Author: Malavika Madgula

Digital disruption is the new-age norm, or rather, the new-age normal… Countless businesses have suffered cyber-attacks, with ransomware, distributed denial of service (DDoS), and phishing being some of the commonest, increasing in sophistication and frequency. According to SOCRadar data, ransomware was responsible for 39% of breaches in larger organisations and a whopping 88% in SMBs (small and medium businesses). Even phishing jumped to 18%, which is up from a 11% jump in 2024. Clearly, not only are cyberattacks and data breaches on the rise globally, but also no enterprise is immune to them, regardless of industry or size. What makes…

The sharp decline of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and the recent turbulence in the market have certainly shaken investor confidence. It highlights the fact that cryptocurrency isn’t just vulnerable to market forces but could also possibly face threats from emerging technologies. If you’ve kept an eye on crypto news lately, you’ve probably read dramatic claims that quantum computing could possibly “break blockchains,” rendering cryptography obsolete. The headlines are eye-catching, but does it show a clear picture or is it all the signals without the noise? What is quantum computing and is it a real threat to crypto? If it is,…

Did you know that there’s a silent security risk lurking about your organisation? It often starts small: an employee drafting a report might paste sensitive data into ChatGPT or a sales rep auto-generates e-mails using AI (artificial intelligence). Then, it escalates: a software engineer might use a personal Gemini account to write test cases and generate boilerplate code, or a marketing designer generates campaign visuals from brand copy using Canva’s AI image tools. This is Shadow AI, which is using AI tools and systems without the involvement, monitoring, or approval of an organisation’s security or IT teams, leading to compliance…

It’s time to think about how critical online safety is as the cyberattacks are on the rise. This, especially more so, since the primary vector of initial intrusion in cyberattacks is phishing, accounting for a whopping 60% of cases. We’re being plagued by social engineering, deepfakes, and urgent calls/texts from so-called trusted people, which hackers are using to gain access to our assets and accounts. This is where staying alert and following good cyber hygiene comes to your rescue, as it could be the difference between staying protected and losing years of work and efforts to obtain financial security. With…

For the two-odd decades, every marketer in the world has only had one objective: making Google love you… SEO (search engine optimisation) has been the holy grail for a very long time — a predictable, measurable way of earning visibility, capturing intent, and translating attention into revenue. In fact, the entire content economy was designed and built around that equation. However, it was in 2025 that the equation finally showed cracks, when we could evaluate, research, and even transact inside AI (artificial intelligence) tools like Perplexity or ChatGPT — without even visiting our websites — and the rules of discovery…

In September 2022, hackers used prompt injection attacks to attack recruitment company Remoteli.io’s Twitter chatbot deployed using GPT-3… The hackers added dangerous inputs to the bot’s programming, leading it to reveal the original instructions it had been fed. It ended up generating inappropriate replies about “remote work,” resulting in damaging the reputation of the start-up, besides exposing a boatload of legal risks. This stark lesson is also otherwise known as data poisoning, a.k.a. AI poisoning. It’s a kind of cyberattack where hackers attack training datasets of AI (artificial intelligence) and ML (machine learning) models by introducing misleading information, modifying existing…

In the last decade, it’s become evident that we’re hurtling toward the next great era of the internet with no signs of slowing down. Many new developments are leading this charge, especially artificial intelligence (AI) and Web3, both of which herald a new age of the decentralised internet. As they make their way into mainstream media, there’s also growing focus on the tokenization of RWAs (real world assets), a concept that AI and Web3 applications also rely on. It’s the process of converting RWAs into digital tokens representing stake or an ownership in these assets, which could be anything from…

There’s no doubt that the world of cryptocurrency is extremely volatile, with the possibility of prices swinging dramatically within hours In this case, stablecoins have emerged as a revolutionary solution, growing from a modest market of USD 5 billion in January 2020 to an explosive USD 159 billion by early 2024, making it one of the most significant developments in crypto history. In fact, stablecoins have been around for more than 10 years, ever since the now-defunct BitUSD token was launched in 2014. Despite having been catapulted to the limelight due to the U.S. Stablecoins Act (GENIUS Act), these digital,…

After what seemed like a long and unbearably slow period, Pi coin is making noise again – and how. There are a few pieces of updates that take credit for this one According to a viral narrative that hit X (formerly Twitter) in the second half of October 2025, Pi Network has supposedly joined the ISO 20022 standard, which is the messaging upgrade used by global banks. It could possibly put Pi into the same conversation as Stellar and XRP, both of which are tied to regulated cross-border payments. A particularly positive piece of news was that a recently released…

In the 21st century, our identity isn’t confined to physical documents like drivers’ licenses and passports. It actually exists as a complex web of digital attributes, including personal data and credentials, scattered across more digital institutions and platforms than we can count. Welcome to the new web – Web3 – where how this very identity is saved, stored, secured, and shared plays a crucial role in ensuring privacy and trust, and reducing fraud. This new web is very different from the web of the old and also demands a new approach to identity. Commercial relationships and data structures will be…