Category Archives: Cloud Storage
Storj Labs buys GPU cloud company Valdi to offer on-demand storage and compute for AI workloads – SiliconANGLE News
Decentralized cloud-based storage company Storj Labs Inc. said today it has acquired the graphics processing unit cloud provider Valdi Labs PBC.
The deal means its customers will be able to access on-demand GPU capacity to power their artificial intelligence workloads whenever they require it.
Storj is pioneering the concept of more affordable and secure decentralized storage. The company doesnt own any server hardware, but instead rents spare storage capacity from individuals and organizations across the world, before making this space available to its customers.
Through this model, Storj reckons it can provide access to highly distributed cloud storage thats up to 90% more affordable than renting storage capacity from traditional cloud infrastructure providers such as Amazon Web Services Inc. and Microsoft Corp. Whats more, it offers the same availability guarantees and promises its performance is at least as good, if not better than those rivals.
Storj, which is headed by its Chief Executive Officer Ben Golub, minimizes the obvious risks associated with distributed and decentralized cloud storage by encrypting its customers data before sending it to its rented servers. Moreover, it breaks each piece of data into about 80 different fragments, which it calls pieces, which are spread across various different servers and storage drives around the world.
This ensures iron-clad security, as any would-be hacker is required to hack into numerous different computer systems spread across the globe to gather all of the pieces required to decrypt customers data and make sense of it. Storj says at least 30 pieces are required to put customers files back together.
That not only makes the system highly secure, but also solves the problem of accessibility. As many as 50 of the 80 underlying storage systems used to store the data could go offline, as the data would still be accessible, so long as the other 30 are still up and running.
The company says its seeing big demand for its decentralized storage services due to the rapid growth of the AI industry, which has an insatiable thirst for training data. AI training is done using hundreds of powerful GPUs, but it also requires a powerful and reliable storage platform to store the data thats used to train the AI models. As such, it Storj believes it makes sense to provide both GPUs and storage in a single, reliable platform.
Thats why it has decided to acquire Valdi, the creator of a distributed GPU cloud platform. Valdi makes its 16,000-strong network of GPUs available on-demand and at massive scale, and claims to offer some of the most competitive rates in the industry.
By acquiring Valdi, Storj says, it will be able to offer an integrated cloud storage and GPU service. It says the combination is ideal because most AI workloads demand significant GPU compute, storage and movement of large datasets. With Valdi, customers can access GPUs instantly, with no contracts required.
It expands the value of our distributed solutions for the enterprise, enabling a full-stack cloud offering for our wide range of global customers, Golub said.
Storj claims that its Amazon S3-compatible distributed object storage and Validis high-performance GPUs will be infinitely scalable and rapidly available in any location in the world. Its customers will have the flexibility to spin up as many GPUs as they require, or scale down during periods of lower usage.
Valdi CEO Nikhil Jain said the companys customers have substantial yet highly flexible storage needs that they sometimes struggle to meet. So uniting our organizations delivers benefits to customers while empowering us to grow faster, he said.
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Consumer Cloud Storage Services Market Increasing Demand, Growth Analysis and Future Outlook by 2031 – openPR
The global consumer cloud storage services market is anticipated to grow at a considerable CAGR of 18.8% during the forecast period. The rising adoption of numerous tactical strategies such as partnership, expansion, funding, and collaboration by key vendors such as Citrix, Digitalocean, Dropbox, and others to fuel the market growth during the forecast period. For instance, in October 2022, Zadara strategically partnered with KINX Inc., to provide its zStorage, Storage-as-a-Service, to the Korean market through KINX's CloudHub. KINX's CloudHub in Korea has connected nine cloud service providers, and zStorage supports the storage services for KINX's multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environments.
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Moreover, in June 2022, Cisco announced FlashStack Cisco+ Hybrid Cloud storage solutions, developed in partnership with NetApp and Pure Storage. The storage solution that combines Cisco's Unified Computing System (UCS) servers and Nexus switches with Pure Storage FlashArray and FlashBlade platforms, allows customers to optimize their operational model and secure applications on-premises both at the edge and in the cloud.
Apart from this, Nasuni Corp., announced a strategic collaboration with Google Cloud in February 2021 to address the growing demand for enterprise file storage that is simple, reliable, and low cost. Nasuni is bringing to market a modern enterprise cloud file storage offering that pairs Google Cloud's object storage economics with Nasuni's cloud-native global file system. Bringing the new solution from Nasuni delivers low-cost primary file storage for enterprise customers seeking to modernize their on-premises file servers and network attached storage (NAS) infrastructures, and enables customers to deploy file storage as-a-service and secure infrastructure, with simplified procurement and billing through the Google Cloud Marketplace.
Global Consumer Cloud Storage Services Market Report Segment
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Solution Services
By Storage
50 GB - 999 GB 1 TB - 9.99 TB More than 10 TB
By Application
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Europe
Germany United Kingdom France Spain Italy Rest of Europe
Asia-Pacific
China Japan India Rest of Asia-Pacific
Rest of the World
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Company Profiles
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Hybrid cloud storage vs on-prem: What data goes where? – ComputerWeekly.com
For enterprises that want to extend their storage strategy, the public cloud is a place to start that can bring quick wins. After all, cloud technology is quick to deploy, needs little to no capital outlay, and can grow quickly with the business to store more data, especially unstructured data.
Analyst Gartner predicts that enterprises will need to store three times as much unstructured data in 2026 as they did in 2023. At the same time, a third of infrastructure and operations budgets are spent on public cloud.
But demand for storage is growing across all types of infrastructure, including public and private cloud infrastructure, the network edge, and conventional on-premise hardware. In practice, much investment in storage is hybrid. Here, we look at how to develop a strategy to decide the best way to store enterprise data.
The main benefits of cloud storage are well-documented and include flexibility and the ability to scale, as well as avoid the need for capital spending.
Nor is cloud now a second-rate option when it comes to performance. The big three hyperscalers and others offer options for higher read and write speeds and IOPS. Cloud, too, allows organisations to move data between different storage tiers, to optimise combinations of performance, capacity and cost as workloads change.
Cloud is the primary way to deploy object storage, and so allows a single data store to serve multiple applications. For cloud-based applications such as advanced analytics and AI, locating data close to compute makes sense.
To this, CIOs might add lower infrastructure management overheads especially by removing the need to operate datacentres and speed of deployment. The all you need for cloud is a credit card line is overplayed. But sourcing, purchasing and installing hardware takes time, and can easily add six to 18 months to an infrastructure project.
On-site storage, however, retains some advantages. First and foremost is regulatory compliance and security. Although cloud storage security is now good, there are verticals and organisations that still prefer the full control that comes with local, physical assets. On-premise systems also avoid questions about data sovereignty.
On-site data storage, or local storage, has advantages that include direct control over data security and privacy, faster access speeds, and physical control over the storage, says Kausik Chaudhuri, chief innovation officer at Lemongrass, a service provider focused on SAP implementations.
For performance, on-premise hardware will typically outperform the cloud for a given workload. Firms have years, even decades, of experience in fine-tuning their storage and compute to work together.
And while high-performance flash storage is an option locally and in the cloud, wide-area network connectivity always adds latency. Even where low latency is not critical, performance is more predictable on-premise.
Costs can be more predictable on site. Cloud bill shock is a real issue. Organisations are often good at spinning up new capacity, but less good at scaling down what is no longer needed.
That, and egress costs incurred downloading or repatriating data, can make cloud more expensive than it first appears. Local storage costs, even with depreciation and maintenance, will be more predictable, and organisations have already invested in storage arrays, so it makes sense to work them as hard as possible.
There is no set rulebook for which data goes to cloud and which stays on-premise. IT data management teams will have their own criteria, including the costs and capacity of on-premise storage, the contract they have with a cloud provider, and security and regulatory considerations.
For organisations without a policy, a good way to start is to look at the workload and follow the data.
A latency-critical engineering, manufacturing or financial workload will have different needs to customer records in long-term retention. The former is more likely to suit local flash storage, the latter large-scale cloud object options.
Application requirements are another factor to consider. If an application needs rapid, low latency access to data, then keeping storage and compute close makes sense. However, this could be local storage or cloud storage. It depends where the application resides.
Data sources are another important consideration. Highly instrumented systems that ingest data frequently such as in manufacturing benefit from local or even edge storage. If users are widely distributed across the business or data is captured directly from consumers, then cloud storage might be optimal, especially object storage with its single global namespace.
Any storage infrastructure project should ideally start with a data discovery and cataloguing exercise.
The ideal data storage strategy is one that meets the demands of the business for its data, integrates with its current applications and application roadmap, and meets financial and operational requirements.
These will include cost, including management and other overheads, and the ability to scale. Factors such as resilience and business continuity will also play a part.For these reasons, most firms opt for a hybrid approach.
Gartner, for example, believes that 60% of firms will implement hybrid cloud file deployments by 2026, a significant increase from the 20% that did so in 2023.
However, there is no one single definition of hybrid storage. It can include multicloud infrastructure as well as local and cloud storage volumes. Firms with sensitive or high-value data will also want to consider private cloud options.
At its simplest, hybrid storage should allow firms to hold data locally, or on private or public clouds, with applications able to access data regardless of location. A data fabric is a key part of this, as is good understanding of which applications use which datasets and how information moves across the organisation.
Firms need to work with vendors that support hybrid storage. Most now do, but generally the easier route is to add cloud capacity to support on-premise architecture. This could be to add features such as archiving, burstable capacity or cloud backups.
Working backwards from the cloud to add on-premise storage is less common, although possible through technology such as AWS Outposts.
Either way, the best storage strategy is one that plays to the advantages of cloud and local platforms, but can change where data goes as the business changes.
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Hybrid cloud storage vs on-prem: What data goes where? - ComputerWeekly.com
Box cloud storage review: the original – TechRadar
Box is one of the original players in the cloud storage space. It provided file syncing and storage services long before companies like Apple and Microsoft entered the market. As a result, it has been widely regarded as one of the best cloud storage services available, offering a wide range of features and options and being accessible across various platforms.
Box stands out with its business packages but also caters to consumers. It focuses on syncing files within a dedicated folder rather than backing up entire systems and hard drives.
Box offers various paid-for plans, including a free tier with 10GB of free cloud storage and a 250MB file size limit.
The Personal Pro plan costs $14 monthly and provides 100GB of storage with a 5GB upload limit. However, it's not as cost-effective as similar offers from Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Dropbox, where 2TB is available for around $10 monthly.
The Starter plan is available for smaller teams of three users or less, offering 100GB of storage for $7 per user per month, with a file size limit reduced to 2GB.
Business plans provide unlimited storage, higher file size limits, and better integration with productivity tools. The plans start with the Business plan at $20 per user per month, followed by the Business Plus plan at $33 per user per month, and the Enterprise subscription at $47 per user per month. An Enterprise Plus plan is also available, with pricing determined after Box gets to know your business.
All plan types offer a 25% discount for annual subscriptions. However, due to the 100GB maximum storage limit for individual users, Box may be less suitable for personal use and more beneficial for businesses.
The Box interface tends to stay basic and minimal across its multiple apps, but that's not necessarily a negative. Its decidedly polished and straightforward to use, although we would like to see a few more options and features up front rather than hidden behind menus. That simple design carries through to the mobile apps for Android and iOS too, making file access easy on the go.
Box really does feel fully integrated into the Windows and macOS operating systems. We really can't give it much higher praise than that. A downside to mention is that there's no way of throttling bandwidth use when you've got a pile of files to transfer. We did find the syncing process speedy and responsive though, providing some of the best upload and download speeds weve tested among other competitors.
The web experience is slick and easily navigated. Pulling up the most recent changes to your files can be done with ease, for example, along with creating a list of favorite locations within your Box folders that can get done with a click. Its clear that a huge portion of the companys investment has been poured into its user experience, which goes a long way towards streamlining the process and making it an easy service to use.
Also appreciated is the auto-delete feature to set some files and folders to go away on a specific date (though you can only access this if you're on one of the paid-for packages).
The mobile app looks great, and integrates well with native file management, however the best functionality comes from using the Box app directly. Unlike the desktop client, there is some degree of control when it comes to network usage, but even this is just a warning for smartphones when uploading or downloading files over 20MB in size.
The automatic camera backup - disabled by default and buried deep in the settings - makes it one of the best photo cloud storage services for securely saving images and videos. But remember that videos may not upload due to the 250MB limit on free accounts or up to 5GB limit for personal plans.
Additionally, Box interfaces well with third-party apps and plug-ins, blending into the background and feeling like a native feature and not an add-on. In plenty of situations, there isn't really a Box interface as such, which might be a plus or a minus against the service, depending on your perspective. Taken as a whole, the years that Box has had to refine its software offerings definitely is apparent.
Taking the Dropbox approach to cloud storage, Box sets up a specific folder on your Windows or macOS computer, and then keeps all of its contents in sync with the cloud along with any other devices with Box installed.
Similar to Dropbox, Box neatly integrates itself with File Explorer on Windows or Finder on macOS. When we installed the Windows client on our test machine, it automatically created a 'Box' mounted volume to which we could store files and folders.
You're also given the choice to have all of your files downloaded for offline access, or to keep them online and transfer them when needed. This is useful as while you can still access files and folders in your cloud drive when online, they won't take up extra space on your local hard drive.
Although it's not a solution to back up absolutely everything on your hard drive with OS, settings and all, Box has different strengths. This is a cloud storage platform, not a cloud backup solution.
The sharing of files and folders is a simple and straightforward task, whether you need to collaborate with other people on something or just for generating a link to be distributed to whoever needs it. Businesses can benefit as Box integrates smoothly with Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and Adobe Creative Cloud, among other software packages. And it's really at the business end of the spectrum where the service is most impressive. Youll find plenty of other integrations, including Slack, Airtable, Tableau. In fact, for the most well-rounded cloud storage thats capable of handling the ultimate workflow and sharing needs, its easy to recommend Box.
The best way to see the myriad of extra features Box can incorporate is to sign in via the web interface and open the 'App Center'. From here you can see all the online services with which Box is compatible, like Slack. You don't need to install extra tools to open documents in the free online version of Microsoft Office Apps or GSuite apps.
Keeping this in mind, the team management features are par excellence: controlling access to files and folders, seeing who is collaborating on what, checking the use of files and data across an entire country, and so on. For a large company that has a need to manage cloud storage data in complex ways, Box is easily one of the best options out there, while remaining aware that for everyone else, it's not quite as compelling.
Its worth mentioning that the free account is fairly limited in its uses, but the 10GB of storage is up there with some of the best, with no need to provide payment details. Currently, you can increase this by another 5GB simply by installing the Android or iOS app on a mobile device and signing in. If you use a business email address to do this, you're given an extra 20GB of storage.
File uploading for the free version is limited to a rather small 250MB, unlike the 2GB or 5GB limits imposed on paid-for personal accounts, and up to 150GB for business accounts. Note this limit only applies to individual files as during our test with a free Box account we were able to upload 625MB of data spread across multiple files.
According to Box.com's support pages, free accounts can access only one previous version of a file. Our tests didn't bear this out. Still, if you sign up for a Personal Pro or Starter subscription you can access up to 10 or 25 previous file versions respectively.
Box takes security very seriously indeed there's AES 256-bit encryption as standard and data is transmitted via TLS. The platform also supports other encryption ciphers such as RC4, although this is generally considered very insecure and we recommend sticking with the default options unless you're a power user. If you need full end-to-end encryption (so not even Box can get at your files in an emergency), it's available via Box KeySafe.
Two-factor authentication is included here as well, which adds another layer of security to your account- even if someone manages to have your username and password.
The mobile app adds an extra layer of security with a passcode or biometric barrier - and this can be a different passcode to the one you would usually use to log in to your tablet or smartphone.
Each and every file transfer, login and even a Box application installation is tracked and logged, and by the addition of the full Admin console, you get even greater auditing and control options. Anytime a file or folder is accessed, you can be informed by email (so for example, when someone says they read your report, youll know that they're being less than truthful). Finally, a full range of compliance and regulatory tools are on offer as well, and it all adds up to a very secure and comprehensive service indeed.
We tested Boxs sync speed, file recovery, and versioning on a Windows 11 virtual machine using the Box desktop client. Our virtual machine was connected to the internet via fiber broadband and a VPN server, which, in our speed tests, demonstrated average upload speeds of 2250 Mbps.
We were impressed that Box is one of the fastest cloud storage services we've tested. During our evaluation, our test folder, which contained 232 files (589MB total) across seven folders, synced in just under 60 seconds. This aligns with our device's upload speed.
We observed that when the test folder was copied to the default Box volume, it was stored in the cloud but not locally on the device. However, it's worth noting that Box can also be configured to store an offline copy.
During the test, we checked if it was possible to recover files after deleting them from the application directory.
We deleted the test folder from the mounted Box volume and received a warning that this action would permanently remove the files from our device, as there was no offline copy.
Next, we used the Box client to access the Box cloud web page. We quickly located the deleted files in the trash and selected the Restore option. Please note that deleted items are usually kept in the trash folder for 30 days by default, but specific business or admin accounts may be able to extend this period.
Once we restored the files, we used the preview feature on the Box.com website to open some recovered images and audio files to confirm that all our data had been successfully recovered. We were pleased with how smooth and user-friendly the process was.
We were surprised by the versioning feature on Box, which allows you to view a file's previous states and roll back changes. The Box website claims it's possible to recover one previous file version with a free account.
We placed a test Word document in the Box mounted volume, made one edit, and opened the Box Cloud online portal. The file was present, and we noticed a "V2" tag next to it, indicating that Box had multiple copies of it.
However, when we attempted to open the file to restore it, Box informed us that we would need a paid subscription to restore V2. While the service works perfectly, it was disappointing that we couldn't recover the original file, given that only one change was made.
Box offered to open our test document online in Microsoft Word or Google Docs. If we had made our changes there, we might have been able to restore the document without paying for a subscription.
Box certainly tailors its offering for the business market, even though it does have a couple of plans for consumers too. It's stacked with collaboration, data compliance and automations, and makes plenty of APIs available in case you need something bespoke. Certainly with one of the more expensive plans, with unlimited storage and useful tools, it's an appealing overall package.
Alternately, for consumers that want to stretch every dollar, that money is arguably better spent elsewhere. Box's apps aren't quite as user-friendly as the ones offered by its rivals, and it gets expensive depending on what you need. While it's a great option for cloud storage and syncing, it's not a great option for everyone.
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Box cloud storage review: the original - TechRadar
TS Cloud and Google link arms, dangle AI data readiness package Blocks and Files – Blocks & Files
Google Cloud Premier Partner TS Cloud has announced the launch of its Enterprise AI Development and Management Service, which aims to help businesses build and deploy their own AI platforms, using their own data.
The overall goal is to allow firms to take the first steps towards integrating AI into their daily business operations, says the Singapore-headquartered provider.
Founded in 2017, TS Cloud operates across the Asia-Pacific region and provides a variety of cloud services to organizations across different industries.
The Enterprise AI Development and Management Service leverages Google Vertex AI, combined with other Google Cloud services, to provide the offering, which is charged on a monthly basis after initial deployment costs.
Users only need to prepare their data, and TS Cloud will handle the AI development, training, and integration into the users environment. This allows businesses to interact with and search their internal data using AI, significantly reducing the time and costs associated with internal communication, the developer promises.
The main benefits cited for the service include improved operational efficiency through optimized business processes as a result of AI automation, cost reduction by minimizing manual labor, and quick implementation by easily building and launching AI with simple steps.
There is also professional support from a dedicated team throughout the implementation, maintenance, and training phases. Data security requirements are promised to be met as a result of the data being stored in Google Cloud Storage, protecting it from external access.
Practical applications supported by the service include an onboarding hub for new hires, an internal catalog/product search, an inter-departmental help desk, and customer support assistance.
In these applications, AI can take over tasks that previously required significant time and effort from internal resources, saving both time and costs, TS Cloud noted.
As for the service pricing, AI development and delivery starts at SGD 4,400 ($3,260). Initially, a 50 percent deposit is required to create a test environment, where the AIs responses to real data can be evaluated. If deemed suitable for business use, the remaining 50 percent will be charged to deploy the production environment.
A maintenance and additional training fee of SGD 440 ($326) per month is then levied after delivery, which includes Google Cloud usage fees. For these two prices, Blocks & Files has asked TS Cloud what the data capacity is for the AI workloads handled as part of the package. When we get the information well include it here.
Earlier this year, Nasuni added a data management capability to its distributed cloud-based file services, pitched as a way to get unstructured data ready for use by AI processes.
And in May, data collaboration startup Atlan raised $105 million in a Series C round, to help it continue developing its control plane-based software, as demand for AI data readiness solutions increases. That raise brought total funding to $206 million.
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TS Cloud and Google link arms, dangle AI data readiness package Blocks and Files - Blocks & Files
Australia is moving top secret intelligence data to the cloud with a new billion-dollar AWS deal – TechRadar
Australias government wants help from Amazon Web Services (AWS) to build a super top-secret cloud for its law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
The country's leaders say the new AWS platform will be purpose-built for Australia's Defence and National Intelligence Community agencies to securely host our country's most sensitive information.
The project will apparently cost AUD$2 billion ($1.35 billion) over a period of ten years.
The Australian government says the project is expected to improve our ability to securely share and analyze our nation's most classified data at speed and at scale, and provides opportunities to harness leading technologies including artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Australia has also touted the project will allow intelligence communities down-under to better collaborate with their US counterparts, but will remain fully sovereign according to Australian officials.
The Register points out this presents a tricky situation whereby the cloud will host sensitive data while also interoperating with Five Eyes, so how Australia will navigate the fine line between sovereignty and interoperability is yet to be determined.
No details have been revealed yet on where the cloud will be located, ownership of the infrastructure, or payment arrangements.
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Australias first announcement of its intention to pursue a top secret cloud was in late 2023, with Andrew Shearer, director-general of national intelligence saying, What that will do is obviously transform how we do our work as agencies but also it'll open up a shared collaborative space that will really, I think, reinforce this sense of working together as a genuine community and bringing all those different capabilities to bear on problems.
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Australia is moving top secret intelligence data to the cloud with a new billion-dollar AWS deal - TechRadar
Best practices for protection from ransomware in cloud storage – TechTarget
Cloud storage is a tempting target for ransomware attacks because of its connections, accessibility and availability. Companies use cloud storage for their customer data and intellectual property for the same reasons.
Enterprises can take multiple measures to defend against ransomware in cloud storage. Prevention is essential to a modern cybersecurity strategy, especially for an enterprise that uses cloud storage and hybrid architectures.
Know what your company stores in the cloud, including its state and purpose.
Ensure relevant stakeholders regularly take cloud storage inventory, which can then centralize the information for easy access.
Not all data security is the same, and not all is needed for cloud storage.
Classify your data to help determine the monitoring and detection needed on data that matters most. For example, public-facing data does not require additional security measures beyond what cloud storage offers. Confidential information, IP-protected insights, financial data and personally identifiable information need complex protection and monitoring.
Protect data and workloads that access cloud storage through appropriate access controls, such as role-based access control, zero trust, multifactor authentication and the principle of least privilege.
Gated access prevents ransomware attackers from getting secondary access to cloud storage through unpatched vulnerabilities, misconfigurations and mismatched access accounts.
Network segments and perimeters can slow down cyberattackers' progress in the network regardless of their entry point.
Use load balancing tools with firewall rules that regulate the flow of authenticated traffic. Configure company policies and protocols for IP address and port access for authenticated use only. Secure and monitor all connections with other workloads to and from the cloud storage.
Sixty-eight percent of all breaches include a human element, such as privilege misuse, stolen credentials or social engineering, according to Verizon's "2024 Data Breach Investigations Report." Regular cybersecurity awareness training is critical because cyberattacks are always evolving.
Educated users and employees can help the company avoid the financial, legal and reputational costs of a ransomware attack in cloud storage. A few elements to include in ransomware training follow:
Ransomware attacks evolve quickly because criminals use AI and large language models to power their attacks. Likewise, ransomware protection has started to use AI and machine learning to defend against attacks.
Many top security products and cloud providers, such as Microsoft and Nvidia, use AI-driven adaptive protection features to automatically assess and block network connections and data transfers based on real-time predictions.
Incident response processes should include ransomware procedures, and more specifically, cloud storage ransomware attack procedures.
Consider looking beyond the first-line response teams to ensure the relevant teams know what to do. Teams that don't typically interact with cloud storage or incident response but might be impacted by a ransomware attack should have cloud-specific playbooks available.
Julia Borgini is a freelance technical copywriter and content marketing strategist who helps B2B technology companies publish valuable content.
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Best practices for protection from ransomware in cloud storage - TechTarget
Cloud Breaches Impact Nearly Half of Organizations – Infosecurity Magazine
Nearly half (44%) of organizations have experienced a cloud data breach, with 14% reporting having had an incident in the past 12 months, according to Thales 2024 Cloud Security Study.
Human error and misconfigurations occurred in 31% of breaches, the top root cause of cloud breaches. This was significantly lower compared to last years report, where over half (55%) of cloud incidents were caused by human error.
Exploitation of known vulnerabilities was the next highest root cause of cloud breaches, at 28%, representing a seven-point increase compared to Thales 2023 report.
Exploitation of previously unknown vulnerabilities/zero days accounted for 24% of breaches.
Failure to use multi-factor authentication (MFA) was another significant cause of cloud breaches, identified in 17% of cases.
Read here: Vulnerability Exploitation on the Rise as Attackers Ditch Phishing
The biggest cloud targets cited by respondents were SaaS applications (31%), cloud storage (30%) and cloud management infrastructure (26%).
Of those who identified cloud management infrastructure as a target, 72% identified underlying infrastructure compromise as a target of increasing attacks.
The Thales report highlighted the expanding cloud attack surface for attackers, with 66% of organizations using more than 25 SaaS applications.
Additionally, 47% of corporate data held in the cloud is sensitive. Despite this, less than 10% of enterprises have encrypted 80% or more of their cloud data.
Nearly half of respondents said they agree or strongly agree that it is more difficult to manage compliance and privacy due to cloud complexity a similar proportion to the previous three Thales Cloud Security reports.
This complexity challenges the management of encrypted content in cloud environments, with 53% indicating that they use five or more key management systems.
The researchers said that this level of complexity raises the risk of human error occurring.
Sebastien Cano, Senior Vice President for Cloud Protection and Licensing activities at Thales, commented: The scalability and flexibility that the cloud offers is highly compelling for organizations, so its no surprise it is central to their security strategies.
He added, However, as the cloud attack surface expands, organizations must get a firm grasp on the data they have stored in the cloud, the keys theyre using to encrypt it, and the ability to have complete visibility into who is accessing the data and how it being used. It is vital to solve these challenges now, especially as data sovereignty and privacy have emerged as top concerns in this years research.
Around two-thirds (65%) of respondents identified cloud security as a current concern, and cloud security was the top category of security spending, reported by 33% of all respondents.
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Cloud Breaches Impact Nearly Half of Organizations - Infosecurity Magazine
5 Things I Never Back Up to the Cloud – How-To Geek
Backing up your files to the cloud is super convenient since you can access them anywhere and on any device. However, there is a chance that your cloud storage could become compromised. If that ever happens, you'll be glad not to have the things on this list stored in it.
How secure your cloud files are depends on your cloud storage service, but if you use top-tier cloud services like Google Drive/One or Icedrive, you can rest easy that your data is mostly secure.
I say mostly because, no matter how many security measures the best cloud services put in place, youre still entrusting your files to a third party, and doing so creates vulnerabilities that a malicious actor can exploit to access your data.
One such vulnerability is that cloud service providers are very attractive targets for hackers and scammers. Most of the time, there's nothing to worry about as these cloud storage services have robust security systems that protect against cyber threats. But sometimes, they fail, and this can result in data breaches. An example is Dropbox, which suffered a breach that exposed customer emails, phone numbers, and passwords.
Another thing to consider is that not all cloud storage services have strict privacy policies. Some are more lax than others and do not eliminate the possibility of the company or its employees accessing the files you store.
You could also inadvertently compromise your cloud account by using a weak password or falling victim to a phishing scam.
So, while cloud storage is generally safe, its vulnerabilities make local storage a better option for some types of information. That's why I never back up these five things to the cloud.
Storing explicit images or videos on the cloud is a truly terrible idea. If your cloud storage is compromised, these images can be stolen, putting you at risk of a sextortion scam or even having these explicit images disseminated on the internet.
This is exactly what played out in the infamous 2014 iCloud celebrity photo leakan incident where cybercriminals accessed the iCloud accounts of several celebrities and obtained explicit photos. The pictures were then distributed on the internet, causing mental strain for the victims.
A more recent reminder of the risk of storing explicit photos was the iOS bug that caused pictures users had deleted months or even years ago to reappear on iPhones and iPads. Apple clarified that the cause of the bug was a corrupt database entry stored locally on the device, and not an issue with iCloud. But it was an unsettling reminder that deleted files are not truly gone until they are overwritten.
That means that explicit photos you upload to the cloud could still exist on a server somewhere, and could potentially be recovered long after they have been supposedly deleted. The chances of such a thing happening are slim, but with such high stakes, it's better to play it safe and keep all your NSFW pictures off the cloud.
Scanning your IDs and uploading them to the cloud can seem like a convenient and clever solution to carrying around physical IDs, but it comes with significant risks. If your cloud storage account is compromised, malicious actors can gain access to your personal information, which they can use for identity theft, phishing, and social engineering attacks.
Moreover, these malicious actors might also obtain crucial information about you that could compromise other accounts. For example, they may learn answers to common security questions like In what city were you born? or What high school did you attend? With this information, they can easily reset your passwords and gain access to other sensitive accounts.
Storing sensitive financial documents like tax returns, credit card numbers, and bank account details in the cloud can expose you to financial fraud. If your account is ever breached, cybercriminals can use this information to take out loans in your name or access your accounts, leaving you with large financial losses and debt you didn't anticipate.
Even if you don't lose any money or wind up saddled with any fraudulent debt, sorting out the mess is going to require time and effort. It is best to avoid the risk entirely.
These days, it feels like you need an account for everything, and it is nearly impossible to keep track of the different username and password combinations for all your accounts. Some people try to get around this by creating a text file to store their passwords and then saving it in the cloud for easy access.
However, storing all your passwords in a single file on the cloud is like handing cybercriminals the keys to your entire digital life. If they breach one layer of defense, they gain access to every account you have, leading to a cascade of security failures.
A much safer alternative is to use a password manager. With a password manager, you only need to remember one master password. The manager will securely handle the rest, generating strong, unique passwords for each of your accounts, autofilling them when you log in, and alerting you if any of your passwords are compromised.
It's a good idea to store backups of your manuscripts and other intellectual property locally, rather than in the cloud. Otherwise, if your cloud storage is breached and your work is stolen, it can be nearly impossible to regain control.
Instead of storing your sensitive files in the cloud, you'd be better off backing up your data to an external hard drive, encrypting it, and storing it somewhere safe. It might make it more difficult for you to access your data, but when it comes to sensitive data, I believe the certainty of security far outweighs the convenience of accessibility.
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5 Things I Never Back Up to the Cloud - How-To Geek
AWS’ 10 Hottest New Products And Tools Of 2024 (So Far) – CRN
From Amazon Q Business and AI Agents to new cloud storage and Amazon Bedrock tools, here are the 10 coolest new AWS products launched in 2024 so far.
From its new Amazon Q Developer and Business products to new cloud storage and Amazon Bedrock offerings, Amazon Web Services product innovation engine has been on fire in 2024, specifically around artificial intelligence.
The world leader in cloud computing is pouring billions into new products and AWS data centers that power the $100 billion companys offerings and services.
AWS new generative AI products and AI-powered cybersecurity innovation are top of mind for the companys new CEO, Matt Garman.
With security as the absolute baseline, the next most critical thing for AWS today is innovating on behalf of our customers in the realm of generative AI, Garman said in a recent blog post. Generative AI is going to disrupt and change almost every industry and customer experience in the world. Its an area where we have invested heavily and will continue to do so.
[Related: AWS New CEO Garman Unveils Leadership Changes]
AWS generated a record $25 billion in revenue during first-quarter 2024, an increase of 17 percent year over year.
The Seattle-based company is the worldwide market-share leader in cloud computing services, owning 31 percent share of the global market in first-quarter 2024, followed by Microsoft at 25 percent share and Google Cloud at 11 percent share.
With Garman now at the helm, he looks to take AWS GenAI product road map to the next level.
Its our job to help customers easily build any type of generative AI applications and make sure they perform well, do so securely, responsibly, and in the most sustainable way possible, said Garman. Whatever it takes, when it comes to generative AI, AWS is well positioned to build it.
CRN breaks down the 10 biggest new AWS product launches of 2024 so far that every partner should know about.
Amazon Q Developer
Becoming generally available this year, Amazon Q is AWS new generative AI-powered assistant designed for work.
Customers can use Amazon Q to have conversations, solve problems, generate content, gain insight and take action by connecting to their companys information repositories, code, data and enterprise systems. The new GenAI collaborative assistant helps business users complete tasks using simple natural language prompts.
Launched in April, Amazon Q Developer aims to reimagine the developer experience across the entire software development life cycle.
Amazon Q Developer allows developers to offload time-consuming, manual tasks inside or outside AWS. Capabilities include Q&A and diagnosing common errors in the AWS Management Console; Amazon Q data integration to let users build data integration pipelines using natural language; conversational coding and inline code generation, and Amazon Q Developer Agent for software development.
Amazon Q Developer also includes Amazon Q Developer Agent for code transformation, a feature that can accelerate users application maintenance, upgrades and migration in minutes. In addition, the offering lists and describes resources in a users AWS account and can now help the user retrieve and analyze cost data from AWS Cost Explorer.
Guardrails For Amazon Bedrock
In one of the biggest security launches of the year, AWS unleashed Guardrails for Amazon Bedrock.
Guardrails for Amazon Bedrock implements safeguards customized to a business application requirements. AWS touts its Bedrock platform as the easiest way for businesses to build and scale generative AI-based applications.
The new Guardrails offering evaluates user input and foundation model responses based on use-case-specific policies and provides an additional layer of safeguards regardless of the underlying foundation model.
It has capabilities to safeguard your generative AI applications with more responsible AI policies. So now you have a consistent level of protection across all of your GenAI development activities, said AWS former CEO, Adam Selipsky, this year.
Guardrails can be applied across foundation models, including Anthropic Claude, Meta Llama 2, Cohere Command, AI21 Labs Jurassic and Amazon Titan Text, as well as fine-tuned models. Customers can create multiple guardrails, each configured with a different combination of controls, and use these guardrails across different applications and use cases.
Amazon WorkSpaces Thin Client
AWS recently debuted its new Amazon WorkSpaces Thin Client device for virtual desktop access for a price tag starting at $195 per device.
The hardware has purpose-built firmware and software, an operating system engineered for employees who need simple and secure access to applications in the cloud, and software that allows IT to remotely manage it.
Amazon WorkSpaces Thin Client is optimized for the AWS Cloud. For the first time, AWS has adapted a consumer devicethe Fire TV Cubeinto an external hardware product for AWS customers.
For a significant portion of the workforce, some form of remote and hybrid work is here to stay, particularly in industries such as customer service, technical support and health care, said Amazon in a blog post this year. Employees need quick, reliable access to a variety of business applications and dataregardless of where they are working. Enter the Amazon WorkSpaces Thin Client.
The devices are sold through Amazon Business, the companys B2B marketplace, with customers being able to order preconfigured hardware.
Amazon Bedrock Studio
Amazon Bedrock Studio offers a web-based experience to accelerate the development of generative AI applications by providing a rapid prototyping environment with key Amazon Bedrock features, including Knowledge Bases, Agents and Guardrails.
Amazon Bedrock Studio provides an easy way for developers across an organization to experiment with large language models (LLMs) and other foundationamodels, collaborate on projects and iterate on generative AI applications.
To enable Bedrock Studio, AWS administrators can configure one or more workspaces for their organization in the AWS Management Console for Bedrock and grant permissions to individuals or groups to use the workspace.
Amazon Q Business
Amazon Q Business recently became generally available and is aimed at revolutionizing the way that employees interact with organizational knowledge and enterprise systems.
Amazon Q Business helps users get comprehensive answers to complex questions and take actions in a unified web-based chat experienceall using an enterprises existing content, data and systems.
The offering connects seamlessly to over 40 popular enterprise systems, including Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Microsoft 365 and Salesforce. It ensures that users access content securely with their existing credentials using single sign-on, according to their permissions, and enterprise-level access controls.
Amazon Q Business also recently introduced custom plugins. Admins can connect any third-party application with custom plugins so that employees can use natural language prompts to perform actions like submitting time-off requests and sending meeting invites directly through Amazon Q Business.
Amazon S3 Express One Zone
On the cloud storage front, AWS unleashed Amazon S3 Express One Zone this year.
Amazon S3 Express One Zone is a high-performance, single-Availability Zone storage class purpose-built to deliver consistent single-digit millisecond data access for customers most frequently accessed data and latency-sensitive applications.
With S3 Express One Zone, storage automatically scales up or down based on a customers consumption and need, while users no longer need to manage multiple storage systems for low-latency workloads.
Amazon S3 Express One supports millions of requests per minute, with consistent single-digit millisecond latencythe fastest object storage in the cloud, said AWS Selipsky earlier this year. And up to 10 times faster than S3 standard storage.
While AWS customers have always been able to choose a specific AWS Region to store their S3 data, S3 Express One Zone enables them to select a specific AWS Availability Zone within an AWS Region to store their data. Customers can choose to co-locate their storage with their compute resources in the same Availability Zone to further optimize performance. Data is stored in a different bucket typean S3 directory bucketwhich supports hundreds of thousands of requests per second.
AI Agents for Amazon Bedrock
AI Agents for Amazon Bedrock enable generative AI applications to execute multistep tasks across company systems and data sources.
Agents for Amazon Bedrock securely connects to a companys data sources, automatically converts data into numerical representations, and augments the user request with the right information to generate an accurate and relevant response.
AWS new simplified agent creation lets users define an action schema and get the control back to perform those actions without needing to create a specific AWS Lambda function. Agents also added support for Anthropic Claude 3 Haiku and Sonnet to help build faster and more intelligent agents.
Agents for Amazon Bedrock create a prompt from the developer-provided instructions, API details needed to complete the tasks, and company data source details from knowledge bases. The automatic prompt creation saves weeks of experimenting with prompts for different foundation models.
Overall, AWS said Agents for Amazon Bedrock enhance operational efficiency, customer service and decision-making while reducing costs and facilitating innovation.
New AWS Generative AI Partner Competency
On of the most important new AWS tools on the partner front was this years launch of the new AWS Generative AI Competency.
The new competency is designed to feature partners who have technical proficiency and a track record of customer success when implementing GenAI, with the goal of winning more AI customer deals.
Leveraging technologies such as Amazon Bedrock, Amazon Q and Amazon SageMaker JumpStart, these partners have deep expertise building and deploying groundbreaking applications across industries, said Selipsky earlier this year. Our AWS Generative AI Competency Partners will make it easier than ever for customers to innovate with enterprise-grade security and privacy, choice of foundation models, generative AI applications, and a high-performance, low-cost infrastructure.
The AWS Generative AI Competency will include AWS Partner Network (APN) Technology Partners and APN Services Partners.
Software path partners will have to show their proficiency in either generative AI applications, foundation models and application development, or in infrastructure and data.
Services path partners will need to show proficiency in end-to-end generative AI consulting.
Nvidias New Blackwell GPU Platform Comes To AWS
Nvidia says its new Blackwell GPU platform will enable up to 30 times greater inference performance and consume 25 times less energy for large AI models.
Nvidias Blackwell platform is coming to the AWS cloud with the goal of speeding up inference workloads for resource-intensive, multitrillion-parameter language models.
AWS will provide the Nvidia GB200 Grace Blackwell Superchip and B100 Tensor Core GPUs on its cloud platform.
Not only will we offer Nvidias new Grace Blackwell GPU platform running seamlessly on AWS, were integrating it with our industry-leading networking, virtualization and security capabilitiesmaking it possible for customers to build and run multitrillion-parameter large language models faster, at massive scale, and more securely than anywhere else, said Selipsky.
In addition, AWS offers new Nvidia Grace Blackwell GPU-based Amazon EC2 instances and Nvidia DGX Cloud to accelerate performance of building and running inference on multitrillion-parameter LLMs.
Amazon Bedrock Revamped
The Amazon Bedrock of 2024 looks very different from the Bedrock of 2023.
Although not entirely a new product, AWS flagship AI offering, Amazon Bedrock, has been significantly revamped in 2024.
This includes a new Custom Model Import where users can import customized models into Amazon Bedrock to accelerate generative AI application development. The feature allows customers to leverage their prior model customization investments within Amazon Bedrock and consume them in the same manner as Bedrocks existing models.
Amazons Titan Image Generator model also is now generally available in Amazon Bedrock, helping users easily build and scale generative AI applications with new image generation and image editing capabilities.
A slew of the newest foundation models launched by third parties in 2024 have also become available on Bedrock, including Mistral Small FM as well as Anthropics new Claude 3 models such as Opus and Sonnet.
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AWS' 10 Hottest New Products And Tools Of 2024 (So Far) - CRN