A look back at Babel’s December coverage highlights

Can you believe we’ve almost made it through the first month of 2022 (and the infamous ‘Blue Monday’)!? December seems a world away, but, to boost spirits on a cold, grey, January day, I wanted to look back to the highs of last month and share my pick of media coverage secured for some of our clients at Babel. Here goes…

December was definitely a month of fun and festivities at Babel. At the beginning of the month, we enjoyed our Babel Christmas social at La Pont De La Tour. This evening was a great chance for the team to socialise outside of the office, as well as enjoy a meal together before the covid restrictions were upped. Among all the festivities, the Babel team continued to work hard, securing some amazing coverage for our clients. Here are some of my top picks from the busy December month.

Off the back of the annual customer experience report that it produced, a briefing was secured with Acquia’s EMEA CMO Tom Bianchi and The Enterprise Times. Acquia’s report highlighted a clear gap between customer expectations and a businesses’ ability to deliver these digital customer experiences. In response to these findings, Bianchi discussed his top three tips for enterprises that are looking to enhance these customer experiences. These tips covered everything from the need for brands to look at customer user journeys using data, to being aware of marketing issues and trends in order to keep up with the fast pace of the sector.

Following COP26’s net-zero goals, further plans were announced by Boris Johnson, who outlied his green vision for Brexit Britain. These include making Britain a world leader in hydrogen, an aspiration that forms an integral part of his ‘Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution’. In light of this announcement, the CEO of GenCell, Rami Rashef, gave his thoughts in The Express. He told Jacob Paul that the development of a low-carbon hydrogen sector and Boris Johnson’s vision for the UK to lead Europe in implementing and adopting hydrogen and hydrogen economies is very promising.

In December, a dangerous Log4j vulnerability surfaced, taking many people by complete surprise. Log4j is an open-source logging library that is used in many online services. If the vulnerability goes unnoticed or is not resolved, attackers can gain access to information such as passwords and login data and are able to infect devices with malicious software. Widely used and very easy to exploit, Log4j is one of the most dangerous vulnerabilities we have seen in years. Following the emergence of this risk, the CTO of Sonatype, Brian Fox, shared the company’s research with the BBC, stating that Log4j has been downloaded 84 million times from September to December alone. He also emphasised just how easy it is for these hackers to exploit the vulnerability.

Continuing the security theme…2G and 3G pose massive telecoms security risks due to a vulnerability in the SS7 protocol. This is a set of protocols that allow phone networks to exchange information that is needed for transferring calls and text messages from one device to another while also ensuring that phone bills are correct. The SS7 flaw means that a door has potentially been opened for hackers to listen in on phone calls, take away service from mobile devices or even initiate fraud. In response to these findings, the UK government announced new plans to phase out 2G and 3G by 2033 in order to boost UK telecoms security. Parallel Wireless chief executive, Steve Papa, shared in the joy of the announcement, telling City AM that this push for higher industry standards in the telecoms sector could help make the UK leaders in the delivery of 4G, 5G a4nd even 6G.

And there you have it: another amazing month of coverage secured for our clients. Please get in touch if you want to hear more about any of the above or what we can deliver for you.