Tag Archive for: force

Making ‘Dinobabies’ Extinct: IBM’s Push for a Younger Work Force

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Similarly, the E.E.O.C.’s letter summarizing its investigation of IBM found that older workers made up over 85 percent of the group whom the company viewed as candidates for layoffs, though the agency did not specify what it considered “older.”

The newly unsealed documents suggest that IBM sought to carry out its strategy in a variety of ways, including a policy that no “early professional hire” can be included in a mass layoff in the employee’s first 12 months at the company. “We are not making the progress we need to make demographically, and we are squandering our investment in talent acquisition and training,” an internal email states.

The lawsuit also argues that IBM sought to eliminate older workers by requiring them to move to a different part of the country to keep their jobs, assuming that most would decline to move. One internal email stated that the “typical relo accept rate is 8-10%,” while another said that the company would need to find work for those who accepted, suggesting that there was not a business rationale for asking employees to relocate.

And while IBM employees designated for layoffs were officially allowed to apply for open jobs within the company, other evidence included in the new disclosure suggests that the company discouraged managers from actually hiring them. For example, according to the statement of material facts, managers had to request approval from corporate headquarters if they wanted to move ahead with a hire.

Several of the plaintiffs in a separate lawsuit brought by Ms. Liss-Riordan appeared to have been on the receiving end of these practices. One of them, Edvin Rusis, joined IBM in 2003 and had worked as a “solution manager.” He was informed by the company in March 2018 that he would be laid off within a few months. According to his legal complaint, Mr. Rusis applied for five internal positions after learning of his forthcoming layoff but heard nothing in response to any of his applications.

Mr. Pratt, the spokesman, said that the company’s efforts to shield recent hires from layoffs, as well as its approach to relocating workers, were blind to age, and that many workers designated for layoffs did secure new jobs…

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Semperis and Sirius Healthcare Team Up to Launch a Ransomware Task Force for Healthcare Companies

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HOBOKEN, N.J.–()–Semperis, the pioneer of identity-driven cyber resilience for enterprises, today announced the launch of its ransomware task force for healthcare providers, formed in partnership with Sirius Healthcare, a leading provider of security consulting services for over 450 healthcare clients nationwide. The task force aims to improve the cybersecurity posture and resiliency of hospitals, pharmaceuticals, insurers, and other healthcare companies. The healthcare sector is target-rich for ransomware attacks, which have increased by 400% industry-wide this year, according to Gartner. .

“Healthcare companies, big and small, are on the front lines of the global war on ransomware,” said Mickey Bresman, CEO of Semperis. “Think about hospitals that can’t access their systems to save a life or sensitive patient data getting into the wrong hands; the ransomware task force helps organizations take back control. Semperis and Sirius, together, have been called on to help numerous hospitals regain control of their environments—focusing on protecting and recovering their core identity management system, Active Directory—and continuing operations without disrupting patient services. In many cases, the AD was destroyed and required us to hunt down the adversary, close security holes, and eliminate vulnerabilities to trust the environment again following the cyberattack. Today, Semperis is proud to protect five of the largest healthcare organizations in the world.”

A 2021 survey of cybersecurity professionals revealed that organizations in the healthcare sector are among the most targeted by ransomware attackers and the least likely to have developed contingency plans. The exploitation of Active Directory (AD), the identity system used in 90% of organizations worldwide, is a common thread in the surge of ransomware attacks on healthcare companies. Attackers take advantage of weak AD configurations to identify attack paths, access privileged credentials, and deploy ransomware. In partnership with Semperis, Sirius Healthcare offers healthcare organizations the industry’s most comprehensive cybersecurity solutions for AD and Azure AD, supported by a global…

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Unified cyber security task force by March: Source | India News

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NEW DELHI: Alarmed at the growing danger from cyberattacks and threats to national security, the government is in the process of setting up a unified national-level cyber security task force with a special focus on the risks emanating from the telecom sector.
The move comes at a time when the government is also finalising a “trusted sources” list for procuring telecom gear as the country moves towards 5G and other sophisticated telecom and immersive technologies, but with negligible procurement from China and other countries inimical to India’s security interests.

“The PMO has been informed about the efforts to explore the possibility of setting up a sub department for Telecom Cyber Security under a unified national level cyber security task force instead of setting up a separate task force under the telecom ministry,” a source said, adding that the task force is expected to be in place by March next year.
The telecom department will develop an internal task force with the relevant skill sets and capabilities required specifically for the telecom sector. “This sub task force will work in conjunction with the unified national-level cyber security task force that has been envisaged,” the source said, adding that 20 officers have already been identified for getting embedded into the project. “There are also plans to add more officers, with specialised skills sets, to this team as we move forward,” the source said.
The current cyber threats are handled by the specialised Indian Computer Emergency Response Team or CERT-In, which operates under the Ministry of Electronics and IT. It is the nodal agency to deal with cyber security threats like hacking and phishing, and strengthens security-related defence of the Indian internet domain. However, with the cyberattacks getting more sophisticated, the government has increasingly felt the need to have a specialised unified task force that acts on inputs not only from security and cyber forces from within the country, but also from inputs from ‘like-minded friendly countries’ from across the world.
Speaking at the Sydney Dialogue recently, PM Narendra Modi had also called for democracies to work together in cyberspace to…

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The General of the Space Force Has Heard Your Jokes

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The U.S. Space Force—the sixth military service branch, which turns two years old next month—provides resources to protect and defend America’s satellites from the likes of the Chinese and the Russians. Space Force members also operate the Global Positioning System satellite constellation, providing G.P.S. services, for free, to everyone on the planet. All extremely important stuff. Yet the Space Force is considered something of a joke—the subject of late-night gibes and Internet memes. Critics have derided it as a vanity project of President Trump, a campaign-rally applause line somehow made real. Last year, when Trump unveiled the Space Force logo, which bears a striking resemblance to “Star Trek” ’s Starfleet insignia, Twitter lit up. (“Ahem,” tweeted the original “Star Trek” cast member George Takei. “We are expecting some royalties from this . . .”) Also undercutting the serious nature of the service: the Netflix comedy series “Space Force,” which stars Steve Carell as the branch’s bullheaded leader.

If any of this bothers General John W. (Jay) Raymond, the inaugural head of the Space Force, he doesn’t let on. The memeification of the force? “To me, it means that there’s a lot of excitement about space,” he said recently, sitting in a meeting room in Columbia University’s International Affairs Building. The four-star general, who is based at the Pentagon, was visiting between rounds of the Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge, a largely virtual competition in which thirty-two student teams from across the globe made policy recommendations in reaction to a hypothetical cyber-warfare scenario. (This one began with a breach made in “U.S. space sector ground stations’ systems,” an attack apparently undertaken by “Chinese state-sponsored actors.”) The event at Columbia, a partnership with a think tank called the Atlantic Council, was organized by the Digital and Cyber Group, which is run by graduate students at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).

Raymond, who is fifty-nine, with a head shaved bald, pointed to a space-operations badge pinned to his jacket. He noted that the delta symbol at its center had been…

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