Tech Talks Daily

NETSCOUT recently announced findings from its DDoS Threat Intelligence Report. The findings demonstrate how sophisticated cybercriminals have become at bypassing defences with new DDoS attack vectors and successful methodologies. "By constantly innovating and adapting, attackers are designing new, more effective DDoS attack vectors or doubling down on existing effective methodologies," said Richard Hummel, threat intelligence lead at NETSCOUT. "In the first half of 2022, attackers conducted more pre-attack reconnaissance, exercised a new attack vector called TP240 PhoneHome, created a tsunami of TCP flooding attacks, and rapidly expanded high-powered botnets to plague network-connected resources. In addition, bad actors have openly embraced online aggression with high-profile DDoS attack campaigns related to geopolitical unrest, which have had global implications." NETSCOUT's Active Level Threat Analysis System (ATLAS™) compiles DDoS attack statistics from most of the world's ISPs, large data centres, and government and enterprise networks. This data represents intelligence on attacks occurring in over 190 countries, 550 industries, and 50,000 autonomous system numbers (ASNs). NETSCOUT's ATLAS Security Engineering and Response Team (ASERT) analyses and curates this data to provide unique insights in its biannual report. When I hear phrases such as DNS water-torture attacks and carpet-bombing attacks on the rise combined with a new Netscout Threat Intelligence report, I immediately reached out to my go-to guy for cybersecurity threats. Richard Hummel rejoins me on Tech TAlks Daily to discuss the news in more detail and demystify some of the terminologies around the threat landscape.

Today, every B2B omnichannel retail user experience is expected to be seamless, without boundaries for users, with well-aligned journeys and a fully integrated experience across all channels. But can one truly achieve that in a big company, with a huge history and complex processes, while keeping customers happy and engaged? Rehan Saleem, Product Manager, and Tobias Schröder, Ph.D., Product Manager, joined me in a conversation on the show floor at Sitecore Symposium 2022 about powering brand experiences. At the event, their presentation, "How to (not) ruin a B2B organization," focused on the challenges of creating and maintaining a seamless user experience and keeping a great relationship with our customers. Tobias and Rehan share with me how their teams manage to build human-centered solutions while handling business models and METRO shops in 23 countries. We also discuss personalization technology and experience platforms.

As Chief Technology Officer and Senior PE for Intel Corporation, Steve Orrin orchestrates and executes customer engagements in the Federal space, overseeing the development of federal solution architectures to address challenges in a government enterprise, national security, and other federal areas of focus. In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, Steve joins me in a discussion about the key trends in cybersecurity. Steve reveals the latest threats and techniques used against corporations and governments and shares the best practices to help. We also discuss the security/risk concerns around supply chain security and what organizations can do today and in the future to address or reduce this risk. With trust being top of mind for CISOs, Steve also advises how organizations can adopt Zero Trust Architectures and what new security innovations are waiting on the horizon. About Steve Orrin Steve Orrin offers three decades of extraordinary success in a series of high-level roles at top-tier companies that include Intel Corporation, Sarvega, Watchfire Inc., Sanctum Inc., First Genetic Trust Inc., Lockstar Inc., and SynData Technologies Inc. He has developed a reputation as an industry leader, leveraging a history of delivering results in Innovation, Intrapreneurship, and Entrepreneurship. He is a Tech-enabled business professional who has launched and scaled companies and brought innovative industry-leading products to market. Steve's invaluable expertise and broad business range have powered a history of developing successful products, technologies, and new markets. Such traits have consistently enabled Steve to achieve an impressive command of the skills needed to manage ongoing business planning processes while developing strategies to meet future challenges.

I have been watching many keynotes at Symposium, and two of the speakers from Sitecore's leadership team are joining me on the podcast today. First of all, we are going to speak to Dave O'Flanagan, CPO at Sitecore, who will walk me through the big announcements at this year's event. We discuss Content Hub One, a new AI-powered standalone search derived from Sitecore's Reflektion acquisition and Sitecore Connect. We will then meet Nick Malone, COO, who has some great insights to share with me about how enterprises can create superior digital experiences. We discuss the need to operate in a state of always-on innovation and adapt to the ever-evolving expectations of consumers. About Nick Malone Nick is a proven executive with 24 years of leadership experience within both client and vendor roles spanning UK, Europe, Middle East, USA, Russia and Central Asia. Extensive experience in sales leadership and business development within both mature & emerging markets and in the management of diverse cultures, complex business environments and an extended ecosystem of national and international alliance partners & national & global corporations About Dave O'Flanagan Dave O'Flanagan is the Chief Product Officer in Sitecore. Sitecore delivers a digital experience platform that empowers the world's smartest brands to build lifelong relationships with their customers. An industry leader, Sitecore is the only company bringing together content, commerce, and data into one connected platform that delivers millions of digital experiences every day. Leading companies including American Express, ASOS, Kimberly-Clark, L'Oréal and Volvo Cars rely on Sitecore to provide more engaging, personalised experiences for their customers. Previously the CEO & Co-Founder of Boxever, a personalisation platform that uses data and AI to help the world's biggest brands make every customer interaction smarter and deliver game-changing customer experience.

Jacuzzi is known around the world for its hot tub and spa manufacturing. But people seldom think about their technology or how their digital presence is a primary source for generating leads. The Jacuzzi Group had a fragmented dealer model, including hundreds of Jacuzzi-owned stores, Jacuzzi-only dealers, and brand-agnostic dealers, all who had their own websites and e-commerce experiences. This made managing the Jacuzzi brand a nightmare, not to mention the inconsistent experience it was portraying to customers. Kyle BladesJacuzzi's Director of Digital Marketing shares their digital transformation journey with me and how they leveraged technology to unify its customer experiences, delivering both a best-in-class experience and future-proofed, omnichannel connectivity at scale.

Cirque du Soleil started with a group of street performers in Montreal, Canada in 1984 and manages approximately 40 shows worldwide today. In addition to the iconic shows under the blue and yellow big top, the Cirque du Soleil brand includes other live entertainment brands such as the Blue Man Group, VStar Entertainment Group, and The Works Entertainment Group. After being shut down for an extended period during the pandemic, Cirque Du Soleil is back, stronger than ever across multiple continents. But this time, they are also delighting their customers with an Interactive Program to enhance the fan experience and enable more engagement opportunities. Pierre-Luc Camirand, Director of Digital Customer Experience, at Cirque du Soleil shares their digital transformation journey with me. With annual global ticket sales ranging from 11-12 million, most of these transactions are completed online and move through the Sitecore digital ecosystem. Through micro-interactions and behavioral personalization, I learn how Cirque du Soleil is increasing engagement, conversion rates, and repeat business. We discuss how they are replicating the experience of a live show in the digital environment and creating a seamless customer experience across all digital platforms with content in multiple languages.

Digital tools have transformed the car buying experience for drivers over the last twenty years. Most will routinely do their own research online before visiting their local dealer, but could the Metaverse further transform the process of browsing and purchasing your next vehicle? Sitecore's 2022 Perceptions of the Metaverse Report recently revealed that consumers are ready (and expect) to engage brands in new virtual environments. The company is also working with Honda to streamline the purchasing experience using a Metaverse that does not require strapping a clunky headset to your face. The concept promises to help make car configuration easier and more interactive. Drivers will be able to get all the information they need in a virtual world before completing the purchase. Ultimatley, technology is beginning to reimagine the traditional car dealership as an experience centre. I sit down with Aswin Mannepalli, Global Director, Industry Strategy and Marketing for (Automotive and Manufacturing) at Sitecore Symposium 2022 to explore how digital and metaverse experience tools can streamline the car buying process to ease the path to conversion.

Wolters Kluwer is a 189-year-old company and global leader in professional information, software, and services for health, tax and accounting, governance, risk and compliance, and legal and regulatory sectors. However, in the digital age, the company had a fractured user experience, unmanageable marketing operations systems, siloed data, and a disconnected brand presentation across hundreds of marketing and product websites. This is a story that many listeners will be all too familiar with, but Wolters Kluwer embarked on a digital transformation journey and selected one CMS to present a single global website leveraging analytics and reporting better aligned to the company's strategy. The theme at this year's Sitecore Symposium event is Meet Every Moment. With this in mind, I invited Amy Kolzow and Mike Shaw from Walters Kluwer to share their inspiring digital transformation journey with me. About Amy Kolzow: Amy is a marketing technology leader with over two decades of experience driving digital transformation. As Vice President of Global Digital Marketing at Wolters Kluwer, Amy designed and led a program that brought 280 websites together into one global website to deliver a unified customer experience. Reaching more than two million visitors a month, www.wolterskluwer.com is a game changer in Wolters Kluwer's 189-year history. Amy applies her analytics-first mindset to her passion for escaping marketing mediocrity and achieving tangible, repeatable results. About Mike Shaw: Mike is the Associate Director of Marketing Technology and Operations at Wolters Kluwer. Among his responsibilities, Mike manages the transformation of the marketing technology stack as the company rapidly evolves. With over ten years of Sitecore experience, Mike leverages Sitecore's technologies to meet the needs of a continuously expanding organization.

The last two years have seen tremendous change. People all over the world have been doing business online more than ever before, and with that, their digital expectations are now sky-high. The brands that will thrive in a post-pandemic world are the ones that can connect intelligently and meet their customers with authentic experiences at every touchpoint along their journey. At this year's in-person Sitecore Symposium, I set out to learn how some of the world's biggest brands are empowered to deliver standout CX through innovative solutions that drive results and build customer loyalty. When the American Dental Association (ADA) began its journey to refresh its member digital hub, the solution was not just about modernizing the technology. Instead, modernizing how the team worked and interacted with the hub and each other had to change, placing the member experience at the center of every decision. Jen Sutherland and Ken Zenger from the American Dental Association share key insights that ADA learned along the way to build an evergreen hub model that would continue to deliver relevant and easily navigated content to new and established members into the future. We also discuss the dangers of having out-of-date information outranking new content.

In the space of three days, Solana lost about $4.5 million worth of tokens to hackers while the Nomad protocol was drained of $200 million. Zooming out, ChainAnalysis estimates that $2 billion in cryptocurrency has been stolen from cross-chain bridges across 13 separate hacks so far this year. Dominic Williams, the founder of DFINITY Foundation shares his take on the prevalence of blockchain hacks and the fundamental infrastructure flaws behind their regular recurrence. It's Dominic's assertion that these hacks will continue so long as trusted intermediaries reign supreme in the blockchain world. Until the industry steps away from centralized MetaMask-style wallets, hacks of this nature will continue. The DFINITY Foundation is building the Internet Computer Protocol (ICP). This set of protocols allows independent data centers worldwide to band together and offer a decentralized alternative to current centralized internet cloud providers. Dominic highlights why hacks keep happening in blockchain and how the industry can best approach the problem. Dominic also shares his opinions on the bear market and what we can expect from the DFINITY Foundation.