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The Independent
6 days ago
- Business
- The Independent
The software that could be putting your cyber-security at risk
Payara is a Business Reporter client As organisations rely more and more on IT ecosystems to support their digital transformation, middleware components have become crucial to effectively support applications, data sharing and transactions. Yet middleware security is often overlooked, leaving many digital ecosystems exposed to multiple threats that could hinder key business operations. How can chief information and technology officers (CIOs and CTOs) identify and address middleware vulnerabilities? Middleware plays a central role in connecting IT systems and applications. Considered 'software glue', it facilitates communications and data exchange between them. It is precisely these key activities performed by middleware that lead it to carry underappreciated cyber-security risks. To minimise these issues and their impact, it is essential for organisations to be aware of the most common vulnerabilities and how they can be addressed. Middleware components are often used without fully considering their lifecycle. One widespread practice is the use of unsupported and/or outdated open-source middleware to support data management and transfer across various applications, including mission-critical software. As a result, crucial applications and business operations may be relying on versions that lack updates, patches or commercial support. Over time, these neglected components accumulate exploitable vulnerabilities. Unsupported and/or legacy middleware software also undermines compliance efforts. Typically, regulatory frameworks not only mandate timely vulnerability remediation but also the use of supported, up-to-date components. This can create a paradox: organisations adopt unsupported open-source solutions to reduce costs, only to risk facing steep penalties and reputational damage when audits reveal non-compliance. Compounding these challenges is the rise of supply chain attacks, which target an organisation through vulnerabilities in its supply chain. These vulnerable areas are usually linked to vendors with poor security practices. Middleware built on unsupported or poorly vetted components can therefore become a conduit for these threats and propagate them across integrated systems within one or multiple organisations. Enterprise-grade solutions: a path forward for middleware security Addressing these risks demands a shift in mindset. CIOs and CTOs must first map their middleware landscape, identifying any outdated or unsupported components, such as application servers, to reveal hidden weak points where vulnerabilities fester. Following this, technical teams can plan suitable strategies to secure their middleware and IT ecosystems. These will typically involve migrations from unsecure unsupported or legacy application servers to a more reliable alternative. While this transition can be more challenging than a generic 'lift-and-shift', it offers long-term benefits in terms of performance, resilience, regulatory compliance and security. This is where a reliable technology partner, such as Payara Services, fills a critical gap. Payara provides a platform of open-source yet stable, supported, up-to-date and production-ready middleware solutions that are built with security and stability in mind. Payara Platform Enterprise combines the flexibility of open-source with advanced security features, such as centralised management and fault tolerance, that mitigate risks inherent in fragmented middleware environments. Crucially, it aligns with regulatory standards, reducing the compliance burden and shielding organisations from the financial and legal fallout of breaches. In addition, unlike unsupported open-source alternatives, Payara Platform Enterprise provides extensive technical assistance as well as long-term software support. These result in the timely, regular delivery of security patches and performance updates as well as round-the-clock expertise if any issue arises. Even more, the middleware technology comes with enhanced monitoring, logging and access control features that help detect anomalies and proactively enforce security policies. Beyond providing secure alternatives, a technology partner such as Payara Services can play a key role in streamlining migration efforts through consulting, tooling, documentation and best practices. This helps make the transition from legacy systems or community solutions smooth while optimising the setup for long-term scalability, compliance and modernisation efforts. Driving robust middleware security strategies Middleware may often operate behind the scenes, but its security implications are front and centre in ensuring enterprise resilience. Unsupported or community-driven open-source middleware, while financially appealing, introduces risks and operational burdens that escalate over time, transforming short-term savings into long-term liabilities. By replacing these software components with an up-to-date alternative such as Payara Platform Enterprise that enforces governance while offering enterprise-grade support, organisations can reduce their exposure and better defend against the evolving threat landscape. Ultimately, it is possible to move beyond reactive firefighting and embrace a proactive security posture that protects data and systems, as well as the trust of customers and partners, while optimising costs.
Associated Press
27-05-2025
- General
- Associated Press
CCHR Seeks End to Mandated Community Psychiatric Programs, Citing Global Alarm
LOS ANGELES, Calif., May 27, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), a mental health industry watchdog, is calling for an overhaul of psychiatric hospitalization and community treatment laws. With 54% of U.S. psychiatric patients held involuntarily, CCHR warns the system has normalized coercion. Most U.S. states authorize Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) laws that compel individuals in the community to receive psychiatric treatment—typically drug-based—under threat of court orders or rehospitalization. Critics say the laws criminalize noncompliance and medicalize dissent. A Pennsylvania source reported that under AOT, 'noncompliance is pathologized, autonomy is dismissed…Treatment ceases to be chosen; it becomes imposed.'[1] A 2021 NIH-funded study published in Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology found that 70% of youth aged 16–27 who were involuntarily hospitalized reported long-lasting distrust of clinicians—even when they remained in therapy. Meanwhile, a Cochrane Review concluded that AOT laws showed no consistent benefit over voluntary care.[2] Many mental health consumers are also forced to accept involuntary treatment in the community by being made subject to community treatment orders (CTOs), under threat that non-compliance can result in them being detained against their will in inpatient facilities and institutions.[3] A broader 2016 systematic review published in The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry analyzed more than 80 studies on CTOs, including three randomized controlled trials and multiple meta-analyses. The result: 'No evidence of patient benefit.' CTOs did not reduce hospitalizations or improve quality of life—but did result in patients spending significantly more time under coercive state psychiatric control.[4] Patients are often forced onto antipsychotic drugs. Bioethicist Carl Elliott says such neuroleptics cause 'tardive dyskinesia, a writhing, twitching motion of the mouth and tongue that can be permanent.' Psychotropic drug side effects can include violent behavior, aggression, paranoia, psychosis, dangerously high body temperatures, irregular heartbeat, and heart conditions, disorientation, delusion, lack of coordination, suicidal tendencies, and numerous physical problems.[5] Jan Eastgate, President of CCHR International says, 'Ironically, the very side effects of antipsychotic drugs—such as agitation and aggression—are the same behaviors often cited to justify forced hospitalization and involuntary treatment in the first place.' Yet, under AOT regimes, complaints about side effects or treatment refusals are used against patients as evidence of illness. The term 'anosognosia'—defined as an inability to recognize one's illness—is routinely invoked to override consent, framing resistance as delusional and justifying further force. As one media source put it: 'It casts resistance as malfunction… Instead of seeing dissent as meaningful or contextual, it reframes it as a symptom of a broken brain. This framing is not just misguided—it's dangerous.'[6] Amalia Gamio, Vice Chair of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, helped open CCHR's Traveling Exhibit, Psychiatry: An Industry of Death in Los Angeles on May 17, denounced global psychiatric coercion: 'Involuntary medication, electroshock, even sterilization — these are inhuman practices. Under international law, they constitute torture. There is an urgent need to ban all coercive and non-consensual measures in psychiatric settings.' Rev. Frederick Shaw, Jr., President of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Inglewood-South Bay Branch, condemned how psychiatry disproportionately targets African Americans. 'More than 27% of Black youth—already impacted by racism—are pathologized with labels like 'Oppositional Defiant Disorder,' which has no medical test,' he said. 'This mirrors how Black civil rights leaders in the 1960s were once labeled with 'protest psychosis' to justify drugging them with antipsychotics,' he added. 'Psychiatry didn't just participate in suppressing Black voices—it orchestrated it. And they're still doing it.' Psychiatric diagnoses in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) are not discovered through scientific testing but are voted into existence by APA committees. CCHR says despite the absence of objective medical proof for these labels, they can create lifelong patients to be drugged and subjected to involuntary interventions. Forced psychiatric practices have been condemned by the United Nations (UN) and World Health Organization (WHO), which have repeatedly called for an end to forced institutionalization, electroshock, drugging, and community-based coercive measures.[7] In the U.S., over 37% of children and youth in psychiatric facilities are subjected to seclusion or restraint.[8] Some—as young as 7—have died under these conditions. In multiple cases, medical examiners ruled the deaths homicides, yet prosecutions have been rare.[9] 'This is not mental healthcare. This is systemic cruelty and homicide,' adds Eastgate. CCHR and its global network are demanding regulations that prohibit coercive psychiatric treatment. 'These are abuses. Forced treatment is torture passed off as mental health 'care,'' CCHR says. About CCHR: The group was co-founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and psychiatrist and author Prof. Thomas Szasz. CCHR has exposed and helped bring accountability for psychiatric abuses globally. Its advocacy now echoes international calls by the UN and WHO to end coercive mental health practices. To learn more, visit: SOURCES: [1] 'Brave New Pittsburgh: Forced Use of Psychotropic Pharmaceuticals is Coming,' Popular Rationalism, 16 May 2025, [2] [3] 'Ensuring compulsory treatment is used as a last resort: a narrative review of the knowledge about Community Treatment Orders,' Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 6 Jan 2025, [4] [5] Susan Perry, 'Recruitment of homeless people for drug trials raises serious ethical issues, U bioethicist says,' MinnPost, 11 Aug. 2014, [6] 'Not Broken, Not Sick: A Rebellion Against the Anosognosia Frame,' Underground Transmissions, 13 May 2025 [7] World Health Organization, 'Guidance on mental health policy and strategic action plans,' Module 1, pp 3-4, 2025 [8] Mohr, W, 'Adverse Effects Associated With Physical Restraint,' The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry—Review Paper, June 2003, [9] Deborah Yetter, '7-year-old died at Kentucky youth treatment center due to suffocation, autopsy finds; 2 workers fired,' USA Today, 19 Sept. 2022, Taylor Johnston, ''He didn't deserve that': Remembering young people who've died from restraint and seclusion,' CT Insider, 31 Oct. 2022, MULTIMEDIA: Image link for media: Image caption: 'Involuntary medication, electroshock, even sterilization — these are inhuman practices. Under international law, they constitute torture. There is an urgent need to ban all coercive and non-consensual measures in psychiatric settings.' – Amalia Gamio, Vice Chair of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. NEWS SOURCE: Citizens Commission on Human Rights Keywords: Religion and Churches, Citizens Commission on Human Rights, CCHR International, CCHR International, Jan Eastgate, coercive psychiatry, LOS ANGELES, Calif. This press release was issued on behalf of the news source (Citizens Commission on Human Rights) who is solely responsibile for its accuracy, by Send2Press® Newswire. Information is believed accurate but not guaranteed. Story ID: S2P126451 APNF0325A To view the original version, visit: © 2025 Send2Press® Newswire, a press release distribution service, Calif., USA. RIGHTS GRANTED FOR REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART BY ANY LEGITIMATE MEDIA OUTLET - SUCH AS NEWSPAPER, BROADCAST OR TRADE PERIODICAL. MAY NOT BE USED ON ANY NON-MEDIA WEBSITE PROMOTING PR OR MARKETING SERVICES OR CONTENT DEVELOPMENT. Disclaimer: This press release content was not created by nor issued by the Associated Press (AP). Content below is unrelated to this news story.
Entrepreneur
21-05-2025
- Business
- Entrepreneur
How the Gig Economy Is Failing Businesses
The gig economy is fueling innovation, but it's also causing chaos. Here's how smart companies are fighting back. Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. The gig economy was supposed to be the great equalizer. It promised freedom for workers and flexibility for companies. And for a time, it delivered. A surge in freelance platforms allowed startups and enterprises to tap into a global talent pool, scaling fast, saving money and moving with unprecedented agility. But beneath that glossy surface lies a growing problem: When it comes to mission-critical work, especially in tech, the gig economy is starting to break. Projects are stalling, developers are ghosting, and teams are struggling to maintain momentum. For many founders and CTOs, the very model they once leaned on has become a source of operational risk. So, what's the alternative? Increasingly, companies are turning to staff augmentation, not just for talent, but for accountability. And when the partner takes responsibility for outcomes, not just resumes, the results speak for themselves. Related: Why Startups Shouldn't Rely Solely on Gig Marketplaces for Developers The double-edged sword of the gig economy Let's be clear: The gig economy isn't going anywhere. Nearly 60 million Americans performed freelance work in 2023, with similar trends across Latin America and Europe. Platforms like Upwork, Fiverr and Toptal have made it easy to find talent in hours. That kind of access is revolutionary. But it comes with downsides: Lack of commitment: Freelancers juggle multiple clients, and loyalty is thin. If a better-paying gig shows up mid-project, they may disappear without warning. Poor integration: Gig workers often operate in isolation, disconnected from internal teams, tools and culture. Inconsistent quality: Vetting can be superficial, and many clients spend more time managing than building. Zero accountability: When things go wrong, you're on your own. There's no partner to step in and fix the issue. These risks can be catastrophic for companies trying to build real products, meet investor deadlines or drive innovation at scale. Staff augmentation: Flexibility with backbone That's where IT staff augmentation comes in. Unlike gig platforms, staff augmentation isn't about short-term help — it's about embedding vetted engineers into your team as if they were full-time employees. You get flexibility, yes, but also structure, accountability and performance. At their best, augmentation firms go beyond staffing. They take on delivery risk, help manage outcomes and build long-term partnerships, not one-off transactions. This model is compelling when sourced through nearshore staff augmentation. With teams based in Latin America, companies gain real-time collaboration (thanks to overlapping time zones), cultural affinity and deep technical skill — all without the high costs or timezone misalignment of offshore outsourcing. Related: What is Staff Augmentation? 3 Reasons It is Vital For Your Business Real-world breakdown: Freelance chaos vs. augmented stability Consider this: A U.S.-based fintech startup needed to build a payment gateway. They hired two freelance developers from a significant platform. Week one, everything seemed fine. By week three, one had ghosted. The other delivered buggy code with no documentation. The project slipped two months and cost them a major client pilot. Contrast that with another firm that works with a nearshore software development partner. They onboarded a full-stack team in under 10 days, working within U.S. business hours. The partner assigned a delivery manager to ensure milestones were met, blockers were resolved and code quality was maintained. They launched their MVP on time and raised their next round. The difference? One leaned on freelancers, while the other relied on a managed talent model with accountability built in. Offshore isn't dead — but it's getting riskier Some companies still opt for offshore staff augmentation, usually to cut costs. And while offshore teams can be effective with the proper management infrastructure, they come with well-known tradeoffs: time zone friction, communication challenges and geopolitical instability. As global volatility increases and the demand for speed intensifies, many leaders choose to de-risk by shifting closer to home. Nearshoring — especially in Latin America — is growing because it offers the best of both worlds: cost efficiency and real-time collaboration. Key benefits of the right augmentation partner To be clear, not all staff augmentation firms are created equal. The real value emerges when your partner commits to the following: End-to-end recruitment : Pre-vetted candidates, not just resumes. Cultural fit : Engineers who align with your team's work style and values. Fast ramp-up : Onboarding in days, not months. Delivery oversight : Managers who track outcomes, not just hours worked. Seamless scaling: The ability to add or reduce resources as needed. Top-tier providers of software development services now act more like extensions of your internal tech team — offering not only capacity, but continuity, quality and innovation. Related: Why Entrepreneurs Are Looking Towards Latin America for Nearshoring Opportunities We're living in a post-gig world. That doesn't mean freelancers are obsolete. However, for core product development, enterprise systems and scalable tech innovation, the future lies in blended, agile teams that deliver like in-house talent but scale like the cloud. Staff augmentation — especially when it's outcome-focused and nearshore-enabled — represents the next evolution. If you've been burned by disappearing freelancers, ghosted projects or rising costs from inefficiencies, it may be time to rethink your talent strategy. The right partner won't just help you find engineers. They'll help you deliver results.
