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Climbing off the CKC ladderInterested in an upcoming conference?Interested in Next-Gen Cyber AI? With an ever evolving world, the only option for the ambitious secpro is to stay ahead of the game. Check out our upcoming conference with big names like Mark Simos, Nikhil Kumar, and Katie Paxton-Fear, who have a lot to say about the way they are overcoming new problems with AI and supporting others following their paths!Check it out on Eventbrite!#211: The Zero Trust FundClimbing off the CKC ladderWelcome to another_secpro!This week, we're finishing off our focus on the final piece of the Cyber Key Chain: "actions on objectives". Next week, we're rolling out a recap of the CKC and taking a vote on what we do next - because we're nothing if not democratic!Also, check out our news and academic reviews sections to stretch your skills and check your mental chops!Check out _secpro premiumIf you want more, you know what you need to do: sign up to the premium and get access to everything we have on offer. Click the link above to visit our Substack and sign up there!Cheers!Austin MillerEditor-in-ChiefThis week's article"Actions on Objectives" in the Cyber Kill ChainWhen we talk about “actions on objectives” in cybersecurity, we’re talking about the part of an attack where the intruder finally tries to get what they came for. It’s the payoff stage. They’ve already found a way in, moved through the network, and positioned themselves to strike. At this point, the attacker shifts from preparation to execution. This is where the real damage happens: data gets stolen, systems get destroyed, or resources get used for the attacker’s purposes.Read the rest here!Interested in our Next-Gen AI Conference?If you're looking forward to our upcoming conference or just want a little insight into who these industry-leading speakers are, here's a little bio on two of our closest collaborators: Mark Simos and Nikhil Kumar.Introducing Mark SimosMark Simos is Lead Cybersecurity Architect for Microsoft where he leads the development of cybersecurity reference architectures, best practices, reference strategies, prescriptive roadmaps, CISO workshops, and other guidance to secure organizations in the digital age.Mark helps organizations meet cybersecurity and digital transformation goals by combining learnings from across Microsoft customers with Microsoft’s experience operating and protecting hyper-scale cloud services.Mark is co-author of the Zero Trust Playbook (http://zerotrustplaybook.com) and co-host of the Azure Security Podcast. Mark actively contributes to open standards and publications including the Zero Trust Reference Model, Zero Trust Commandments, Security Principles for Architecture, NIST Guide for Cybersecurity Event Recovery (800-184), NIST Guide to Enterprise Patch Management (800-40), Microsoft Digital Defense Report, and Microsoft Security blogs.Mark also chairs the Security Forum and co-chairs the Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) working group at The Open Group and has presented numerous conferences including Black Hat USA, RSA Conference, Gartner Security & Risk Management, BSides, Microsoft BlueHat, Microsoft Ignite, and Financial Executives International.Check out the conference on Eventbrite!Introducing Nikhil KumarNikhil is an industry expert and thought leader in Digital Transformation, Zero Trust and InfoSec, AI, Cloud Computing, APIs and SOA, with a passion for applying technology in an actionable manner. An entrepreneur with over 20 years experience, he is known as a servant leader able to create amazing solutions and bridge people, process, business and technology.With a life-long passion for actionable delivery and Computer Architecture, and over 40 publications and presentations at blind-refereed fora, Nikhil has delivered Enterprise, AI, Cloud, Security, SOA, Information, Enterprise and Application Architecture solutions for Fortune 10 organizations to startups. A successful MIT Startup mentor, he has taken companies to market, run legacy modernization initiatives, and led small to large teams. Clients include AMEX, bonddeskgroup, Comerica Bank, The Hartford, Sovereign Bank, St. John Health Systems, AFLAC, GMAC, etc.. Known as a trusted partner and change leader, Nikhil often acts in CXO advisory and leadership roles.As a thought leader Nikhil has been invited to and led and authored numerous global industry standards, such as co-chairing the Zero Trust Working Group, SOA Reference Architecture and SOA for Business Technology Guide, and is actively involved in Precision Medicine, Digital Transformation, Zero Trust and APIs/ SOA. Nikhil started ApTSi to create the solutions company of the future based on innovation and application with a belief that actionable solutions combine people, process, technology, frameworks and products, to provide high quality, risk managed, agile solutions.Check out the conference on Eventbrite!News BytesAccenture’s Largest-Ever Cybersecurity Acquisition: CyberCX Deal: Accenture has agreed to acquire CyberCX, an Australian cybersecurity firm founded in 2019 with 1,400 employees and a presence in Australia, New Zealand, London, and New York. The purchase, reported to be over A$1 billion (~US$650 million), marks Accenture’s biggest move in the cybersecurity space to date and follows its pattern of expanding services to meet escalating AI-related threats.Shift to Offensive Security as Proactive Defense: In response to rising automation and AI-driven cyber threats—highlighted by recent UK retail breaches—this article advocates for offensive security. Techniques like red teaming and penetration testing are recommended to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities before they’re exploited, shifting from reactive to evidence-based defense.UK’s Chronic Cyber Skills Shortage Exposes SMEs to Risk: The UK is facing a serious shortage of cybersecurity professionals—particularly in SMEs—which jeopardizes national cyber resilience. A report by De Montfort University for the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Cyber Innovation calls for a national skills taxonomy, standardized recruitment, and interdisciplinary training to bridge the gap.Fragmented Cybersecurity Tools Undermine Organizational Defense: As businesses adopt an expanding mix of disconnected security tools to manage evolving infrastructure, they face visibility gaps, data silos, and inefficient risk response. The article urges the adoption of unified, AI-driven cybersecurity platforms to consolidate asset management, threat detection, and compliance for stronger defense.Cybersecurity Must Be ‘Secure by Design’ Rather Than Reactive: Responding to rapidly evolving cyber threats, the UK Public Accounts Committee criticizes outdated “build and forget” security models. The piece calls for embedding cybersecurity across system lifecycles, regulatory reform (e.g., Cyber Security and Resilience Bill), continuous monitoring, and workforce development to shift toward a proactive posture.This week's academiaZero trust cybersecurity: Critical success factors and a maturity assessment framework (William Yeoh, Marina Liu, Malcolm Shore, Frank Jiang): Reports a three-round Delphi study with 12 security experts to identify the critical success factors for zero-trust programs. It organizes eight dimensions—identity, endpoint, application/workload, data, network, infrastructure, visibility & analytics, and automation & orchestration—and proposes a practical maturity assessment to benchmark adoption.Verify and trust: A multidimensional survey of zero-trust security in the age of IoT (Muhammad Ajmal Azad, Sidrah Abdullah, Junaid Arshad, Harjinder Lallie, Yussuf Hassan Ahmed): A peer-reviewed survey that synthesizes zero-trust principles and technologies for IoT systems, covering authentication/authorization models, policy-based access, micro-segmentation, and the use of blockchain. It maps applications across sectors and highlights open research issues and deployment recommendations.A Proposal for a Zero-Trust-Based Multi-Level Security Model and Its Security Controls(Jae-Won Park, Hye-Young Park, H. Youm): Proposes and implements a model that fuses Multi-Level Security (MLS) with zero-trust principles. The paper details policy enforcement and control mechanisms to continuously verify subjects and objects across classification levels, and discusses how the integrated approach mitigates lateral movement and insider threats.*{box-sizing:border-box}body{margin:0;padding:0}a[x-apple-data-detectors]{color:inherit!important;text-decoration:inherit!important}#MessageViewBody a{color:inherit;text-decoration:none}p{line-height:inherit}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{mso-hide:all;display:none;max-height:0;overflow:hidden}.image_block img+div{display:none}sub,sup{font-size:75%;line-height:0} @media (max-width: 100%;display:block}.mobile_hide{min-height:0;max-height:0;max-width: 100%;overflow:hidden;font-size:0}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{display:table!important;max-height:none!important}}

Final Day – Last Chance to Join DeepSeek In Production SummitAI_Distilled #106: What’s New in AI This WeekFinal Day – Last Chance to Join at $99.99This is it - your last opportunity to join DeepSeek in Production on Saturday, Aug 16 for just $99.99 (50% OFF). Only a few seats remain at this special price.Spend 6 hours live with 9 AI experts learning to fine-tune, deploy, and scale one of the most advanced open-source LLMs.Sale ends at midnight!SECURE YOUR SEAT NOW!This week, OpenAI launched its latest model, GPT-5, while its competitors Perplexity and xAI made bold moves to challenge its dominance. In addition, the US government struck a unique deal on AI chip exports, while Microsoft introduced a new 3D creation tool.Excited?Let’s dig in!LLM Expert Insights,Packt📈LATEST DEVELOPMENTOpenAI's GPT-5 Revolutionizes Business OperationsOpenAI has launched GPT-5, and it has been hailed as its most advanced AI model yet. CEO Sam Altman claimed it was sophisticated enough to elevate ChatGPT to a PhD-level expert as it integrates and surpasses previous capabilities in reasoning and problem-solving. The model is available to all 700 million ChatGPT users. As the AI industry faces pressure to justify massive investments, OpenAI is emphasizing GPT-5's enhanced enterprise capabilities in software development, finance, and more.Meanwhile, in a post on X, Sam Altman announced GPT-5 now offers "Auto," "Fast," and "Thinking" modes. The "Thinking" mode, designed for detailed reasoning, has a weekly message limit of 3,000 and a context limit of 196k tokens.Perplexity Bids for Google's Chrome BrowserPerplexity has made a $34.5 billion offer to acquire Google's Chrome browser, a valuation that far exceeds its own. This offer is a strategic move to capitalize on potential antitrust remedies against Google's search monopoly, allowing Perplexity to tap into Chrome's vast user base. Perplexity has also pledged to keep Chrome's underlying code open source.Microsoft Launches Copilot 3DMicrosoft's new Copilot 3D tool makes 3D creation accessible to everyone. Offered via Copilot Labs, the tool is globally available to anyone with a personal Microsoft account, with no subscription required. This AI-powered feature transforms a single 2D image into a usable 3D model in seconds. The models are saved for 28 days and can be downloaded in GLB format. This move is seen as an effort to expand Microsoft's AI offerings into the creative and design space.xAI Makes Grok 4 Free for All UsersFollowing the debut of OpenAI's GPT-5, Elon Musk's xAI announced that it was making its Grok 4 model free for all users, intensifying the competition in the AI chatbot market.Tesla Refocuses on AI Inference ChipsTesla has announced a strategic realignment, phasing out the Dojo supercomputer team to concentrate on inference-optimized AI chip designs, notably the AI5 and AI6 processors. Future chips are expected by 2026, with Samsung already on board via a $16.5B deal. Anthropic Offers Claude to the U.S. Government for $1Anthropic has offered its AI chatbot, Claude, to the U.S. government for a symbolic price of $1. The company's CEO, Dario Amodei, stated that this is to ensure government institutions have access to the most secure AI tools available. This move follows a similar one made by rival OpenAI, as both companies compete for federal contracts.📈HELPFUL AI TOOLSOver the last month, several AI tools and platform updates have launched, expanding capabilities in research, education, SEO, and productivity. The table below highlights some of the most significant releases and their potential use cases. Perplexity CometDescription:AI browser built on Chromium; includes an automation sidebar; personal assistant that can summarise open tabs and perform comparison‑shopping.Use Cases: Web research assistant; comparing prices across retailers; summarizing web pages for faster reading.Webpage: https://www.perplexity.ai/cometZoom AI Companion (agentic)Description:AI Companion upgrade that adds agentic abilities; integrates with Slack, Salesforce, Notion and other apps; can pull data or send messages directly from Zoom meetings.Use Cases: Automating meeting follow‑ups; retrieving CRM data or logging support tickets during calls; posting summaries to collaboration tools.Webpage: https://www.zoom.com/en/products/ai-assistant/Semrush AI Mode in Position TrackingDescription: New search‑engine option inside Semrush’s Position Tracking; tracks domain visibility in generative AI search results; provides daily ranks and local results.Use Cases: Monitoring how websites appear in AI‑generated search; measuring brand presence in Google’s AI Mode; planning SEO strategies based on AI visibility.Webpage: https://www.semrush.com/position-tracking/Google Gemini for EducationDescription: Version of the Gemini AI app built for schools; launches 30+ new classroom tools like vocabulary‑list generation and personalized quizzes.Use Cases: Assisting teachers with lesson planning and content generation; generating short educational videos via Veo 3 and auto creating forms.Webpage: https://edu.google.com/intl/ALL_in/ai/gemini-for-education/EXPERT INSIGHTSFrom the Packt Bookshelf: Generative AI with LangChain, Second Edition by Ben Auffarth and Leonid KuliginIn Generative AI with LangChain, Second Edition, Ben Auffarth and Leonid Kuligin introduce the Tree of Thoughts (ToT) pattern for building smarter AI agents. Extending Chain of Thought, ToT explores multiple solution paths in parallel, using a planner, execution agent, and replanner to adapt at each step. A tree data structure tracks progress, while consensus mechanisms (like LLM-as-a-judge) pick the best outcome. The approach leverages depth/breadth search, candidate pruning, and structured state management to create robust, production-ready multi-agent workflows—ideal for developers aiming to master advanced LangChain orchestration.Read the full article on Substack →Built something cool? Tell us.Whether it's a scrappy prototype or a production-grade agent, we want to hear how you're putting generative AI to work. Drop us your story at nimishad@packtpub.com or reply to this email, and you could get featured in an upcoming issue of AI_Distilled.📢 If your company is interested in reaching an audience of developers and, technical professionals, and decision makers, you may want toadvertise with us.If you have any comments or feedback, just reply back to this email.Thanks for reading and have a great day!That’s a wrap for this week’s edition of AI_Distilled 🧠⚙️We would love to know what you thought—your feedback helps us keep leveling up.👉 Drop your rating hereThanks for reading,The AI_Distilled Team(Curated by humans. Powered by curiosity.)*{box-sizing:border-box}body{margin:0;padding:0}a[x-apple-data-detectors]{color:inherit!important;text-decoration:inherit!important}#MessageViewBody a{color:inherit;text-decoration:none}p{line-height:inherit}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{mso-hide:all;display:none;max-height:0;overflow:hidden}.image_block img+div{display:none}sub,sup{font-size:75%;line-height:0} @media (max-width: 100%;display:block}.mobile_hide{min-height:0;max-height:0;max-width: 100%;overflow:hidden;font-size:0}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{display:table!important;max-height:none!important}}