This week's top IT stories: Data scientists - are they worth it? Surface Phone rumours and ProtonMail DDoS attack

Here they are again. Our seven most-read from the past seven days.

7. Visa Europe rolls out Computacenter NGSD IT service desk to all 3,400 staff as part of wider mobility overhaul

"A service desk in most people's minds is associated with an issue, and generally one that is invoked by the phone," says head of IT David Sherry.

Visa Europe's 3,400 European staff relied on telephone calls in order to solve even the most rudimentary IT problems. Sherry who joined Visa Europe as head of IT in December 2014, immediately saw an opportunity to improve things.

6. MySQL database servers hit by SQL injection exploit - widespread DDoS risk could follow

A Trojan named Chikdos has begun infecting MySQL servers by taking advantage of a SQL injection exploit, with the potential to launch a widespread epidemic of DDoS attacks.

As the second most popular database management system in the world, such a straightforward intrusion into MySQL could play havoc for many of the firms that use it.

5. Microsoft caps free OneDrive storage after finding one user exceeding 75TB

Microsoft has changed the pricing policy of its OneDrive cloud storage service after some people were apparently using it like an infinitely capacious loft. One user apparently backed up their entire collection of films and personal video recordings - a total of 75TB.

4. ProtonMail taken down by 'extremely powerful DDoS attack'

Swiss secure encrypted email service ProtonMail, which was created by CERN scientists, boasts underground servers that are protected by 1,000 metres of granite. Unfortunately an attacker or attackers, one of which the firm believes to be state-backed, took the easier route of instigating a massive DDoS attack instead, bringing it down for three days. Now, who would want to do a thing like that?

3. What is Spark? Six reasons why CIOs should find out (and one why they shouldn't)

Developers, software engineers and data architects all seem to love Apache Spark, which they say makes big data processing, analytics and development tasks quicker and easier than before. But then techies like all sorts of things that no one else really understands. So why should a CIO care about this one in particular? We spoke to a few people at Spark Conference Europe to find out.

2. Microsoft 'Surface Phone' to feature Snapdragon 820 chipset?

A rumour is doing the rounds that Microsoft is working on a new range of phones to more firmly showcase desktop-like functionality.

Dubbed "Surface Phone", and supposedly being launched towards the end of 2016, the latest tittle-tattle out of Redmond is that the device (or devices) will sport Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 chipset.

1. 'Companies will stop hiring data scientists when they realise that the majority bring no value' says data scientist

Data scientists. What are they good for? Absolutely nothin'.

Not true of course, but they might have to start demonstrating their worth sooner rather than later. Gianmario Spacagna of Barclays urges his fellow data scientists to adopt agile principles to ensure rapid delivery of value, with their role just one in a multi-functional DevOps-style team.

"It's not a playground. It is not academic. The company wants to make money and you have to solve a problem," he says, in our top story this week.