Latest from Techday NZ
Techday NZ
5 hours ago
- Techday NZ
Golden dMSA flaw in Windows Server 2025 exposes Active Directory
Security researchers have identified a critical flaw in delegated Managed Service Accounts (dMSA) within Windows Server 2025 that could allow attackers to maintain persistent and widespread access across Active Directory environments. Flaw found in dMSA The vulnerability, uncovered by Semperis security researcher Adi Malyanker, has been termed the Golden dMSA attack. It takes advantage of a design issue in dMSAs, a security feature first introduced in Windows Server 2025, which can be misused by bad actors to gain ongoing access and elevate privileges across domains after compromising a forest-level account. Malyanker developed a tool named GoldenDMSA to demonstrate and analyse the technique, enabling security practitioners to examine in detail how the attack could be executed in operational networks. The research shows that the attack leverages a predictable element within the ManagedPasswordId structure of dMSAs. This identifier includes time-based components that, according to Semperis, present only 1,024 possible combinations. This low number of possibilities makes brute-force attacks on service account passwords computationally straightforward, potentially enabling a threat actor not only to persist in an Active Directory environment but also to move laterally across domains. "Golden dMSA exposes a critical design flaw that could let attackers generate service account passwords and persist undetected in Active Directory environments. I built a tool that helps defenders and researchers better understand the mechanism of the attack. Organisations should proactively assess their systems to stay ahead of this emerging threat," said Malyanker. Risk assessment and implications Semperis has rated the risk associated with the Golden dMSA technique as moderate. However, the researchers warn that in cases where an attacker achieves initial forest-level compromise, the method could make it possible to completely take over dMSA or Group Managed Service Account (gMSA) environments. Successful exploitation would allow attackers to maintain control without detection for extended periods, posing a severe threat to corporate and governmental IT infrastructure. The potential for widespread, persistent access stems from the architectural flaw in how dMSA passwords are generated and managed. By exploiting the weak cryptographic and structural protections, attackers could automate the generation of valid account credentials for managed service accounts, undermining protections intended to secure critical identity services. Recent related work The Golden dMSA research builds on previous work by Semperis in the field of identity threat detection. The group has reported on other vulnerabilities, such as nOauth, which affects Microsoft's Entra ID and may permit full account takeover in software-as-a-service applications. Semperis has also implemented detection features in its Directory Services Protector platform to defend against BadSuccessor, another high-impact privilege escalation technique that targets a recently introduced functionality in Windows Server 2025. This comes in addition to the Silver SAML vulnerability discovered by the team, a new variant related to Golden SAML attacks from the SolarWinds incident, which can bypass conventional security measures in Entra ID-integrated applications. Recommendations and industry impact The research underscores the need for organisations using Windows Server 2025 and managed service accounts to carry out active risk assessments and update their security controls. Attackers exploiting weaknesses in dMSA structures could not only remain undetected but also have unrestricted access to valuable resources across a company's entire digital estate. Industry observers and IT departments are expected to analyse the implications of the flaw, explore mitigation options, and consider how tools such as GoldenDMSA can be used by defenders to better understand and counteract these attack vectors. The ability to simulate attacks is viewed as a vital capability for defenders and researchers, supporting a more robust defensive posture against evolving identity-based threats.
Techday NZ
8 hours ago
- Business
- Techday NZ
AI in education & recruitment must support, not replace, humans
Leaders across education and recruitment are highlighting the importance of human engagement and ethical judgement in the age of artificial intelligence, coinciding with this year's AI Appreciation Day. Their remarks reflect an urgent global conversation about maintaining a balance between technological advancement and the core values of human agency within vital sectors such as education and employment. Mr Siva Balakrishnan, Founder and CEO of Vserve, marked the occasion by addressing AI's transformative impact on education. He asserted, "On AI Appreciation Day 2025, we celebrate AI's power to transform education while safeguarding human agency. AI should elevate educators' creativity and judgment, not replace them." Mr Balakrishnan advocated for a harmonious integration, stating, "By blending smart automation with empathetic teaching, we can use AI to scale learning without diminishing our human essence. Our goal must be to empower people to direct technology, ensuring classrooms where technology amplifies human insight and values." His comments reinforce a growing belief among education technologists and pedagogical experts that AI, while capable of automating administrative tasks and personalising learning, must be deployed so as to augment, rather than overshadow, the crucial role of teachers. The focus, Mr Balakrishnan emphasised, remains on cultivating environments where human insight, compassion, and ethical decision-making are amplified by technology rather than replaced by it. Echoing these sentiments, Mr Praveen Joshi, Managing Director and Founding Member of RSK Business Solutions, underscored the imperative of protecting individual autonomy as automation expands its influence. "In an age where AI transforms education and automation becomes pervasive, safeguarding human agency is vital. Technology must support, not supplant our ability to choose, create, and connect," he explained. "As machines reshape learning, it is up to us to ensure they amplify our humanity rather than diminish it, keeping compassion, creativity, and ethical judgement at the forefront." Industry analysts note that as education systems worldwide increasingly turn to artificial intelligence for adaptive learning and efficiency improvements, debates persist regarding transparency, accountability, and the preservation of essential human qualities. The comments by Mr Balakrishnan and Mr Joshi stress a need for critical policy development to ensure that schools and institutions use AI responsibly, setting boundaries that preserve educators' unique abilities and responsibilities. On the recruitment front, Joel Delmaire, AI leader and Chief Product Officer at Jobadder, has gathered perspectives from leading Australian recruiters considering the disruptive role AI is playing in their industry. Delmaire's discussions with sector professionals sought to illuminate both the opportunities and challenges AI presents for talent acquisition and workforce management, as recruiters and employers increasingly turn to automation for candidate screening, shortlisting, and engagement. Recruiters contacted for Delmaire's report were broadly optimistic about AI's role in streamlining repetitive tasks, such as parsing CVs, scheduling interviews, and improving the match between candidate skills and job requirements. However, several stressed that AI, if left unchecked, risks inadvertently introducing bias or missing out on the intangible qualities - such as emotional intelligence, adaptability, and teamwork - that human recruiters are best placed to detect. There is a growing call for ongoing human oversight and regular audits of AI-powered recruitment tools, to ensure fairness and uphold the principles of diversity and inclusion. As sectors including education and recruitment undergo rapid evolution under AI's influence, the voices of industry leaders and practitioners emphasise the importance of keeping human values at the centre of technological progress. Their perspectives reinforce that AI's greatest potential may not lie in replacing human roles, but in serving as a powerful ally - supporting creativity, upholding ethical standards, and ensuring that core human skills continue to define excellence in both classrooms and workplaces.
Techday NZ
9 hours ago
- Business
- Techday NZ
JLL appoints new Asia Pacific leaders for energy transition team
JLL has appointed two new regional leaders to strengthen its Asia Pacific Energy & Infrastructure team, with positions based in Australia and Singapore. The hires involve Andy Powell, who joins as Head of Energy & Infrastructure for Australia and New Zealand, and JC Champalaune, who will lead the Energy and Infrastructure team's efforts across Asia excluding India. Both professionals bring considerable industry experience from their previous roles at prominent financial advisory and banking organisations. Regional appointments According to JLL, the Asia Pacific region continues to offer wide-ranging opportunities in both the energy transition and infrastructure sectors. The regional market is characterised by increasing activity in emerging areas such as battery storage and related real asset segments. "Asia Pacific presents JLL's clients with a wide range of opportunities to support the region's diverse energy transition and infrastructure needs," said James Cameron, Head of Energy & Infrastructure, Asia Pacific. "We continue to see new opportunities for dedicated energy and infrastructure clients as well as real estate players looking to move into broader real asset sectors such as battery storage. Given the diversity of opportunity and markets, the arrival of Andy and JC will allow us to provide the relevant sector and market expertise required by JLL's clients to navigate this exciting opportunity." Powell will be based in Sydney and take responsibility for advising on mergers and acquisitions (M&A), capital raising (on both buy and sell sides), project finance, and land acquisitions connected to energy transition and infrastructure projects. His prior experience includes a role at Green Giraffe Advisory, a firm focusing on the energy transition, as well as positions at Macquarie Group and KPMG, where he gained significant insights into the Australian market. Based in Singapore, Champalaune steps into the role of leading energy and infrastructure activities across Asian markets outside India. His remit will cover advising clients with M&A, capital raising, and financing requirements in both established renewables markets such as Japan, Taiwan, and Korea, and active ASEAN markets including the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand. His previous experience spans advisory roles at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, BNP Paribas, and ENGIE across multiple Asian jurisdictions. Sector alignment JLL stated that its ongoing investment in energy and infrastructure advisory services across Asia Pacific is in line with prevailing macroeconomic trends, reflecting the increased integration of energy, infrastructure, and real estate strategies. The firm noted growing convergence among investors and developers who are considering opportunities that span adjacent sectors, particularly around decarbonisation goals. "This broader investment is consistent with JLL's commitment to be a global market leader in providing capital market solutions to the energy and infrastructure sector. We see a substantial need in Asia Pacific to help clients meet the accelerating thematics of decarbonisation, digitalisation, economic growth, and rapid urbanisation. There is a significant overlap in clients as well as market and sector thematics across the regional energy and infrastructure and real estate sectors. We have already see how a focused team, combined with JLL's existing platform and full investment lifecycle approach can be a key differentiator to clients in the region," says Stuart Crow, CEO, Capital Markets, Asia Pacific, JLL. Powell and Champalaune will oversee broader teams of specialists in Australia and Singapore respectively, working in partnership with JLL's Capital Markets, Investment Banking, and Debt Advisory departments. The teams' focus will be on originating opportunities for capital raising and providing transaction advice for large infrastructure and renewable projects. Their clients include institutional investors, private equity, asset managers, strategic operators and developers in the renewables sector, as well as high net worth individuals and family offices. Recent acquisitions Earlier in the year, JLL expanded its Energy & Infrastructure services with the acquisition of Javelin Capital, a US-based energy transition advisory firm. JLL's leadership stated that combining the new US capabilities with its established EMEA presence and the expanded Asia Pacific team supports the firm's objective to consolidate its role as a globally active capital advisor in the energy and infrastructure market.
Techday NZ
11 hours ago
- Business
- Techday NZ
Financial sector ramps up GenAI use but skills & risks remain
New research from Nutanix has revealed that financial services organisations are broadly adopting generative AI (GenAI), with implementations extending well beyond chatbot applications into areas such as fraud detection, cybersecurity, and customer experience. The findings are based on the company's seventh annual global Financial Services Enterprise Cloud Index (ECI) survey, which assessed enterprise cloud adoption, containerisation, and GenAI trends among IT and DevOps decision-makers across the sector. Almost every respondent reported current use of GenAI, including for customer support and content development. Widespread adoption and expanding use cases While initial industry enthusiasm for GenAI focused on front-line tools such as chatbots, the research highlights that organisations are increasingly applying it to core operations such as automation, fraud detection, and enhancing client engagement. Nutanix noted that solutions are being used to automate workflows, generate content, and deliver customer support at scale. However, the rapid uptake of these technologies is exposing several industry-wide challenges. Most respondents expressed concerns about their readiness to operate GenAI applications securely and at scale, with particular anxiety about data privacy and security risks. "Financial services organisations are turning to containers and hybrid cloud not just as technology upgrades, but as strategic enablers of customer value," said Lee Caswell, SVP of Product and Solutions Marketing at Nutanix. "This year's ECI report highlights how these technologies are delivering measurable ROI by powering GenAI applications that enhance fraud detection, strengthen cybersecurity, and elevate customer engagement. For financial institutions, containers and hybrid cloud have become essential tools to drive innovation, agility, and trust in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. "But AI and how organisations want to use it is also changing very rapidly. While GenAI remains a part of their activities, beyond the findings in the report, our customers are telling us they have moved to adopt agentic AI and are looking to harness its potential across their organisations and in how they interact with their customers." Infrastructure and skills lag behind The majority of survey respondents admitted that the foundational requirements to scale GenAI are not yet fully in place. In total, 97% said their organisations need to do more to secure their GenAI models and applications, and 92% agreed their infrastructure must be modernised to support cloud-native applications and containers. Containerisation and tools such as Kubernetes are already widely deployed, especially for GenAI workloads. Nevertheless, organisations continue to wrestle with issues such as application portability and the persistence of data silos across their operations. Talent shortages hinder scaling A further significant barrier for the sector is the ongoing shortage of skilled IT personnel capable of deploying GenAI from development into production environments. Nearly all respondents (98%) cited difficulty in scaling up due to insufficient expertise and integration challenges, prompting 62% to say they are actively hiring for GenAI-related roles. Many organisations highlighted the urgent need for training and upskilling existing staff. Mixed outlook for returns While the long-term expectations for GenAI remain positive, the immediate financial outlook is less certain. Just under 40% of those surveyed anticipated possible GenAI-related losses over the next year, while 58% expect to see returns on investment within one to three years. This highlights that many organisations see the value of GenAI as a longer-term play but are seeking more reliable ways to track and measure its impact. Security and compliance front of mind With increasing reliance on data-driven systems, security and compliance are rising priorities across the sector. The majority of respondents - 96% - said GenAI is already reshaping how they set data security and privacy policies. Furthermore, 90% raised concerns about security throughout the IT vendor ecosystem, pointing to the growing complexity of safeguarding data and applications in cloud environments. The ECI study was conducted by UK-based researcher Vanson Bourne in autumn 2024, polling 1,500 IT and platform engineering leaders from a range of firm sizes and regions globally, including North and South America, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific-Japan.
Techday NZ
11 hours ago
- Business
- Techday NZ
Rubrik boosts AWS database security with DynamoDB, RDS tools
Rubrik has announced new support for Amazon DynamoDB and released a cyber resilience solution for relational databases, initially focusing on Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL. The expansion of Rubrik's data protection services on AWS aims to provide additional security layers for customers handling growing data volumes in cloud environments. The announced offerings are designed to address data security gaps, mitigate the risk of cyber threats, and help meet compliance requirements by automating backup, ensuring data immutability, and streamlining recovery operations. Services overview Rubrik's extension to Amazon DynamoDB provides customers with a single policy-driven console that handles backup scheduling and cross-account recovery processes. Automation of these processes, often seen as complex and manual, intends to lower the burden on IT teams and standardise protection across environments. For Amazon RDS users, Rubrik is launching a proprietary cyber resilience solution, with support for PostgreSQL. The company states that this approach eliminates the need for extra infrastructure to maintain immutable, undeletable backups, allowing databases to be continuously protected regardless of architecture complexity. As organisations entrust their most critical data and applications with cloud database services, it's crucial to have secure and cost-effective protection in place. Extending our cloud database protection to Amazon DynamoDB and deepening our capabilities for Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL is a testament to our ongoing innovation and strategic partnership with AWS. Together, we can help our customers become truly cyber resilient. The new solutions are intended to simplify management of AWS cloud database environments through centralised dashboards, offering unified views and control, particularly for customers who opt out of AWS's native data protection services. Amazon DynamoDB protection Rubrik's support for Amazon DynamoDB incorporates centralised visibility, which enables discovery and monitoring of DynamoDB instances across multiple AWS accounts and regions. This is particularly significant for organisations managing large, distributed deployments in the cloud. Rubrik's platform allows for incremental-forever backups, which are designed to minimise storage consumption and associated costs. Customers can select from a range of Amazon S3 storage classes including S3 Standard, S3 Standard-Infrequent Access, S3 One Zone-Infrequent Access, S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval, S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval, and S3 Glacier Deep Archive. This flexibility aims to increase cost efficiency for long-term data retention and compliance. Cyber resilience for Amazon RDS The proprietary cyber resilience solution for Amazon RDS offers immutable protection, ensuring backups cannot be altered or deleted. The platform does not require additional vault configurations or the combination of multiple services to achieve immutability, reducing operational complexity. Operations management for Amazon RDS on PostgreSQL is consolidated into one interface, allowing organisations to maintain visibility and control of backup information across different regions and AWS accounts. This centralised approach targets organisations seeking alternatives to AWS's native tools, aiming to streamline compliance and recovery processes. Customer benefits Rubrik claims the new features will help customers reduce operational risk while simplifying management and minimising cloud costs. The unified platform approach is also designed to bring consistency across diverse and highly distributed AWS environments, addressing both security and operational requirements. The expanded support responds to increased adoption of cloud-based database services, and recognises the challenges organisations face in securing such resources at scale. All of Rubrik's newly announced or upcoming capabilities have been designed with the intent to help organisations address growing data security challenges presented by increased cloud adoption and the prevalence of cyber threats. They are delivered with a focus on automation and central management to aid enterprises in achieving cyber resilience without adding architectural complexity.
