For Halloween, it makes sense to open this newsletter with something really scary: cybersecurity. A study last month from bot protection solution DataDome found that more than 91% of websites are vulnerable to bot attacks. Nearly two-thirds allowed access to a variety of different bot attacks. In its study, DataDome created three different types of simple bots, using them to attack more than 14,000 websites attracting at least 5 million visitors per month in a variety of industries. None of the bots stole data or overwhelmed site operations, but were used to demonstrate what could get through site defenses.

The study found that the industries that were least protected from bots were some of the ones dealing with the most sensitive data. Health, luxury and pure play e-commerce sites allowed about 70% of the study’s mock bot attacks. And larger companies tended to have better bot protection—although half of them still let through all of the bot requests, the study found.

There’s a lot more that can be done in the way of cybersecurity and bot detection, though most CIOs don’t need a study to tell them that. DataDome’s study reiterates that the bots it used are very simple ones; more complex ones that are written to be more difficult to detect would presumably have an easier time getting through. In this day and age, cybersecurity threats are constant and evolving. Taking the time to upgrade online security against known potential attacks could keep your enterprise from becoming the latest cybersecurity horror story.

Another nightmarish situation for any CIO: A huge corporate investment in generative AI and data that is so disorganized that it cannot be used. I talked to Lakshmikant (LK) Gundavarapu, chief innovation officer at data governance solution company Tredence, about how AI is changing the way data governance is perceived and how a CIO can start to remedy any long-standing problems. An excerpt from our conversation is later in this newsletter.

Nominations for Forbes’ CIO Next List are now open. If you know any CIOs who are making an outsized impact on their company or business, please let us know about them here by November 4.

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It’s earnings season for several of the biggest tech companies. The big players all beat expectations, but market reactions were decidedly mixed. After markets closed on Wednesday, Microsoft reported its best-ever quarter in the tech company’s history, smashing expectations—making $24.7 billion net income, over $23.2 billion predicted by analysts and 11% up year-over-year. One of the biggest growth drivers was Microsoft Cloud, which saw $38.9 billion of total revenue, up 22% from a year ago. Google parent company Alphabet, which reported earnings on Tuesday, also saw a lift in its cloud business. Its $88.3 billion in quarterly revenue was the company’s best ever. And although $65.9 billion of that was from advertising, nearly $11.4 billion came from Google Cloud. CEO Sundar Pichai attributed Google’s success in Cloud to the company’s AI offerings.

Meta also outperformed expectations with its Wednesday afternoon earnings report, posting $40.5 billion in revenues, 19% more than last year and beating estimates of $40.2 billion. But the Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp owner plans to continue investing in improving its other platforms. Meta’s planned expenditures for next year total $9.2 billion, with much of that........

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