IT Brief US

CodeHunter has appointed Stephen McCarney as Chief Strategy Officer to help expand its Zero Trust for Code business in enterprise and government markets. He will oversee corporate strategy, market expansion, strategic partnerships and go-to-market efforts as CodeHunter positions its software security model around a core question: whether code should be trusted before it is allowed to run. The approach extends Zero Trust principles beyond users, devices and networks to software itself.

BitGo has introduced quantum-risk management tools for Bitcoin wallets aimed at institutional users of its multi-signature custody platform. The new controls focus on UTXO-based wallets and are designed to help clients identify and reduce exposure linked to Bitcoin addresses whose public keys have been revealed on-chain. The launch adds operational measures to BitGo's existing multi-signature wallet design, which it has long presented as a way to limit single points of failure.

eToro has launched a new mobile app built around an artificial intelligence assistant called Tori, marking a broader redesign of its consumer investing tools. The app was unveiled alongside a series of product changes, including sub-accounts for savings goals, a desktop platform for active traders, an expanded app marketplace and new crypto self-custody tools.

Microsoft is backing the International Committee of the Red Cross in the next phase of the Digital Emblem initiative, which aims to identify protected medical and humanitarian digital assets in cyberspace. The effort focuses on a machine-readable signal designed to mark systems used by hospitals, relief groups and other protected organisations during armed conflict. The goal is to make those systems easier to recognise, verify and avoid during cyber operations.

Temenos has secured a contract with a US regional bank to modernise its core banking platform using its software-as-a-service offering, as financial institutions continue replacing legacy infrastructure with cloud-based systems. The agreement, signed early in the third quarter, will see the unnamed bank migrate one of its specialised corporate banking operations from a third-party hosted environment to the Temenos Core Banking platform hosted on Microsoft Azure.

Kraken is rebuilding its mobile app around users' financial goals. The cryptocurrency exchange is overhauling its app from the ground up to make trading less intimidating for customers who lack the time or expertise to manage their portfolios actively. In outlining the redesign, Kraken said many trading platforms offer complex tools with little guidance, leaving users with less market knowledge at a disadvantage.

Microsoft has launched a new set of artificial intelligence tools for sales and customer service teams across Microsoft 365 Copilot and Dynamics 365, including the general availability of Sales Agent and Service Agent. The update also brings Microsoft 365 Copilot into Dynamics 365 Sales and Dynamics 365 Customer Service, alongside new plugins for team-based work in Copilot.

Circle has received final approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish a national trust bank, Circle National Trust. The approval allows Circle to open First National Digital Currency Bank, a federally regulated national trust bank focused on digital asset custody. Under the approved business plan, the bank will initially provide fiduciary custody services for Circle and its affiliates.

With the rise of new technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), more attention is being paid to physical constraints: energy and water consumption of data centres, critical minerals needed for microchips and electrical grids, geographical bottlenecks in supply chains amid geopolitical unrest. All of the above are hugely important and must be considered when growing a tech business.

The "Nigerian prince" advance-fee email scam of the early 2000s has not gone away. In fact, it has evolved into a sprawling, largely open-source criminal culture that now includes romance fraud and sextortion. The United States' Federal Trade Commission reported over USD $3.5 billion in losses to imposter scams last year, a jump from  USD $700,000 lost to imposter scams alone in 2019.