Publicis Sapient, a digital business transformation company, today announced the appointment of Ashwaq Al Shathri as Country Managing Director (MD) for Saudi Arabia, based in Publicis Sapient’s Riyadh office.  This appointment reflects the importance of KSA and the Middle East for Publicis Sapient as fertile ground for growth.  The company’s deep expertise in digital innovation and AI solutions directly align with KSA’s visionary goals, opening tremendous opportunities for Publicis Sapient to contribute to the Kingdom’s digital business transformation journey.  Ashwaq brings to Publicis Sapient extensive experience in delivering transformational work across diverse sectors, from government to health, and driving growth for leading organizations.  As Publicis Sapient’s new Managing Director for Saudi Arabia, she will be responsible for accelerating business growth in KSA, as well as building the operational business and community.  In her role, she will lead the teams responsible for digital business transformation in the region, leveraging the company’s SPEED – Strategy, Product, Experience, Engineering and Data and AI – capabilities, as well as infusing AI into these capabilities, to deliver customer impact, value and growth.“We’re committed to supporting KSA’s technology-driven transformation and realization of Vision 2030, while also, ultimately, helping position KSA as a leader in digital innovation on the global stage,” said Nigel Vaz, CEO of Publicis Sapient.  “In our ambition to invest and expand our footprint in the region, we’re thrilled to welcome Ashwaq to the team.  Her experience in driving transformational work and growth, as well as her leadership skills, will have immediate impact in delivering value to our customers and attracting new business as we continue to scale.”“I’m delighted to be joining Publicis Sapient’s incredibly talented team in Riyadh,” said Ashwaq Al Shathri, Publicis Sapient’s Country Managing Director for Saudi Arabia.  “The company’s unique expertise, SPEED - Strategy, Product, Experience, Engineering and Data and AI - capabilities and AI-driven solutions enable us to meet the challenges of our customers in KSA who want to accelerate their transformation and create new experiences and innovative services.”“Ashwaq brings a wealth of expertise to Publicis Sapient.  Her appointment as our Country Manging Director for Saudi Arabia will directly contribute to our continued business growth as we scale our expertise in the Middle East to better serve our clients and their customers and help them transform digitally,” said Srinivas Devulapalli, Managing Director, Publicis Sapient MENA.For more than 30 years, Publicis Sapient has helped some of the world’s largest organizations, such as Marriott, Goldman Sachs, McDonald’s and Walmart, build a competitive advantage through digital. Publicis Sapient has a thriving business in the Middle East with clients such as Omantel, Diriyah Gate (DGDA) and Miral and has consulted in Saudi Arabia on smart city initiatives.

Swisslog, a leading provider of best-in-class intralogistics warehouse automation and software, has announced that Walmart will install a Swisslog automation solution within its Robinson, TX, facility to enable seamless material flow and increase uptime. Walmart is planning to break ground on the milk processing facility later this year with the facility scheduled to open in 2026.  This is the third Walmart milk processing facility to deploy Swisslog’s automated storage and retrieval solution (ASRS) featuring SynQ software and Vectura cranes. The company worked with Swisslog to open its first milk processing facility in Fort Wayne, IN, in 2018. This facility served as a blueprint for its second facility in Valdosta, GA expected to open in 2025, as well as for the just announced Texas facility.  According to Walmart, the ASRS continues the company’s commitment to building a more resilient and transparent supply chain to deliver high-quality products. It also will bolster the company’s capacity to meet consumer demand for milk. The products from the facility will serve more than 750 Walmart stores and Sam’s Clubs throughout the South including Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and parts of Arkansas and Mississippi. Designed by Swisslog’s automation experts, the ASRS brings together five Vectura pallet stacker cranes with KUKA palletizing and de-palletizing robots, a ProMove pallet conveyor system, as well as a conveyor system for small loads. The automation solution operates on synchronized intelligence from Swisslog’s SynQ software, which provides warehouse management, material flow and automation control system functionality in a single, modular platform. “We are honored that Walmart continues to put their trust in our automation solutions and our people behind those solutions,” said Sean Wallingford, president, and CEO of Swisslog Americas. “This has been a very collaborative relationship as our two teams work together to create value for Walmart and ensure our automation solutions and software enable the company and its farmers to bring fresh, transparently sourced dairy to market.” SynQ management software not only optimizes the flow of the equipment to increase efficiency and accuracy of the operation, it also orchestrates the operation of multiple sub-systems. It equips warehouse automation and IT systems with synchronized intelligence of people, processes and machines to boost the efficiency and productivity of warehouse processes and adapt to changing market requirements. SynQ provides sophisticated inventory management and material flow capabilities that enable real-time inventory tracking and management of items to ensure freshness, quality and transparency of the food supply chain.  This project also includes Swisslog’s IT Managed Services, which puts in place experts to proactively manage the IT systems and software required to keep the equipment running at peak performance. The higher-level 24/7 support allows Walmart to free up internal resources from routine IT system administration, while also enabling data-driven proactive maintenance that helps reduce unplanned downtime. 

DUBAI: Check Point Research (CPR), the Threat Intelligence arm of Check Point® Software Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ: CHKP) and a leading provider of cyber security solutions globally, has published its Brand Phishing Report for Q1 2023. The report highlights the brands that were most frequently imitated by cybercriminals in their attempts to steal individuals’ personal information or payment credentials during January, February and March 2023.Multinational retail giant Walmart topped the ranking last quarter, accounting for 16% of all attempts and climbing from 13th place in Q4 2022. This is due to a significant phishing campaign urging victims to click on a malicious survey link, relating to ‘the supply system collapse’. Meanwhile, DHL held onto second place, appearing in 13% of phishing events, closely followed by Microsoft with 12% during the quarter. Overall, the technology sector was the most imitated industry, followed by shipping and retail.The latest report also highlights how threat actors are leveraging organizations in the finance sector to steal account details. Bank Raiffeisen made the list for the first to the 8th places. In the Raiffeisen phishing campaign, which accounted for 3.6% of phishing attacks last quarter, recipients were encouraged to click on a malicious link and to ensure the accounts security against any fraudulent activity. Once submitted, those details would then be stolen by the attacker.“Criminal groups orchestrate phishing campaigns to get as many people to part with their personal data as possible,” said Omer Dembinsky, Data Group Manager at Check Point Software. “In some cases, attacks are designed to obtain account information, as seen with the Raiffeisen campaigns. Others are deployed to steal payment details, which we witnessed with popular streaming service Netflix.”He added: “The best defense against phishing threats, as ever, is knowledge. Employees should be given appropriate training to spot suspicious traits such as misspelled domains, typos, incorrect dates, and other details that can expose a malicious email or link.”In a brand phishing attack, criminals try to imitate the official website of a well-known brand by using a similar domain name or URL and a web-page design that resembles the genuine site. The link to the fake website can be sent to targeted individuals by email or text message, a user can be redirected during web browsing, or it may be triggered from a fraudulent mobile application. The fake website often contains a form intended to steal users’ credentials, payment details or other personal information.Top phishing brands in Q1 2023Below are the top brands ranked by their overall appearance in brand phishing attempts:Walmart (relating to 16% of all phishing attacks globally)DHL (13%)Microsoft (12%)LinkedIn (6%)FedEx (4.9%)Google (4.8%)Netflix (4%)Raiffeisen (3.6%)PayPal (3.5%)Raiffeisen Bank Phishing Email - Account Theft ExampleThis is an example of an attempt to steal a user's Raiffeisen bank account information through a phishing email. The sender's name is "Raiffeisen", but the email address is "support@raiffeisen-info[.]com”. The email's subject is "The new SmartToken service is not active" in Romanian (origin:”Noul serviciu SmartToken nu este acti”), and the content claims that the victim needs to activate the “SmartToken“ service to ensure the account's security against any fraudulent activity. The email contains a malicious link, "https://urlz[.]fr/kxnx" which the attacker tries to lure the victim into clicking so he could steal his account.“The new SmartToken service is not active” (origin: “Noul serviciu SmartToken nu este acti”)Netflix Phishing Scam - Attempts to Steal Payment DetailsDuring the first quarter of 2023, we detected a fraudulent email that utilized Netflix's branding to deceive individuals. The email, which appeared to originate from "Netflix", was sent from the webmail address “support@bryanadamstribute[.]dk”. The subject line of the email was "U?d?t? r?qu?r?d – ????unt ?n h?ld", and the message claimed that the recipient's Netflix account had been suspended, due to a failure to authorize payment for the next billing cycle. The email provided a link to renew the subscription and requested that the victim enter accurate payment details.