The Pentagon is restructuring the chain of command within its acquisition system, replacing the program executive offices that have long formed the backbone of the Defense Department procurement system with “portfolio acquisition executives” that will be more empowered to make decisions and more directly accountable for performance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Friday.

The changes are part of a wide-ranging overhaul Hegseth said the department will make as part of what he framed as a war on Pentagon bureaucracy amid a need to accelerate the procurement system, increase competition, use commercial technology as DoD’s default option, and eliminate excessive regulations.

“Speed to delivery is now our organizing principle,” Hegseth said Friday during a 70-minute speech at the National War College in Washington. “It is the decisive factor in maintaining deterrence and warfighting advantage. If our warfighters die or our country loses because we took too long to get them what we needed, we have failed. It is that simple. The sense of urgency has slipped too much, and when you look at what we face, we have to recapture it.”

Commonality with existing proposals

Much of what Hegseth unveiled Friday mirrors reform proposals that are making their way through Congress or that have been suggested by independent reform panels. The rollout also follows a pair of executive orders President Donald Trump issued in April, directing a reshaping of federal acquisition processes.

The move to a more portfolio-centric approach to acquisition, for example, is a feature of both the House’s SPEED Act and the Senate’s FoRGED Act, and the Senate bill also uses the “portfolio acquisition executive” moniker for a reimagined PEO role.

Hegseth offered few details on what DoD’s own conception of the new role would be, but said further guidance would be published within the next 180 days. One key theme, he said, would be empowering the new portfolio officials to make decisions without waiting for bureaucratic approval processes.

“We will break down monolithic systems and build a future where our technology adapts to the threat in real near time. Contracting officers will be embedded within program teams and accountable to program leaders, shoulder to shoulder with our engineers, operators and warfighters who can provide critical, real-world user feedback to the engineers,” he said. “If the mission is not successful, there will be real consequences. We will ensure accountability by extending PAEs’ tenure to be longer than the current PEO service times. We will leverage taxpayer dollars in a more accountable, flexible and deliberate manner to maximize their value across capability portfolios. We will shift funding within portfolios’ authorized boundaries swiftly and decisively to maximize mission outcomes. If one program is faltering, funding will be shifted within the portfolio to accelerate or scale a higher priority. If a new or more promising technology emerges, we will seize the opportunity and not be held back by artificial constraints and funding boundaries that take months or even years to overcome.”

Wartime Production Unit

Meanwhile, Hegseth said DoD is standing up a new organization called the “Wartime Production Unit.” It will be a successor to the existing Joint Production Acceleration Cell, but will be led by a “deal team” that the secretary said would be empowered to make its own agreements with vendors who conduct work across multiple portfolios.

“The deal team will reinforce our contracting workforce, enabling them to work with newly empowered PAEs to negotiate with vendors based on a broader perspective of the vendor’s total book of business within the department, rather than through the lens of a single program, creating leverage and incentives not previously applied,” he said. “This deal team will craft financial incentives that drive contractor performance, demanding on-time delivery of the weapons our warfighters desperately need. It’s about faster negotiations, better results and a commitment to complete transparency and cooperation between the government and our industry partners.”

That approach, Hegseth said, is not just a pilot program — and the department is actively looking to expand the unit and staff it with people who have expertise in the defense business.

“Many talented operators are already on board at the Pentagon, former industry executives who are serving our country to drive success. We call them Business Operators for National Defense, and I encourage those listening who are interested to reach out if you have the skills to contribute to the defense industrial renewal we are embarking on. This may seem like an obvious change, but it’s new for our department to empower world-class operators to help drive necessary change from the Pentagon to industry,” he said. “It’s a fundamental shift in how we arm our warfighters. We are committed to dominating the modern battlefield, and that domination starts with a wartime industrial base focused on execution and operational success.”

Industry’s role

Still to come, Hegseth said, is new guidance that will aim to incentivize contractors to build their own production capacity, let DoD offer clearer demand signals, and create more stable funding streams for multiyear contracts.

As part of that effort, he said, the department would need to ask Congress to alter some existing rules that constrain DoD’s ability to move money between accounts and programs, though he did not specify the exact types of flexibility the department would seek.

“This will build on the great work already done to improve the [planning, programming, budgeting and execution] process and how CAPE and the comptroller interact with Congress,” Hegseth said. “We commit to doing our part, but industry also needs to be willing to invest their own dollars to meet the long-term demand signals provided to them. Industry must use capital expenditures to upgrade facilities, upskill their workforce and expand capacity if they don’t, we are prepared to fully employ and leverage the many authorities provided to the president, which ensure that the department can secure from industry anything and everything that is required to fight and win our nation’s wars.”

And Hegseth warned that companies that aren’t ready to adapt themselves to the department’s vision for a speedier system with more “magazine depth” could soon find themselves with fewer contracts.

“For those who come along with us, this will be a great growth opportunity, and you will benefit,” he said. “To industry not willing to assume risk in order to work with the military, we may have to wish you well in your future endeavors, which would probably be outside the Pentagon. We’re going to make defense contracting competitive again, and those who are too comfortable with the status quo to compete are not going to be welcome.”

DAU is now WAU

But Hegseth said the changes he wants can only happen if DoD achieves a culture change within its own acquisition workforce.

He said he would begin that effort by overhauling the department’s Defense Acquisition University, including by renaming it the Warfighting Acquisition University. He said it would be the “launching pad” for the acquisition workforce and would try to instill in its members a “transformative and warrior mindset.”

“The patriotic men and women in this audience who architect, develop and procure the world’s most lethal and capable technology must be unleashed to deliver the arsenal of freedom faster than we ever have before,” Hegseth said. “The Warfighting Acquisition University will prioritize cohort-based programs combining experimental and project-based learning on real portfolio challenges, industry-government exchanges, and case method instruction that develops critical thinking. And rapid decision making — no more sitting in classrooms learning about failed processes of the past. Our acquisition system is only as good as our workforce.”

The post Hegseth unveils ‘transformation’ of DoD acquisition system first appeared on Federal News Network.

I created this based on various internet sources for a company that is planning to carry out threat modelling. It is a general outline and preliminary proposal that you can adapt to your needs. Hopefully someone will find it useful.

Experts in this field may be able to provide more information, but it seems to me that this is not yet a

Last Updated on December 2, 2025 by Narendra Sahoo

Getting PCI DSS compliant is like preparing for a big exam. You cannot just walk into it blind, you first need to prepare, check your weak areas, next fix them, and then only face the audit. If you are here today for the roadmap, I assume you are preparing for an audit now or sometime in the future, and I hope this PCI DSS 4.0 Readiness Roadmap helps you as your preparation guide. So, let’s get started!

Step 1: List down everything in scope

The first mistake many companies make is they don’t know what is really in the PCI scope. So, start with an inventory.

This is one area where many organizations rely on pci dss compliance consultants to help them correctly identify what truly falls under cardholder data scope.

• Applications: Your payment gateway (Stripe, Razorpay, PayPal, Adyen), POS software, billing apps like Zoho Billing, CRMs like Salesforce that store customer details, in-house payment apps.
• Databases: MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server, MongoDB that store PAN or related card data.
• Servers: Web servers (Apache, Nginx, IIS), application servers (Tomcat, Node.js), DB servers.
• Hardware: POS terminals, card readers, firewalls (Fortinet, Palo Alto, Checkpoint), routers, load balancers (F5).
• Cloud platforms: AWS (S3 buckets, RDS, EC2), Azure, GCP, SaaS apps that store or process card data.
• Third parties: Payment processors, outsourced call centers handling cards, hosting providers.

Write all this down in a spreadsheet. Mark which ones store, process, or transmit card data. This becomes your “scope map.”

Step 2: Do a gap check (compare with PCI DSS 4.0 requirements)

Now take the PCI DSS 4.0 standard and see what applies to you. Some basics:

• Firewalls – Do you have them configured properly or are they still at default rules?
• Passwords – Are your systems still using “welcome123” or weak defaults? PCI needs strong auth.
• Encryption – Is card data encrypted at rest (DB, disk) and in transit (TLS 1.2+)? If not, you may fail your PCI DSS compliance audit.
• Logging – Are you logging access to sensitive systems, and storing logs securely (like in Splunk, ELK, AWS CloudTrail)?
• Access control – Who has access to DB with card data? Is it limited on a need-to-know basis?

Example: If you’re running an e-commerce store on Magento and it connects to MySQL, check if your DB is encrypted and whether DB access logs are kept.

Step 3: Fix the weak spots (prioritize risks)

• If your POS terminals are outdated (like old Verifone models), replace or upgrade.
• If your AWS S3 buckets storing logs are public, fix them immediately.
• If employees are using personal laptops to process payments, enforce company-managed devices with endpoint security (like CrowdStrike, Microsoft Defender ATP).
• If your database with card data is open to all developers, restrict it to just DB admins.

Real story: A retailer I advised had their POS terminals still running Windows XP. They were shocked when I said PCI won’t even allow XP as it’s unsupported.

Step 4: Train your people

PCI DSS is not just about tech. If your staff doesn’t know, they’ll break controls.

• Train call center staff not to write card numbers on paper.
• Train IT admins to never copy card DBs to their laptops for “testing.”
• Train developers to follow secure coding (OWASP Top 10, no hard-coded keys). This not only helps with PCI but also complements SOC 2 compliance.

Example: A company using Zendesk for support had to train agents not to ask customers for card details over chat or email.

Step 5: Set up continuous monitoring

Auditors don’t just look for controls, they look for evidence.

• Centralize your logs in SIEM (Splunk, QRadar, ELK, Azure Sentinel).
• Set up alerts for failed logins, privilege escalations, or DB exports.
• Schedule vulnerability scans (Nessus, Qualys) monthly.
• Do penetration testing on your payment apps (internal and external).

Example: If you are using AWS, enable CloudTrail + GuardDuty to continuously monitor activity.

Step 6: Do a mock audit (internal readiness check)

Before the official audit, test yourself.

• Pick a PCI DSS requirement (like Requirement 8: Identify users and authenticate access). Check if you can prove strong passwords, MFA, and unique IDs.
• Review if your network diagrams, data flow diagrams, and inventories are up to date.
• Run a mock interview: ask your DB admin how they control access to the DB. If they can’t answer, it means you are not ready.

Example: I’ve seen companies that have everything in place but fail because their staff can’t explain what’s implemented.

Step 7: Engage your QSA (when you’re confident)

Finally, once you have covered all major gaps, bring in a QSA (like us at VISTA InfoSec). A QSA will validate and certify your compliance. But if you follow the above steps, the audit becomes smooth and you can avoid surprises.

We recently helped Vodafone Idea achieve PCI DSS 4.0 certification for their retail stores and payment channels. This was a large-scale environment, yet with the right PCI DSS 4.0 Readiness Roadmap (like the one above), compliance was achieved smoothly.

Remember, even the largest organizations can achieve PCI DSS 4.0 compliance if they start early, follow the roadmap step by step, and keep it practical.

Final Words for PCI DSS 4.0 Readiness Roadmap 

Most businesses panic only when the audit date gets close. But PCI DSS doesn’t work that way. If you wait till then, it’s already too late.

So, start now. Even small steps today (like training your staff or fixing one gap) move you closer to compliance.

Having trouble choosing a QSA? VISTA InfoSec is here for you!

For more than 20 years, we at VISTA InfoSec have been helping businesses across fintech, telecom, cloud service providers, retail, and payment gateways achieve and maintain PCI DSS compliance. Our team of Qualified Security Assessors (QSAs) and technical experts works with companies of every size, whether it’s a start-up launching its first payment app or a large enterprise.

So, don’t wait! Book a free PCI DSS strategy call today to discuss your roadmap. You may also book a free one-time consultation with our qualified QSA.

The post PCI DSS 4.0 Readiness Roadmap: A Complete Audit Strategy for 2025 appeared first on Information Security Consulting Company - VISTA InfoSec.

The SWIFT Customer Security Programme (CSP) is a security framework developed by SWIFT to improve the cyber security posture of financial institutions connected to its network.  It aims to fight against growing cyber threats by providing a structured set of 32 SWIFT security controls that institutions must implement to safeguard their SWIFT related infrastructure.

These controls are grouped under three key objectives: Secure Your Environment, Know and Limit Access, and Detect and Respond. To learn more about the key objectives and principles of the CSP check out this quick guide to SWIFT CSP.

In this article, we will explore the key steps to ensure compliance with SWIFT CSP, common compliance challenges and their solutions, and the consequences of SWIFT CSP non-compliance. So, let’s get started!

Steps for achieving SWIFT CSP compliance

1.Understand the SWIFT CSP framework 

Review the SWIFT Customer Security Controls Framework (CSCF) through the SWIFT CSP portal to understand all the security requirements there related to secure communication, operations, and cybersecurity.

2.Conduct a self-assessment

• Perform gap analysis to assess your current security posture.
• Complete the SWIFT CSP compliance questionnaire to check the current alignment with the required controls.

3.Implement security controls

• Deploy required cybersecurity measures like multi-factor authentication (MFA), data encryption, and segregation of duties.
• Update internal security policies that need to be updated to meet SWIFT CSP standards and set up continuous security monitoring.

4.Engage in SWIFT’s assurance process

• If needed, hire a third-party auditor for a formal review and assurance report. Alternatively, complete self-certification to declare compliance.

5.Address gaps and remediate

• Implement corrective actions for any identified non-compliance areas.
• Test the security controls to ensure they meet SWIFT’s standards.

6.Regular reviews and updates

• Continuously monitor and update security measures to stay compliant.
• Conduct annual reviews to ensure all security controls are current with SWIFT’s evolving requirements.

 7.Document and report compliance

• Maintain detailed records of assessments, audits, and actions taken.
• Submit required reports to SWIFT, ensuring all documentation is accurate and up to date.

8.Training and Awareness

• Provide ongoing training for employees on SWIFT CSP requirements and security best practices.
• Develop a culture of security awareness to reduce risks and ensure compliance.

Common challenges and solutions to maintain compliance

1. Adapting to Evolving Security Standards

The Challenge:

SWIFT frequently updates its CSP requirements to keep up with new threats and vulnerabilities in the financial system. For institutions with limited resources or complex IT environments, staying ahead of these changes can feel like an uphill battle.

The Solution:

Assign a dedicated compliance officer or team to monitor SWIFT updates and ensure they’re reflected in your security controls. You can register yourself with the SWIFT Council, which will give you access to restricted materials by SWIFT and also get immediate updates of any changes or challenges. Make it a routine to review new SWIFT CSP guidelines, adapt your processes, and document every change. Most importantly, communicate these updates across the organization so everyone is on the same page.

2. Resource Constraints

The Challenge:

Meeting SWIFT CSP’s security requirements is no small feat. For smaller institutions or those with tight budgets, implementing and maintaining these measures can be a significant strain.

The Solution:

Focus on what matters most, and prioritize critical controls that address the biggest risks. Take advantage of cost-effective solutions like cloud-based security tools or automation to streamline processes. When resources are stretched thin, consider outsourcing non-core compliance tasks to specialized third-party providers. Ensure you are regularly audited (even internally) by a third party to confirm that, with the lean resources, you are still a main team with no gaps.

3. Complexity in Security Infrastructure

The Challenge:

Financial institutions often manage sprawling IT systems with diverse technologies and platforms. This complexity can make it challenging to apply SWIFT CSP controls consistently across the board.

The Solution:

Tackle the challenge step by step. Start with a phased approach, prioritizing high-risk areas first. Focus on core security measures like multi-factor authentication (MFA), encryption, and access management. Regularly test your infrastructure to catch integration issues early and ensure everything is working together smoothly. Since the penalties are high and the risks are also pretty high, it would be of good use to your organisation to interact with your auditors or consultants to confirm that you are on the right track.

4. Employee Awareness and Training

The Challenge:
Security isn’t just IT’s job, every employee has a role to play. But getting everyone, from technical staff to end users, to understand their part in SWIFT CSP compliance can be a daunting task, especially in large organizations.

The Solution:
Invest in tailored, role-based training programs that emphasize SWIFT CSP requirements and security best practices. Reinforce this knowledge with periodic security awareness campaigns, like phishing simulations, to keep employees on their toes. Develop a culture of security where compliance isn’t just a checkbox but a shared organizational value. Ensure that the learnings are fine tuned as per the department and the work expectations from a team instead of a generalised training which covers something as mundane as “What is information security”.

5. Continuous Monitoring and Incident Response

The Challenge:
Monitoring security controls around the clock and responding swiftly to incidents can be overwhelming without the right tools and processes in place.

The Solution:
Adopt automated tools for real-time monitoring and incident detection. These systems can flag suspicious activity immediately, allowing your team to act fast. Streamline your response with automated workflows designed to contain threats quickly. Ensure alerts are configured to be sent to relevant personnel to report on critical time sensitive events. Don’t forget to regularly review and update your incident response plans to align with SWIFT’s evolving requirements.

6. Third-Party Risk Management

The Challenge:
Your security is only as strong as your weakest link, which often includes third-party vendors. Managing the security posture of external partners can be tricky, especially when their standards don’t match yours.

The Solution:
Set clear expectations for vendors by requiring them to comply with SWIFT CSP controls. Conduct regular audits to ensure they’re meeting these standards and include robust security clauses in your contracts. Make security assessments a non-negotiable part of your vendor on boarding process. Ensure that these strict processes are not limited to just the onboarding process but also on an ongoing basis. Also make sure you have the right to audit in all your agreements.

The consequences of non-compliance

1. Financial Losses: Exposure to losses from breaches and cyberattacks.
2. Reputational Damage: Loss of client trust and business opportunities.
3. Exclusion from SWIFT: Disconnection from SWIFT, halting transactions.
4. Regulatory Penalties: Fines for failing to meet compliance requirements.
5. Increased Cyberattack Risk: Greater vulnerability to data breaches and ransomware.
6. Loss of Client Confidence: Erosion of client trust in data protection.
7. Legal Liabilities: Risk of legal action from non-compliance.
8. Operational Disruption: Delays, errors, and compromised systems.
9. Remediation Costs: High expenses for fixing compliance gaps.

Wrapping Up

Maintaining SWIFT CSP compliance is important for financial institutions to protect against cyber threats, ensure operational resilience, and uphold trust within the global financial system. By following SWIFT’s security guidelines and taking proactive measures to resolve compliance issues, organizations can steer clear of serious repercussions like financial losses, reputational damage, and exclusion from the SWIFT network.

Why trust VISTA InfoSec for SWIFT CSP compliance?

VISTA InfoSec brings over decades of expertise in cybersecurity and compliance, offering end-to-end support for cybersecurity and SWIFT CSP Certification. Our team of seasoned professionals and SWIFT CSP assessors understands the complexities of the SWIFT CSP framework and provides tailored solutions to address your unique business needs. Partnering with VISTA InfoSec means leveraging our deep industry knowledge, commitment to excellence, and unwavering focus on securing your organization against evolving cyber threats.

Learn more about the SWIFT Customer Security Programme and the reigning cybersecurity regulations and standards at our official YouTube channel. You may also fill out the ‘Enquire Now’ form for a FREE one-time consultation or contact us at the registered number listed on our website to get started with SWIFT CSP compliance.

The post SWIFT Customer Security Programme: What You Need to Know to Stay Compliant? appeared first on Information Security Consulting Company - VISTA InfoSec.

From tailored recommendations on your preferred streaming platform to autonomous cars on our roads, artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming sectors and driving inventions. According to Statista, the global AI market is projected to reach approximately 244 billion U.S. dollars in 2025, highlighting the significant investment and growth in this sector. But how can an artificial intelligence initiative come to pass? As artificial intelligence (AI) rises to a major presence in the tech scene, it is changing several sectors, including manufacturing, banking, healthcare, and more. This detailed book demystifies the AI development process by dissecting the main phases required in transforming an artificial intelligence project from idea to execution. From project managers and developers to stakeholders and users, everyone engaged in artificial intelligence development must first understand these stages.

What Is AI Development?

AI development is the process of building intelligent systems that can mimic human thinking. These systems learn from data, identify patterns, and make decisions with little to no human input.

It focuses on creating models that can perform tasks such as predicting outcomes, processing language, or automating workflows. AI is behind many of the tools we use every day, including virtual assistants, recommendation engines, and smart search features.

The process begins with a clear goal. Developers gather and prepare data, choose the right algorithms, and train the model to perform specific tasks. Once trained, the model is tested for accuracy and deployed into a real-world environment.

AI development helps businesses solve complex problems. It boosts productivity, improves decision-making, and creates more personalized user experiences. Industries such as healthcare, finance, retail, and manufacturing rely on AI to stay competitive.

As tools and frameworks improve, AI projects are becoming faster and more cost-effective. Whether creating a chatbot or a system that forecasts demand, AI development provides a structured path to innovation.

8 Steps of the AI Development Process

Comprehensive and involving several phases, the AI software development process guarantees the production of scalable, dependable, and successful AI solutions. The  8 steps usually accepted in the sector are as follows:

1. Problem Definition and Objective Setting

• Clearly defining the problem you want to tackle and establishing particular, quantifiable goals comes first in every artificial intelligence development effort. This relates to:
• Determine the issue by finding the particular problem or possibility AI could handle.
• Define what success looks like. The objectives can be raising user experience, lowering costs, or increasing accuracy.
• Involve stakeholders to make sure the goals complement corporate aims and consumer wants.

2. Data Collection and Preparation

• An AI’s lifeblood is data. AI model performance is highly influenced by data quality and volume. This part comprises
• Data collecting calls for compiling information from many sources, including APIs, databases, and outside datasets.
• Remove or fix erroneous, missing, or pointless data in data cleansing.
• AI technical stacks Data transformation—which could call for normalizing, encoding, and feature engineering—turns data into a format fit for analysis.
• Create training, validation, and test sets out of the data to assess the performance of the model.

3. Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA)

• Predictive analysis helps you to examine the data to find trends, relationships, and insights guiding feature engineering and model selection. EDA is data analysis meant to help one grasp its structure, trends, and linkages. This phase facilitates:
• Visualizing Information: Plot and chart images of data distributions, relationships, and anomalies.
• Recognizing Trends: Find basic trends and patterns that might guide model choice.
• Find which variables—that is, features—are most pertinent to the situation.

4. Model Selection

• Reaching the intended results depends on selecting the correct artificial intelligence model. This deals with algorithm selection. Choose suitable algorithms depending on the kind of problem (classification, regression, or clustering).
• Create the model’s architecture with layers and neural network parameter sets.
• Hyperparameter tuning helps to maximize hyperparameters, hence enhancing model performance.

5. Model Training

• Feeding the produced data into the chosen algorithm helps to learn patterns and relationships in a model training process. This phase comprises
• Training Methodology: Train the model using the training dataset.
• Tune the model to prevent overfitting using the validation dataset.
• Performance Measurements: Analyze the model with regard to accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 score.

6. Model Evaluation

• Using the test set, assess the performance of the model to guarantee it generalizes effectively to fresh, unprocessed data. This stage consists in
• Experimenting involves utilizing the model on the test set.
• Examining the outcomes will help one to spot both strengths and shortcomings.
• Examining mistakes helps one to know where the model is failing and the reasons behind it.

7. Model Deployment

• Implementing the model into a production setting is necessary after training and evaluation. This relates to:
• Integration: Including the model into the current application or system
• Please ensure the model is capable of handling the anticipated demand and can scale as needed.
• Create monitoring to track model performance and find any problems.

8. Maintenance and Updating

• AI models need constant maintenance to keep current and accurate. This spans
• Retrain the model periodically using fresh data to change with the times.
• Constant performance monitoring of the model will help you make necessary corrections.
• Create a feedback loop to include user comments and steadily advance the model.

Benefits of Implementing a Robust AI Project Life Cycle

Implementing a robust AI project life cycle significantly enhances the success, efficiency, and quality of AI projects.

1. Increased Success Rate:

A well-structured project life ensures the completion of all necessary actions, thereby increasing the likelihood of delivering a successful artificial intelligence solution that meets corporate objectives.

2. Risk Reduction:

Early identification and mitigation of such issues—such as unclear objectives, data quality concerns, or technical challenges—helps to lower the chances of expensive mistakes and project failures. By using this proactive strategy, teams can concentrate and address problems before they become more serious.

3. Improved Efficiency and Productivity:

Clearly defined roles at every level and efficient workflows help simplify the development process. This clarity accelerates deployment time, lowers duplication of effort, and helps teams operate more effectively.

4. Enhanced Quality of AI Solutions:

Rigorous procedures at every stage—from data preparation to model evaluation—ensure that the final AI product is dependable, accurate, and strong, therefore guaranteeing enhanced quality of AI solutions. Ongoing review and improvement further enhance the quality of the solution.

5. Better Resource Allocation:

Explicit planning and tracking of resources (time, knowledge, computational power) across each life cycle phase helps to use assets more effectively and in a balanced manner, thereby preventing bottlenecks and over-allocation.

6. Adaptability and Continuous Improvement:

The iterative character of the AI project life cycle lets teams rapidly adjust to new data, shifting needs, or developing technologies. In the fast-paced AI environment, long-term project success depends on this agility.

7. Stakeholder Alignment and Transparency:

Structured life cycles help improve communication and alignment among stakeholders, therefore guaranteeing that everyone understands project goals, progress, and expectations.

Cost of AI Software Development

In 2025, factors such as project complexity, data needs, team location, and the type of AI solution under development will influence the cost of AI software development. This is a breakdown based on the most recent industry statistics:

1. General Cost Ranges

• Simple AI Projects: You may spend between $10,000 and $50,000 on things like basic chatbots and automation.
• Mid-level Complexity: Recommendation engines and predictive analytics can cost nearly $170,000.
• Advanced/Enterprise Solutions: Custom generative AI and other high-grade technologies cost between $170,000 and $500,000 and beyond.

2. AI Development Cost Distribution

• Simple AI (chatbots, etc.) can cost from $10,000 to $50,000.
• Moderate complexity
• Advanced/Enterprise—$170,000–$500,000+
• Generative AI MVP+
• AI Agent Development

3. Principal Cost Considerations

• Scope & Complexity: Customizing more features and integrations drives expenses.
• Data Requirements: You can use thirty to forty percent of the total expenditure for data collection, cleaning, and labeling.
• Model Type: Custom LLMs can cost millions; fine-tuning pre-trained models is less costly than constructing custom models from scratch.
• Team Structure & Location: While outsourcing to Eastern Europe or Asia can cost $30–$50/hour, in-house teams (US/Europe) cost $50–$100+/hour.
• Infrastructure: On-site GPU servers can run between $50,000 and $1 million; cloud AI services (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) can add $5,000–$100,000 a year.
• Sector: Because of security and compliance requirements, regulated sectors—healthcare, fintech—often pay more.

Additional Costs

• AI Consulting: Expert direction pays $170–$400 an hour.
• Third-party AI Tools: Specialized software can set annual expenses ranging from $40,000+.
• Data Annotation: Large-scale data labeling might run you between $10,000 and $250,000+.

Conclusion

Development of artificial intelligence is a methodical process needing careful planning, implementation, and monitoring. Following these guidelines helps stakeholders negotiate the complexity of artificial intelligence development so that the outcome is a valuable solution. Maintaining success in this fascinating and constantly changing subject depends on being knowledgeable and flexible given the rapid speed of artificial intelligence developments. The top AI development companies follow this step-by-step approach as a standard. Constructing strong artificial intelligence systems is a multidisciplinary path combining ethics, domain expertise, software engineering, and data science. Trends such as AutoML, federated learning, and multimodal models will help further simplify the evolution of artificial intelligence.

The post Understanding the AI Development Process: A Step-by-Step Guide appeared first on TopDevelopers.co.

Everyone knows how to write a job advert. But what is a little more challenging, is knowing how to write a good job advert. A job advert that grabs attention, that makes people want the job, and gets you the best people for the job applying. Because the best candidates on the market can afford to be a bit choosier when it comes to where they apply: They’re more qualified and in-demand. And these are the candidates who you really want.

Which is why we’re here to offer you our insight, from our extensive experience in job advert writing, to teach you how to write a job advert that will appeal to your ideal candidate, in 2023.

How to Write The Job Advert

Let’s start with the actual content of your job advert. We write job adverts everyday here at Dynamic. And two of the most important aspects of how to write a good quality job advert, is the content that goes into the job adverts, and how you present this content.

Focus on the Candidate

Don’t just focus on what you want from the candidate: On the experience, what technology and what skills you want the person to have. The days are gone of talking about “the ideal candidate”, as if they’re a fiction of your imagination. 

This obviously is important, as you want to make sure that you only receive qualified applicants for the role and aren’t sifting through hundreds of unqualified CVs. But it’s also important that you really sell the role as what it is, a fantastic opportunity at a great company.

Because the best person for the role isn’t likely to apply to an advert that has had little to no effort put into it. They aren’t going to be interested, when there are plenty of other opportunities on the market that are more attractive,

Sell The Opportunity by Reframing the Boring, Into the Exciting

Sometimes what your job advert needs, is to turn the boring (but necessary) roles and responsibilities of the position, into the opportunities it represents.

Being able to communicate effectively with stakeholders, clients, and customers is probably not the most exciting part of anyone’s day. But as you move into more senior positions, it becomes a vital skill. So instead of:

• You will communicate effectively with senior clients, explaining complicated technical processes in terms that non-technical individuals can understand.

Try and reframe it into an opportunity instead:

• You will have the opportunity to work closely with technical and non-technical clients, developing client communication skills that will be invaluable in your career.

Give Details About The Company, Without Going Overboard

Depending on your industry and the position, your company isn’t necessarily the most important thing to the job seeker. Typically, a bigger concern to them will be what the requirements of the role are and what their responsibilities will be. Only once they know they will be a good fit for the role, will they invest the time to find out if your company is somewhere they want to work.

So try not to dedicate too much space on the job advert and too much of your readers attention span on a section about your company, and just give the relevant information that will interest them:

• A brief breakdown of your company, the size and scope of the business.
• Some insight into your company culture.
• The location of the role and the manner in which they will be working (Hybrid, 2 days a week in the office etc.)
• Any awards you have won, for the quality of your work or for your work environment.
• And most importantly, why they should want to work there. What’s great about the company, that separates you from the rest.

How to Structure Your Job Advert: with Examples

The structure and the way in which you present the information in the job advert can be often just as, if not more important, than the actual content itself. You can follow these steps to create a clear and consistent structure to use for all your job adverts.

Break It Up Into Clear Sections

A quick way to prevent your job advert from receiving any applications, is presenting the job seeker with a wall of text.

Your job advert should be easy to navigate, drawing the reader’s attention to the important information. The easier you make it for the applicant to find what they’re looking for, the more likely you are to receive applications from the candidates you want to see.

Typical sections that your job advert could include are:

• “Key Details”
• “About the Company” 
• “Role Responsibilities”
• “Skills and Experience Required”
• “Company Benefits” or “What’s in it For You”

Start By Highlighting the Key Details

There are often hundreds of job openings for the same or similar jobs. And in a highly competitive industry like IT, where IT Professionals have more choice, you’re going to have to work harder to stand out from the crowd. So how do you make your job sound better than all the others out there?

First things first, is grabbing their attention right off the bat, by listing the salary, location, work environment (flexible working hours, remote working etc) and any other attractive qualities you can think of. While you want people to read the rest of your job advert, you don’t want to make people go hunting for the details they need to decide that they are interested in reading further.

Job Advert Example: The Key Details

While it may be tempting to put important details like the years of experience you want for the role here, the goal is to grab attention and get the reader interested in your role. Not to start making demands from them right off the bat.

Be Clear With Your Expectations – Responsibilities and Requirements

One of the things candidates hate most is a vague job advert. If someone is going to apply to your job, they want to know exactly what the job entails, what your expectations are, and if they are qualified to do the job at hand. If not, why would they bother wasting their time applying for the job, and potentially interviewing for the role, just to find out they were never a good fit to begin with?

So organise the role requirements and responsibilities into easy to read bullet points, so your expectations are as clear as possible. And if some of your requirements are flexible, or just desirable but not essential, then say so. If you would accept someone who is 80% right for the role, and you’ll provide training for the other 20% if you really like the candidate, letting people know will attract candidates who otherwise may have passed on applying.

Job Advert Example: Responsibilities and Requirements 

And Be Clear With What You’re Offering

Unsurprisingly, salary is the number one most important thing to the majority of job seekers when looking at a job advert. It’s no longer good enough to list a salary as “Competitive”, and a recent study from Adobe Future Workplace Study shows that this trend is only going to increase, as 85% of recent graduates say they are less likely to apply to a job that doesn’t have the salary listed.

An often (criminally) overlooked section is the company benefits. A section for you to show what your future employee gets in return for all their hard work. Because at the end of the day, it’s an advert. And it exists to sell the position and the company, and make someone want to work for you. 

Job Advert Example: Company Benefits

A “Company Benefits” section should include things like:

Include Keywords, To Help Your Job Appear on Searches

Include the “keywords” that people use to search for your job. For job adverts, these are fairly simple, and are generally the job name and the location. 

For example, if someone was searching for a Network Engineer role, they would likely search for “Network Engineer job London”, or “Network Engineer job remote”. Meaning that by not including these “keywords”, “London”, “Network Engineer”, and “remote”, multiple times, a search engine won’t know to show your job advert to someone who is searching for it.

So take some time when writing your job advert to understand who you want to read your job advert. What are the key details that they will use to search for your job, and write it targeted towards them, and search engines.

The Summary

The hiring process starts with the job advert. And investing the time in researching and writing a well-written job advert doesn’t just get you more, qualified applicants. It saves you time, money and resources further down the line. 

Of course, one thing you can always do, is have someone else handle the recruitment for you. If you aren’t sure where to start with hiring, then you might want to speak to the experts.

If you’re looking to hire your next IT professional in the network and infrastructure industry, we’ve got you covered. Reach out to us here and see how we can solve your hiring needs.

The post How To Write a Job Advert with Examples, in 2023 appeared first on Dynamic Search Solutions.

Taking the necessary steps and knowing how to improve your hiring process has always been important in beating the competition. But in the past few years, the job market has become more and more competitive. Especially in industries like IT, which are experiencing shortage of skilled and certified IT professionals and a broadening skills gap. 

Thankfully, that’s where we come in. As part of the service we offer to our clients here at Dynamic, we coach businesses on how they can improve their hiring processes and hire consistently in a difficult market.

5 Reasons To Improve Your Hiring Process

But first of all, it’s important to understand why it’s so important to have a streamlined hiring process. Which might seem obvious at first glance, so you can hire quicker. But there’s so many more reasons than this. Which we’re going to spell out for you now. 

1. It’s a candidate driven market.

It’s a candidate driven market, and they have more choice than ever where to go. At any one time a good quality candidate can have multiple recruiters or hiring managers calling them, and multiple ongoing interviews. And while it’s not always fire come first served, it certainly helps. 

And if your process takes 5 interviews compared to your competitors 3? They’re going to be making your candidate an offer, while you’re still asking for project number 2 for interview number 5…

2. It helps you understand what you’re looking for.

When you limit the time you spend on the hiring process, you have to be more effective with the time you do have. This means having a better understanding of exactly what you’re looking for from your new employee.

The benefits of this being that not only will you spend less time interviewing, you’ll be more clear and concise with what you actually want. This in turn, will prevent those dreaded bad hires that can cost your business thousands.

So ask yourself, do you really need to spend 7 hours interviewing each candidate? Or can you be getting them through the door quicker?..

3. It frees up your time.

The most obvious advantage of having a streamlined hiring process is freeing up more of your own time. This means you can: Interview more candidates and give yourself more potential employees to choose from, spend more time reviewing CVs or searching for ideal candidates, or growing the business in other areas than hiring.

4. Your industry reputation.

Being clear with your interview process and reducing the time candidates spend in the process can help people view your company favourable in the future. And perhaps apply again in the future when they may be a better fit for your business.

More than 60% of job seekers said that if they didn’t get the job but they received feedback during the interview process, they would be more likely to apply to the company again in the future.

And every time someone tells the story of the time they were ghosted by your hiring manager, or waited weeks for feedback; that’s another potential candidate for your business who will no longer be interested in working with you.

5. They’re interviewing you as much as you’re interviewing them.

And remember, that an interview process is a two way street. Skilled IT professionals are in massive demand. And the candidate is interviewing you as much as you are interviewing them. 

If you have a drawn out interview process, involving multiple interviews spread out over months, you’re already going to be behind everyone else in the hiring timelines. Not only that, a quality candidate with multiple options will be wondering, is that what everything is like in the business?

5 Steps To Improve Your Hiring Process

Here at Dynamic we don’t just find candidates for IT businesses. We provide our clients with expert insight into the IT job market, and advise on how they can improve their own recruitment processes. Here’s the 5 most common pieces of advice we give to our clients on how to improve your hiring process:

1. Define exactly what you need for someone to be right for the role, and define what “good” looks like.

Before you even begin interviewing, (and maybe before you even begin searching for your new employee), sit down as a team and find out what the person who fills the role needs to be able to do.

Because your understanding of a position may be different to those of the team who actually work with them day-in day-out. Establishing the basics like this can be helpful to gain a complete understanding of the role. As well as make it easier to define what “good” looks like for this position. What makes someone a standout candidate or employee?

If you can define this at the start of the process, you’ll know exactly what you’re looking for, and be able to communicate this clearly to hiring managers, recruiters and to the candidates themselves.

2. Decide on the measurables you can use to judge candidates.

Once you understand what you are looking for, it’s important to be able to effectively measure if someone is successful to your standards. 

The most common defined measurables are the ones we all know, years of experience, certifications, software they can use etc. But these can also be opinion based: Does this person embody the company culture of going above and beyond for a client when necessary? Will they be a good fit for the office culture and environment? 

Measurables like these that aren’t as easily defined as yes or no answer to questions like “Do you have experience with this technology?”. But they are just as important for you to think about and to “score” your candidates on, so you can make an objective and factual decision between the candidates you interview.

3. Block out a set time each week, to interview candidates all together.

If you’re actively hiring and have multiple candidates to interview, block out some time in your calendar each week to interview candidates all together. This will make it easier to compare the candidates while they’re fresh in your mind.

If it’s a difficult or a more niche position you’re trying to fill, it may be the case that you might not have comparable candidates. But you can still compare candidates to the people in your team, and people who have been in the role before.

4. Decide how urgent the role is: When do you need someone to start by?

One of the biggest influences on your hiring process is how urgent your need is. What outside influences are putting pressure on you? New client accounts or employees leaving? Or is this more of a general expansion of your business? 

Because when you don’t have the luxury of waiting until you find the perfect person for the job, you may have to be more flexible than you like with your own demands. But decisions like these should be made well before the first interviews happen. The last thing you want is to get two months into interviewing before deciding “actually, that first person we interviewed would’ve been acceptable”.

And on the opposite end, even when your need isn’t urgent, you should still strive to establish a deadline. Having a completely open-ended start date can lead to a drawn out process that wastes time.

5. Work with a recruitment agency, who can find quality candidates for you.

These are just a few tips on how to improve your hiring process,. But the best advice we can give would be tailored to your individual needs. In our (unbiased) opinions, the best thing you can do for your recruitment process is to work with a recruitment expert in your niche.

Recruitment agencies take care of a large part of the legwork of hiring for you: Actively headhunting quality candidates who are interested in your open position, filtering unsuitable candidates, reviewing CVs, and even performing first-stage interviews.

When you have a streamlined hiring process, you can dedicate more time to interviewing potential employees.

However lone your hiring process, we advise being transparent and open about the process with the candidates you are interviewing. It’s a great way of setting yourself apart from other businesses which shroud their interview process in mystery.

The post How To Improve Your Hiring Process in 5 Steps appeared first on Dynamic Search Solutions.

An advanced cross-platform tool that automates the process of detecting and exploiting SQL injection security flaws

Requirements

• Python 3
• Python pip3

Installation

• cd to ghauri directory.
• install requirements: python3 -m pip install --upgrade -r requirements.txt
• run: python3 setup.py install or python3 -m pip install -e .
• you will be able to access and run the ghauri with simple ghauri --help command.

Download Ghauri

You can download the latest version of Ghauri by cloning the GitHub repository.

git clone https://github.com/r0oth3x49/ghauri.git

Features

• Supports following types of injection payloads:
  • Boolean based.
  • Error Based
  • Time Based
  • Stacked Queries
• Support SQL injection for following DBMS.
  • MySQL
  • Microsoft SQL Server
  • Postgre
  • Oracle
• Supports following injection types.
  • GET/POST Based injections
  • Headers Based injections
  • Cookies Based injections
  • Mulitipart Form data injections
  • JSON based injections
• support proxy option --proxy.
• supports parsing request from txt file: switch for that -r file.txt
• supports limiting data extraction for dbs/tables/columns/dump: swicth --start 1 --stop 2
• added support for resuming of all phases.
• added support for skip urlencoding switch: --skip-urlencode
• added support to verify extracted characters in case of boolean/time based injections.

Advanced Usage

Author: Nasir khan (r0ot h3x49)

usage: ghauri -u URL [OPTIONS]

A cross-platform python based advanced sql injections detection & exploitation tool.

General:
  -h, --help          Shows the help.
  --version           Shows the version.
  -v VERBOSE          Verbosity level: 1-5 (default 1).
  --batch             Never ask for user input, use the default behavior
  --flush-session     Flush session files for current target

Target:
  At least one of these options has to be provided to define the
  target(s)

  -u URL, --url URL   Target URL (e.g. 'http://www.site.com/vuln.php?id=1).
  -r REQUESTFILE      Load HTTP request from a file

Request:
  These options can be used to specify how to connect to the target URL

  -A , --user-agent   HTTP User-Agent header value -H , --header       Extra header (e.g. "X-Forwarded-For: 127.0.0.1")
  --host              HTTP Host header value
  --data              Data string to be sent through POST (e.g. "id=1")
  --cookie            HTTP Cookie header value (e.g. "PHPSESSID=a8d127e..")
  --referer           HTTP Referer header value
  --headers           Extra headers (e.g. "Accept-Language: fr\nETag: 123")
  --proxy             Use a proxy to connect to the target URL
  --delay             Delay in seconds between each HTTP request
  --timeout           Seconds to wait before timeout connection (default 30)
  --retries           Retries when the connection related error occurs (default 3)
  --skip-urlencode    Skip URL encoding of payload data
  --force-ssl         Force usage of SSL/HTTPS

Injection:
  These options can be used to specify which paramete   rs to test for,
  provide custom injection payloads and optional tampering scripts

  -p TESTPARAMETER    Testable parameter(s)
  --dbms DBMS         Force back-end DBMS to provided value
  --prefix            Injection payload prefix string
  --suffix            Injection payload suffix string

Detection:
  These options can be used to customize the detection phase

  --level LEVEL       Level of tests to perform (1-3, default 1)
  --code CODE         HTTP code to match when query is evaluated to True
  --string            String to match when query is evaluated to True
  --not-string        String to match when query is evaluated to False
  --text-only         Compare pages based only on the textual content

Techniques:
  These options can be used to tweak testing of specific SQL injection
  techniques

     --technique TECH    SQL injection techniques to use (default "BEST")
  --time-sec TIMESEC  Seconds to delay the DBMS response (default 5)

Enumeration:
  These options can be used to enumerate the back-end database
  managment system information, structure and data contained in the
  tables.

  -b, --banner        Retrieve DBMS banner
  --current-user      Retrieve DBMS current user
  --current-db        Retrieve DBMS current database
  --hostname          Retrieve DBMS server hostname
  --dbs               Enumerate DBMS databases
  --tables            Enumerate DBMS database tables
  --columns           Enumerate DBMS database table columns
  --dump              Dump DBMS database table entries
  -D DB               DBMS database to enumerate
  -T TBL              DBMS database tables(s) to enumerate
  -C COLS                DBMS database table column(s) to enumerate
  --start             Retrive entries from offset for dbs/tables/columns/dump
  --stop              Retrive entries till offset for dbs/tables/columns/dump

Example:
  ghauri http://www.site.com/vuln.php?id=1 --dbs

Legal disclaimer

Usage of Ghauri for attacking targets without prior mutual consent is illegal.
It is the end user's responsibility to obey all applicable local,state and federal laws. 
Developer assume no liability and is not responsible for any misuse or damage caused by this program.

TODO

• Add support for inline queries.
• Add support for Union based queries

An advanced cross-platform tool that automates the process of detecting and exploiting SQL injection security flaws

Requirements

• Python 3
• Python pip3

Installation

• cd to ghauri directory.
• install requirements: python3 -m pip install --upgrade -r requirements.txt
• run: python3 setup.py install or python3 -m pip install -e .
• you will be able to access and run the ghauri with simple ghauri --help command.

Download Ghauri

You can download the latest version of Ghauri by cloning the GitHub repository.

git clone https://github.com/r0oth3x49/ghauri.git

Features

• Supports following types of injection payloads:
  • Boolean based.
  • Error Based
  • Time Based
  • Stacked Queries
• Support SQL injection for following DBMS.
  • MySQL
  • Microsoft SQL Server
  • Postgre
  • Oracle
• Supports following injection types.
  • GET/POST Based injections
  • Headers Based injections
  • Cookies Based injections
  • Mulitipart Form data injections
  • JSON based injections
• support proxy option --proxy.
• supports parsing request from txt file: switch for that -r file.txt
• supports limiting data extraction for dbs/tables/columns/dump: swicth --start 1 --stop 2
• added support for resuming of all phases.
• added support for skip urlencoding switch: --skip-urlencode
• added support to verify extracted characters in case of boolean/time based injections.

Advanced Usage

Author: Nasir khan (r0ot h3x49)

usage: ghauri -u URL [OPTIONS]

A cross-platform python based advanced sql injections detection & exploitation tool.

General:
  -h, --help          Shows the help.
  --version           Shows the version.
  -v VERBOSE          Verbosity level: 1-5 (default 1).
  --batch             Never ask for user input, use the default behavior
  --flush-session     Flush session files for current target

Target:
  At least one of these options has to be provided to define the
  target(s)

  -u URL, --url URL   Target URL (e.g. 'http://www.site.com/vuln.php?id=1).
  -r REQUESTFILE      Load HTTP request from a file

Request:
  These options can be used to specify how to connect to the target URL

  -A , --user-agent   HTTP User-Agent header value -H , --header       Extra header (e.g. "X-Forwarded-For: 127.0.0.1")
  --host              HTTP Host header value
  --data              Data string to be sent through POST (e.g. "id=1")
  --cookie            HTTP Cookie header value (e.g. "PHPSESSID=a8d127e..")
  --referer           HTTP Referer header value
  --headers           Extra headers (e.g. "Accept-Language: fr\nETag: 123")
  --proxy             Use a proxy to connect to the target URL
  --delay             Delay in seconds between each HTTP request
  --timeout           Seconds to wait before timeout connection (default 30)
  --retries           Retries when the connection related error occurs (default 3)
  --skip-urlencode    Skip URL encoding of payload data
  --force-ssl         Force usage of SSL/HTTPS

Injection:
  These options can be used to specify which paramete   rs to test for,
  provide custom injection payloads and optional tampering scripts

  -p TESTPARAMETER    Testable parameter(s)
  --dbms DBMS         Force back-end DBMS to provided value
  --prefix            Injection payload prefix string
  --suffix            Injection payload suffix string

Detection:
  These options can be used to customize the detection phase

  --level LEVEL       Level of tests to perform (1-3, default 1)
  --code CODE         HTTP code to match when query is evaluated to True
  --string            String to match when query is evaluated to True
  --not-string        String to match when query is evaluated to False
  --text-only         Compare pages based only on the textual content

Techniques:
  These options can be used to tweak testing of specific SQL injection
  techniques

     --technique TECH    SQL injection techniques to use (default "BEST")
  --time-sec TIMESEC  Seconds to delay the DBMS response (default 5)

Enumeration:
  These options can be used to enumerate the back-end database
  managment system information, structure and data contained in the
  tables.

  -b, --banner        Retrieve DBMS banner
  --current-user      Retrieve DBMS current user
  --current-db        Retrieve DBMS current database
  --hostname          Retrieve DBMS server hostname
  --dbs               Enumerate DBMS databases
  --tables            Enumerate DBMS database tables
  --columns           Enumerate DBMS database table columns
  --dump              Dump DBMS database table entries
  -D DB               DBMS database to enumerate
  -T TBL              DBMS database tables(s) to enumerate
  -C COLS                DBMS database table column(s) to enumerate
  --start             Retrive entries from offset for dbs/tables/columns/dump
  --stop              Retrive entries till offset for dbs/tables/columns/dump

Example:
  ghauri http://www.site.com/vuln.php?id=1 --dbs

Legal disclaimer

Usage of Ghauri for attacking targets without prior mutual consent is illegal.
It is the end user's responsibility to obey all applicable local,state and federal laws. 
Developer assume no liability and is not responsible for any misuse or damage caused by this program.

TODO

• Add support for inline queries.
• Add support for Union based queries