utility scale when you really think about simulating nature. If you want to discover a new material, AI can help speed up the HPC by coming up with candidates. So we essentially have these models that are derivatives of transformers. You don't have to start without any knowledge. There's a variety of models you can get to on foundry for different domains, biology being the hardest of them all. The rapid progress right now is in computational chemistry and material sciences.'
