Month: August 2024

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Blackpink Celebrates Anniversary with Spotify, Invites Blinks to Join #8YearwithBLACKPINK”

This August, Blackpink fever heats up as the iconic global girl group celebrates its 8th anniversary. Blackpink has dominated global charts and captured the hearts of millions of fans worldwide.

To commemorate this milestone and honor Blinks, who fuel one of the biggest fandoms in the world, Blackpink has teamed up with Spotify, the world’s most popular audio streaming platform, to bring a host of special surprises to the This is BLACKPINK playlist.

From the group’s record-breaking rise to global superstardom, Blackpink, which comprises Jisoo, Jennie, Rose and Lisa, has made colossal waves on Spotify. The group’s Spotify streams tracked an average year-on-year growth exceeding 110 percent. The group now has more than 13 billion streams on the platform. Their tracks have been added to over 71 million user-generated playlists, and their top five most streamed songs alone — “How You Like That,” “Kill This Love,” “Pink Venom,” “DDU-DU DDU-DU” and “Shut Down” — have collectively garnered more than 4 billion streams.

Further testament to the group’s resonance with listeners worldwide, their top markets on Spotify now span the USA, Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines and Brazil.

#8YearswithBLACKPINK, only on Spotify

To celebrate #8YearswithBLACKPINK, Spotify is treating Blinks to a series of special surprises on the This Is BLACKPINK playlist. From August 1 to the group’s debut anniversary on August 8, the playlist will pay homage to a different Blackpink era each day, taking listeners on a journey through the group’s most iconic milestones.

To add to the excitement, daily digital sharecards will be available on the playlist, giving fans eight ways to flex their fandom. From discovering how you rank among Blackpink listeners to uncovering your most recent favorite Blackpink’s songs and more, be sure to stay tuned to This is BLACKPINK to discover and express how you’ve stanned.

Here’s how it works:

  1. Tune into This is BLACKPINK from August 1 to 8 to rediscover a different Blackpink era each day. The playlist will refresh daily at 11AM.
  2. When you’re on This is BLACKPINK, you might get a special digital sharecard depending on your Blackpink streaming habits, so keep a lookout during this period to see how you’ve stanned.
  3. Flex your fandom and fuel the celebrations of #8YearswithBLACKPINK by uploading your sharecards on social media.

“It’s been thrilling to witness the growth of Blackpink throughout the years,” said Jungjoo Park, head of Music Korea, Spotify. “Our #8YearswithBLACKPINK campaign bolsters our commitment to supporting Korean artists in reaching and deepening their connections with listeners worldwide, and we hope fans enjoy the special surprises we have in store for them.”

Spotify’s efforts to connect Blackpink with listeners across the globe have played an instrumental role in igniting passion from their fandom over the years. In addition to spotlighting their music on flagship playlists such as Today’s Top Hits and K-Pop ON!, Spotify has also brought listeners a variety of exclusive experiences to bring fans closer to the members. This includes the enhanced album for the 2020 “The Album” and the Born Pink: The Pop-Up Experience in Los Angeles in 2022.

Head on to Spotify’s For The Record blog post for more on the campaign.

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Trend Micro Stops Deepfakes, AI-Based Cyber Attacks for Consumers, Enterprises

Global cybersecurity leader Trend Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704) has announced new innovations in its enterprise platform focused on protecting all environments from threats of AI-based attacks and fraud.

Trend Micro research shows that cybercriminals are catching on to the explosion of enterprise AI use, resulting in a dramatic increase in AI-based tools available on the criminal underground. These tools are cheaper and more accessible than ever, enabling criminals of any skill level to more easily launch attacks at scale that mislead victims for purposes of extortion, identity theft, fraud or misinformation.

Ian Felipe, Trend Micro Philippines country manager, stated, “Our latest research reveals several new deepfake tools that make it easy for cybercriminals at all skill levels to launch damaging scams, social engineering and security bypass attempts. We are leading the industry in fighting back for both our enterprise and consumer customers with new capabilities to detect deepfakes and other forms of AI fraud. Like past shifts in the threat and IT landscape, we’ve seen the challenge of securing AI and have risen to it.”

Detecting and defeating these AI-based methods is central to better managing attack surface risk for enterprises and lowering overall online risk for consumers, 71 percent of whom viewed deepfakes negatively and believed that one of their top uses is for fraud, according to a recent Trend Micro survey.

The new deepfake detection technology will use a variety of advanced methods to spot AI-generated content and will be made available soon on the Trend Vision One™ platform.

According to Gartner analyst Dan Ayoub, “Readily available, high-quality GenAI applications are now capable of creating photo-realistic video content that can deceive or mislead an audience. Given the low barriers to entry in using these tools and their increasing sophistication, developing a methodological approach to detecting GenAI deepfake content has become necessary.”

Deepfakes pose a significant risk to modern enterprises and individuals. An undetected deepfake can lead to misleading information, financial impacts, job losses, legal challenges, reputation damage, identity theft and potential harm to mental or physical health. In a recent Trend Micro study, 36 percent of consumers reported experiencing a scam attempt using a deepfake. The FBI has also previously warned of deepfake technology being used in conjunction with video calls to carry out business email compromise attacks and to fraudulently apply for remote working positions.

This technology is being abused to bypass not only human verification but also biometric security measures such as facial recognition. Trend Micro research has also revealed recent shifts indicating a growing preference for exploiting existing large language models (LLM) through innovative jailbreaking techniques rather than developing bespoke criminal AI tools.

The launch of Trend Micro’s new solutions is part of a company-wide mission to secure customers’ AI journey. Supporting a zero trust strategy, Trend Micro also recently released new features for Trend Vision One designed to:

  • Centralize management of employees’ GenAI access and usage
  • Inspect prompts to prevent data leaks and malicious injections
  • Filter GenAI content to meet compliance requirements
  • Defend against LLM attacks

To view Trend Micro’s deepfake detection capabilities demo, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=lZcdCzqFXNhLQz3g&v=16pwF_uzFvQ&feature=youtu.be.