Category: 3. Business

Total Economic Impact study quantifies the ROI organizations achieve by modernizing endpoint security with CrowdStrike

AUSTIN, Texas – January 21, 2026 – CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD) today announced the findings of a commissioned Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study, conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of CrowdStrike. The study found that a composite organization representative of interviewed customers that replaced legacy endpoint security with CrowdStrike achieved a 273% return on investment (ROI) by reducing breach risk and simplifying security operations, with a payback period of under six months, and $5 million in total quantified benefits over three years.

“The endpoint is a primary risk and productivity point in today’s enterprise, but many organizations are still relying on legacy endpoint security built for a different threat era,” said Elia Zaitsev, chief technology officer at CrowdStrike. “Our Forrester study shows that modern endpoint security isn’t just more effective, it’s more economically rational. Replacing legacy endpoint approaches with CrowdStrike reduces breach risk, simplifies operations, and delivers measurable ROI that makes the decision to modernize clear.”

Endpoint Security Modernization Drives Measurable Outcomes

Key findings from the Forrester TEI study include clear economic and operational value tied directly to endpoint consolidation and modernization, including: 

• Economic Value from Endpoint Modernization: CrowdStrike Endpoint Security delivered $5 million in total benefits over three years, driven by lower technology and labor costs, simplified security operations, and faster deployment across new environments and acquisitions.
• Stopping Breaches at the Endpoint: Interviewed organizations reported a significant reduction in endpoint-related breach risk, with Forrester quantifying $1.7 million in avoided breach-related costs over three years for a representative organization based on four interviewed customers.
• Improved Analyst Experience – by Design: By deploying a single, lightweight endpoint sensor, organizations reduced endpoint security management labor by 95% and significantly reduced alert noise and false positives, allowing analysts to focus on real threats and accelerate investigations without adding headcount.
• Built for Consolidation and Scale: The study notes that Falcon’s cloud-native, single-sensor architecture enables organizations to expand protection across identity, next-gen SIEM, cloud security, and additional modules without new deployments or operational disruption.

Customer interviews:

“[Our legacy provider] was very hard to manage and we wanted to go to something simpler. Then we looked at CrowdStrike, did the proof of concept, we liked it, and we decided to go all in. We have their Endpoint product, Identity product, and then some of the other SIEM solutions as well.” – Enterprise Security Manager, Oil & Gas 

“I was pleasantly surprised by how, from just that single agent deployment, we were able to expand past EDR with little to no effort and there weren’t additional deployments.”  – Director of Cyber Defense, Healthcare

“The visibility that we get in CrowdStrike is second to none. Being able to query and do those types of investigations across your enterprise at a moment’s notice in five minutes is just really handy.” – CISO, Retail

To learn more about the Total Economic Impact™ study and CrowdStrike Endpoint Security, visit our website and read our blog.

About CrowdStrike

CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD), a global cybersecurity leader, has redefined modern security with the world’s most advanced cloud-native platform for protecting critical areas of enterprise risk – endpoints and cloud workloads, identity and data.

Powered by the CrowdStrike Security Cloud and world-class AI, the CrowdStrike Falcon® platform leverages real-time indicators of attack, threat intelligence, evolving adversary tradecraft, and enriched telemetry from across the enterprise to deliver hyper-accurate detections, automated protection and remediation, elite threat hunting, and prioritized observability of vulnerabilities.

Purpose-built in the cloud with a single lightweight-agent architecture, the Falcon platform delivers rapid and scalable deployment, superior protection and performance, reduced complexity, and immediate time-to-value.

CrowdStrike: We stop breaches.

Learn more: https://www.crowdstrike.com/

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Jake Schuster

CrowdStrike Corporate Communications

press@crowdstrike.com

Next has rescued the footwear retailer Russell & Bromley out of administration for £3.8m but about 400 jobs are likely to go at 33 shops not included in the deal.

The British brand, founded in 1879 in Eastbourne, East Sussex, trades from 36 stores and nine concessions across the UK and Ireland. Next will take on only three stores – in Chelsea, Mayfair and the Bluewater shopping centre – and about 48 store staff, it is understood.

The rescue deal, which includes Russell & Bromley’s brand and other assets including £1.3m of stock, is the latest brand acquisition for Next. The British fashion and homeware retailer now controls a swathe of labels from FatFace, Joules and Made.com to the UK distribution of Gap and Victoria’s Secret.

Next said in a statement: “This acquisition secures the future of a much-loved British footwear brand. Next intends to build on this legacy and provide the operational stability and expertise to support Russell & Bromley’s next chapter, allowing it to return to its core mission, the design and curation of world-class, premium footwear and accessories, for many years to come.”

Andrew Bromley, the chief executive of Russell & Bromley, which until now has been a family-owned business, said: “Following a strategic review with external advisers, we have taken the difficult decision to sell the Russell & Bromley brand. This is the best route to secure the future for the brand and we would like to thank our staff, suppliers, partners and customers for their support throughout our history.”

Will Wright, the head of Interpath, which is acting as administrator to Russell & Bromley, said the 33 stores and nine concessions not included in the deal would remain open and continue to trade while the joint administrators continue to assess options for them.

He said: “Across its 147-year history, Russell & Bromley has been at the forefront of contemporary style. We’re pleased therefore to have concluded this transaction, which will preserve the brand and the commitment to quality craftsmanship that it has become so well known for.

“Our intention is to continue to trade the remaining portfolio of stores for as long as we can while we explore the options available.”

Andreas Walingen, Head of Group Circular Economy: “The circular economy will become increasingly important for Volkswagen AG in the coming years. It addresses key challenges facing the automotive industry: raw material resilience, decarbonisation, economic efficiency and employment. Specifically, we are pursuing the goal of reusing raw materials for the construction of new vehicles. This will make Volkswagen less dependent on the global raw materials trade, reduce the CO₂ footprint of its vehicles and create new business models. The circular economy promotes technological and digital innovation and secures jobs at the site and value creation in Germany. That is the mission of the Zwickau vehicle plant. Here, we define, test and review all the necessary processes and standards. In the medium term, we will need a CE value creation network with additional locations and partnerships throughout Europe in order to scale the circular economy successfully in economic terms.

To get started with the circular economy, up to 90 million euros will be invested in conversion work, technical equipment and AI applications at the site over the next few years. This year, 500 pre-series vehicles (test vehicles) are already being processed. From 2027, the number of vehicles will increase. A modular dismantling concept will allow capacity to be gradually increased to 15,000 vehicles per year by 2030.

Danny Auerswald, spokesperson for the management board of Volkswagen Saxony: “Volkswagen Saxony is once again taking on a pioneering role. We were the first plant to switch completely to e-mobility. Now we are tapping into the important business area of the circular economy. With our experience in large-scale production and the excellent university landscape in Saxony, we will examine these new business areas for the Group, present them in an economically viable manner and expand them.”

Dirk Panter, Minister for Economic Affairs in the Free State of Saxony: “With the recycling topic here in Zwickau, we are breaking new ground for VW as a whole. The plant in Mosel is thus taking on an important function and pioneering role within the Group. Saxony can once again prove that it has solutions for the future of the automotive industry. The new project highlights the responsible use of existing resources and also offers new prospects for employees in Mosel. The diversification of the Zwickau location thus strengthens the future viability of this Saxon automotive region.”

The circular economy will play a greater role in future apprenticeships and university courses. In close cooperation with the Volkswagen Education Institute and the West Saxon University of Applied Sciences, existing career paths and courses of study will be supplemented with content on the circular economy. The Zwickau site will thus also take on the training and further education of employees at future locations.

The move into the circular economy was agreed for the Zwickau site during collective bargaining negotiations in December 2024. In addition to vehicle production, this business area is a second pillar for securing sustainable employment and building expertise in the Central Germany region.

The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments Wednesday in a case that has Wall Street and the financial markets in a near panic.

At issue are President Trump’s efforts to break with 112 years of law and precedent by firing Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve’s governing board appointed by President Biden. 

Cook’s case is not unique, as evidenced by the recent blow up between Trump and Jerome Powell, who was appointed Fed chair in 2018 by Trump himself.

Powell, known for a cool head and a quiet demeanor, has consistently avoided direct confrontations with Trump, even as the president’s personal displeasure with the Fed chair escalated from behind the scenes pressure to public bashing.

As Trump put it on CNBC in speaking of Powell last week, “Either he’s incompetent or he’s crooked.”

Trump v. Powell

The Trump administration hit the Fed with grand jury subpoenas on Jan. 9 initiating a criminal investigation into Powell for his testimony before the Senate Banking Committee last June. That testimony dealt with cost overruns at two Federal Reserve buildings being renovated for the first time since the 1930s.

The normally reticent Powell finally blew.

“This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of federal reserve buildings. Those are pretexts,” Powell said in a video posted on social media. “The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public rather than following the preferences of the president.”

Congress established the Federal Reserve board in 1913 after a series of financial panics in the late 1800s. In an effort to stabilize the economy, the legislative branch sought to shield monetary policy from political manipulation by establishing limited terms for Fed governors and barring them from being fired, except for malfeasance in office.

Daniel Tarullo, a Harvard law professor and former Fed governor, observes that presidents of both parties always want interest rates to go down, particularly in election years, but he says that inevitably destabilizes the economy.

“When those long-term rates start to go up because of fears of inflation down the road, what gets affected?” he asks. “Mortgages and business investment.”

The issue before the court

That said, the actual legal issue before the court Wednesday is, at least superficially, quite narrow. Trump’s lawyers will tell the Supreme Court that he is not asking for a free pass to fire Cook. He is firing her for cause; namely, the administration claims that Cook falsified documents to obtain loans on two different properties she listed as her primary residences. Her lawyers say she listed one of the properties as a vacation home. The accusations against her were lodged initially by Bill Pulte, Trump’s head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Cook, for her part, denies any wrongdoing whatsoever. Her lawyers in their Supreme Court papers contend that Cook’s mortgage applications were “cherry-picked” by Pulte to make it appear that perfectly legal mortgage applications were somehow nefarious. And to underline the point, her lawyers point to recent reporting that four of Trump’s Cabinet members, plus his deputy attorney general, and even Pulte’s own relatives have recently made applications for multiple mortgages similar to Cook’s, without any suggestion of wrongdoing.

But the Trump administration argues that once the president has determined he has cause to fire a Fed board member, that decision is not reviewable by any court. That’s a big caveat that essentially hands the president unrestricted power to fire members of the Fed and replace them with his personal picks.

That is as it should be, argues Jacob Huebert, senior litigation counsel at the conservative New Civil Liberties Alliance.
Because Article II of the U.S. Constitution vests all executive power in the president, Huebert explains, the president “has to be able to remove people who he doesn’t want to work with. Otherwise he’s being forced to share executive power with someone he doesn’t want to share it with.”

Plus, he adds, just because “we’ve had a Federal Reserve that functions as it does now for a long time doesn’t mean we need to have it forever.”

Experts warn Fed’s independence is in peril

Economists of varying political stripes see the situation as far more dire. With the exception of Powell, every living Federal Reserve board chair, plus Treasury secretaries, and prominent economists from both parties have signed on to Supreme Court briefs urging the justices not to tinker with the Fed’s independence.

Top business leaders like Jamie Dimon, CEO and chairman of JPMorganChase, warned last week that interference with the Fed “will have reverse consequences,” likely raising inflation and increasing borrowing rates over time.

Just what the Supreme Court will do is unclear. In other cases last year, the court’s conservative majority allowed Trump to remove other agency leaders, at least temporarily overriding federal laws that had protected term-limited agency heads from firing.

But at the same time, the court’s conservatives, in one cryptic passage of an emergency docket opinion, said that the Fed is different because it is a “uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States.” Indeed, the first Congress created the first bank in 1791, and the second was created in 1816.

Should Trump prevail, however, he almost certainly would seek to replace not just Cook, but other Fed governors. Powell’s term as Fed chair expires this spring, but he has two more years on his term as a Fed governor. Unless Trump is able to remove sitting governors, he will not have a majority of his own appointees on the board during the remainder of his presidency.

Noteworthy is that making the case against Trump and for Cook, and indirectly the Fed, will be Paul Clement, who served as solicitor general for President George W. Bush. Additionally, Chair Powell is expected to be in the Supreme Court chamber when the case is argued.

The Boxer armoured transport vehicle and the mtu Series 199 have been a joint success story for years. Further orders were added in 2025, bringing the total number of 8V199 engines to around 400 in 2025. The modular vehicle consists of an eight-wheeled drive module onto which mission modules are mounted depending on the intended use. This has resulted in a large number of variants for European and non-European armies in a short period of time. What they all have in common is the drive: all of the more than 2,000 Boxer vehicles ordered or already delivered and their derivatives are powered by mtu 8V199 engines.

With over 4,500 engines delivered, the mtu 199 series is the world’s most successful programme in its performance class for military land vehicles used by the armies of NATO members and allied states. It stands for high-performance engines with low space requirements and high power density, which can be used to power new weapon systems and to re-engine existing vehicle fleets with high efficiency.

Building on this concept, Rolls-Royce is expanding the 199 series into a larger family to meet the increasing performance requirements of the troops and the limited budgets of the armies. Rolls-Royce recently announced performance upgrades of the existing variants of the mtu Series 199 and the development of a 10-cylinder variant with up to 1,100 kW and a 12-cylinder variant with over 1,300 kW of power.

Tokyo, January 21, 2026 – Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) and Indonesia’s Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB) have signed a new research agreement to extend their long-standing collaboration on the exploration of clean power generation, further advancing research related to ammonia-based fuel applications.

Building on earlier joint studies, the extended agreement continues research into ammonia combustion, with a focus on strengthening understanding of how ammonia can be applied safely and effectively in gas turbine systems. Through sustained collaboration, MHI and its power solutions brand, Mitsubishi Power, together with ITB, aim to reinforce the technical knowledge needed to support the practical use of ammonia in power generation and contribute to Indonesia’s long-term decarbonization goals.

During the signing ceremony in Bandung, Indonesia, Satoshi Hada, Senior Vice President of the GTCC Business Division at MHI, said: “Research and development are central to MHI and to our power solutions brand, Mitsubishi Power, as we work to advance cleaner power technologies. We are pleased to continue the momentum of our long-standing collaboration with ITB. Ammonia is increasingly recognized as a promising carbon-free fuel, but realizing its potential requires a deep and careful understanding of its unique properties. By building on the progress achieved together, we look forward to strengthening the technical foundations that can support cleaner and more sustainable power generation in Indonesia.”

Prof. Dr. Ir. Ari Darmawan Pasek, of ITB, said: “The transition to cleaner energy is essential in addressing climate change. Our collaboration with MHI reflects the importance of combining academic research with industrial expertise to advance cleaner fuel technologies. We are confident that this continued partnership will contribute valuable insights to support the future role of ammonia in power generation and Indonesia’s decarbonization journey.”

MHI and ITB first concluded a memorandum of understanding in 2020 to collaborate on research into next-generation clean energy solutions and analysis of big data relating to power plants. This partnership was extended in 2022 and has since progressed through multiple research initiatives focused on ammonia-fired power generation. The latest agreement continues this long-standing collaboration, building steadily on the work undertaken to date.

With support from its power solutions brand, Mitsubishi Power, MHI remains committed to contributing to Indonesia’s scientific and technological development in the energy sector, in line with the country’s ambition to achieve net-zero emissions by 2060.

What happens when powerful AI tools are released without safeguards into platforms used by millions? This question has occupied headlines after Grok, the generative AI chatbot integrated into the social media platform X was weaponized to non-consensually create and share sexually explicit and degrading images of women and children. The proliferation of such images on X was a direct result of the introduction of an image generation and editing feature to Grok in December 2024. Grok’s subsequent integration with X and the introduction of a “spicy mode” last year exacerbated the abuse by enhancing access and dissemination of such non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII).

The Grok incident has rightly triggered widespread outrage across jurisdictions, and regulators around the world are taking action, with responses ranging from blocking Grok entirely, such as in Indonesia, to launching an investigation into its functioning, as in the United Kingdom.

In India, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued a letter to X on January 2, 2026, citing a failure to comply with statutory due diligence obligations under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. Apart from adherence to the legal framework, MeitY demanded a report on the steps being taken by X to address the issue within 72 hours from the issuance of the letter. However, while the ministry’s response has been relatively swift, there are several deeper and systemic issues that it has exposed.

First, this response reveals structural problems in how India is currently attempting to govern AI-driven harms. MeitY has not initiated a dedicated regulatory or investigative process for Grok as an AI system. Instead, it has relied almost entirely on the existing intermediary liability framework under the IT Act and the IT Rules to look into the matter. Earlier, MeitY issued an advisory to social media intermediaries on December 29, 2025 which warned against the hosting, uploading, and transmission of obscene, pornographic and other unlawful content and advised them to undertake a review of their internal compliance frameworks. Through both the advisory and its January 2 letter to X, it is evident that MeitY’s approach to this incident is that of a failure of platform compliance with legal obligations and due diligence requirements. Simply put, the government response is built around takedowns and platform enforcement routed through the intermediary liability regime.

Additionally, the government is currently deliberating on introducing the Draft Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2025, to combat the rise of deepfakes. These rules would make labelling of all synthetically generated information mandatory. While this step is well-intentioned, concerns related to compelled speech, ambiguous definitions as to what constitutes “synthetic content,” and fears over increased censorship powers that would add to the existing safe harbor framework have been raised. This approach reflects a broader reluctance to regulate and place binding obligations on AI systems and stakeholders within the AI ecosystem. The general sentiment of anti-AI regulation prevalent in India points to apprehensions that the imposition of ‘bureaucratic fetters’ will hinder the development and adoption of AI in India.

The government’s attitude on wider AI regulation can be seen in the India AI Governance Guidelines released in November 2025. While the Guidelines, which were released under the India AI Mission, acknowledge the risks posed by AI, they largely defer to the extant legal regime, stating that “a separate law to regulate AI is not needed given the current assessment of risks” and that the risks associated with AI can be addressed through voluntary measures and “existing laws.” However, if there’s one thing that the Grok episode highlights, it is that not only has the market failed to regulate itself, but the existing laws which address platform governance have failed to effectively address AI driven harms such as sexualized deepfakes. This has, in turn, exposed a dire need for regulation.

Grok, as a generative AI model capable of producing illegal and abusive content on demand, is not directly regulated as an AI system, but is only regulated indirectly through X’s obligations as a social media intermediary. If similar harm were to occur on stand-alone AI platforms that are not intermediaries under the IT Act, for instance on other generative AI chatbots, there is a real risk that this would fall into a regulatory grey zone. This leaves India without a clear legal framework to require pre-deployment testing, built-in safety and consent guardrails, or any independent oversight of high-risk generative AI tools.

At the outset, to drive constructive conversations around AI, the Indian government needs to drop apprehensions that a regulatory approach is likely to be perceived as a backward response to emerging technologies. Further, there is an urgent need to move past the reductive, binary narrative that regulation strangles innovation, as this line of thinking leads to the adoption of a light-touch regulatory and self-regulatory codes administered by industry without oversight, an approach that results in episodes such as the Grok incident. Instead, the way forward ought to be one that embraces regulatory responses that lead to tangible accountability from all stakeholders in the AI value chain. To do this, a participatory approach to AI governance is essential. The government ought to consider conducting an open, public, multi-stakeholder consultation that would expand the conversation of AI regulation beyond the framework of the IT Act as a good first step in this direction.

Unless it is accepted that systemic changes need to be made to address AI-enabled harms such as NCII, a platform moderation approach is likely to change little. What is necessary is prioritizing ‘Safety by Design’ and mandates for adversarial testing (so-called red teaming), adherence to technical standards (like C2PA) to label AI-generated content, addressing the existence of NCII and Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) in training data sets, and an investment in the development of tools that detect and report such content. Otherwise, any promises to tackle AI-generated sexual abuse would ring hollow.

Lastly, it is also important to touch upon another issue that plagues the content moderation approach for NCII in India, that of framing the issue merely in terms of “obscene” or “vulgar” content. This approach misses the core harm involved in image-based sexual abuse: a complete lack of consent. The defining feature of NCII is not the subjective assessment of whether a particular image or video crosses the threshold to be deemed as “obscene” or “vulgar.” Instead, the primary violation is the creation of such an image in the absence of any meaningful consent of the person who is depicted. This violation continues to subsist regardless of whether the content is considered to be obscene in nature or not. Reducing such abuse to a question of obscenity collapses this distinct harm with the imposition of moral and socio-cultural standards. Therefore, a framework based on consent and a rights-based understanding arguably offers a better path forward that safeguards the interests of victims. It would allow regulators and platforms to respond to abuse in a victim-focused way while still respecting constitutional free speech protections.

The Grok incident was an easily predictable outcome of a governance model that allows powerful AI systems to be deployed at scale without enforceable, ex-ante safety obligations. When such tools which have the capacity to shape behavior, reputation, personal autonomy, dignity and safety are made available in the mainstream, the harm they can cause is not confined to a few users but has a ripple effect that is difficult to contain. While X admitted to failures and stated that it had taken down the offending content, this was a reactive measure taken only after large volumes of harmful material had already been generated and widely circulated. Moreover, neither the full scale of the harm, the number of victims who were affected, nor the adequacy of the fixes has been independently verified.

Reportedly, MeitY was dissatisfied with the platform’s initial response as well. Meanwhile the broader issue of the dissemination of NCII and CSAM continues to remain unresolved and risks being forgotten. We await MeitY’s further action on this matter.