Milestones in 2024: Q1

Concept artwork featuring technology generated via Google Gemini (Imagen 3).

Milestones for Q124 included:

February

A Hong Kong employee at Arup, a design and engineering company, was convinced by deepfake videos to pay US$25 M to scammers.

"Along with all of its promise and potential, generative AI is already causing plenty of headaches for security teams. This year alone we’ve seen several stories of scammers using deepfake videos of C-suite leaders to trick employees into transferring money or sharing sensitive information. In 2025 we should expect to see more deepfakes go real time, with audio and video generated on the fly to mimic real conversations," said Brett Winterford, Regional Chief Security Officer, Asia Pacific & Japan, Okta.

"Business processes must evolve to mitigate the impact of threats like these. Employees could be encouraged to start using code words or safe phrases to confirm each other’s authenticity. And companies should create a culture where they feel empowered to push back when they feel like leaders are making unreasonable, potentially suspicious requests.

March

Cisco completed the acquisition of Splunk. This is followed in May by Exabeam and LogRhythm announcing plans to merge, and Palo Alto Networks reporting that it will acquire IBM’s QRadar software-as-a-service (SaaS) business.

"2024 marked a pivotal year of transformation for security information and event management (SIEM) vendors, driven by a surge of mergers and acquisitions that show no signs of slowing down into 2025. As the competition heats up, innovation, seamless integration and cost-efficiency will separate the leaders from the rest," observed Elia Zaitsev, CTO, CrowdStrike. 

"Organisations are now demanding scalable, cloud-native platforms that not only handle the explosion of modern data volumes but also consolidate redundant tools and integrate effortlessly with their existing ecosystems. Security operations centres (SOCs) are rethinking total cost of ownership and time to value, as next-gen SIEM platforms bring critical data sources like endpoint, cloud, and identity under one roof, slashing data management costs and eliminating performance delays. 

"In the face of increasingly sophisticated threats, in 2025 expect SOC teams to continue demanding real-time intelligence, high-fidelity detections, and automation that puts actionable context at their fingertips, powering workflows that move as fast as today’s adversaries."

Siemens and NVIDIA expanded their collaboration on generative AI for immersive real-time visualisation.

Alex Teo, VP & MD of Southeast Asia, Siemens Digital Industries Software said: "In 2024, we observed a surge in the adoption of advanced technologies as companies strive to improve efficiency, innovation and sustainability...Among these advancements, the industrial metaverse and the digital twin are gaining momentum. Our study with S&P Global Market Intelligence 451 Research has also revealed that 81% of companies across 16 industries actively engage with industrial metaverse use cases and 62% increase spending on related technologies such as digital twins in 2024."

Explore

Milestones in Q224

Milestones in Q324

Milestones in Q424

Milestones were also highlighted monthly in January, February, and March.

Hashtag: #2024milestones