Security has always weighed heavily on executives' minds as the risk of using public cloud services. Almost every survey finds that security is the number-one challenge or showstopper when it comes to moving things to the cloud.

However, there's a growing sense that things may be more secure in the public cloud, especially since cloud providers pay a lot of attention to it, and make it their business to keep up with the latest security technology.

That's the gist of a recent survey of 210 IT executives conducted by SADA Systems. SADA specializes in cloud migrations, so it's to be expected they would want to demonstrate that cloud security fears are waning. But this is a trend that has been evolving in recent years, with an awareness that things are getting so complex, and the external and internal security threats are getting so savage, that it's just too much for a corporate IT shop to attempt to do on its own.

The survey's key takeaway was that IT managers are more confident in the security and reliability of the public cloud than they used to be, and as a result they are running more data and applications on public cloud infrastructure. The survey found that 51% said data security is better in the cloud than in their own data centers, and 58% said the public cloud was the most secure, flexible and cost-effective solution for their organizations. In addition, 13% said they "trusted public cloud providers more than their internal teams" to handle data and applications.
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Other issues affecting public cloud adoption focus on control, or the loss thereof. At least 40% of IT executives said they were hesitant to move to public cloud services due to concerns about stability and the public cloud's long-term viability. If a cloud service provider began to hit a financial slump, 34% would back away from that vendor. Another one-third were concerned about costs escalating beyond their control.
The survey also finds that 84% of respondents are using public cloud infrastructure today, led by Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services. Migrations to any public cloud provider typically take three to six months to accomplish (indicated by 45%), and 23% said it took less than three months.

The 2016 Rio Olympics are how history and there was no shortage of tech at this year's event. Athletes used all kinds of gadgets to help them train and stay fit, from heads-up displays used by cyclists to jump trackers worn by the volleyball team. Here are a few of the gadgets that made it to Rio.
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Smart Cycling Glasses

You may have seen U.S. cyclists wearing Solos smart glasses, a kind of Google Glass for athletes. The glasses have a tiny heads-up display that shows metrics like heart rate, pace, distance, and cadence. The data appears in real-time, so cyclists know if they are moving at their projected pace. The glasses have built-in headphones and can run for around six hours before needing a charge. The Solos glasses are expected to become available next Spring and should cost around $500.

Joint and Muscle Therapy

Athletes with the U.S. gymnastics team used LumiWave's Infrared Light Therapy device to treat minor muscle and joint pain. Each of its eight "pods" beams infrared light into body tissue, which helps increase blood flow and provide short-term pain relief. The device has been cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration "for temporary relief of minor muscle pain and spasms and minor joint pain and stiffness." While gymnasts have access to it now, the device is on pre-order to the general public starting at $449.




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Jump Tracker

Wearables provide analytics data to help athletes train. The U.S. women's volleyball team used the Vert Wearable Jump Monitor, which clips onto clothing to track how high, how far and how often each player jumps. The data is sent to an app to help coaches ensure athletes don't over-exert themselves, which can lead to injury. It can also be used for basketball and other sports. You can buy your own for $125.

 


Visa's Payment Ring

​Crime was a big concern at the Rio Olympics. Visa provided a wearable payments ring to its sponsored athletes at the games, allowing them to make cashless payments. Tap the ring on a compatible payment terminal and you're done. Visa is also linking pre-paid cards to payment bands and smartwatches like the Swatch Bellamy.

One of the issues that are often discussed when talking about smart homes is the ability to monitor energy consumption down each appliance and light fixture. Three weeks ago, in our issue 3-5, we covered a story about Sense, a gadget that is supposed to diagnose your electrical usage – by appliance.

Now, researchers at MIT, led by Professor of Electrical Engineering Steven Leeb, have created a system they say can tell you the power being used by every device in your home with pinpoint accuracy. And they also say it's inexpensive and simple to install.

The system is made up of a postage-stamp-sized sensor that is placed on the incoming power line to a person's home and software that analyzes the spikes and patterns in voltage to identify and monitor the energy use of each device. MIT News says that the software can "tell the difference between every different kind of light, motor, and other device in the home and show exactly which ones go on and off, at what times."

One of the key advantages to this system is that it retains the privacy of a user's home energy information. The information stays within a user's home and isn't shared with anyone else.

The system has taken Leeb and his graduate students ten years to research and develop, tackling problems and finding solutions bit by bit. First, coming up with a device that was simple to install and then how to interpret the data from the sensors to find each device's signature to monitor it.
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When the system becomes a commercial product, Leeb says it will cost only about $25 to $30 per home and the non-contact sensor can be installed by the homeowner with a zip tie.

This nondescript USB dongle can be used to spy on wireless keyboards from hundreds of feet away. (Image: Bastille)

Your wireless keyboard may be giving up your secrets.

With an antenna and wireless dongle worth a few bucks, and a few lines of Python code, a hacker can passively and covertly record everything you type on your wireless keyboard from hundreds of feet away. Usernames, passwords, credit card data, your manuscript or company's balance sheet -- whatever you're working on at the time.

It's an attack that can't be easily prevented, and one that almost nobody thought of -- except the security researchers who found it.

Security firm Bastille calls it "KeySniffer," a set of vulnerabilities in conventional, low-cost non-Bluetooth wireless keyboards that can allow a hacker to eavesdrop from a distance.

Here's how it works: some wireless keyboards use proprietary and mostly unsecured and untested radio protocols to connect to a computer -- unlike Bluetooth, a known wireless standard that's been tried and tested over the years. These keyboards are always transmitting, making it easy to find and listen in from afar with the right equipment. But because these keystrokes aren't encrypted, a hacker can read anything on a person's display, and directly type on a victim's computer.

The attack is so easy to carry out that almost anyone can do it -- from petty thieves to state-actors.

Marc Newlin, a researcher at the company who found the flaw said it was "pretty alarming" to discover.

"A hacker can 'sniff' all of the keystrokes, as well as inject their own keystrokes on the computer," he explained on the phone this week.

The researchers found that eight out of 12 keyboards from well-known vendors -- including HP, Kensington, and Toshiba -- are at risk of eavesdropping, but the list is far from exhaustive.

The scope of the problem is so significant that the researchers fully expect that "millions" of devices are vulnerable to this new attack. 

Though not all wireless keyboards are created equal and many are not susceptible to the eavesdropping vulnerability, there is an easy fix to a simple problem.
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"Get a wired keyboard," the researchers said.