Research conducted in early 2022 highlights the main concerns of European IT and security decision makers who are adopting hybrid and multi-cloud models. They believe there is significant room for improvement in their visibility of hybrid and multi-cloud workloads, and see visibility as the key to ensuring high levels of security and better performance.

Advanced network observability is in demand

With cybersecurity at the forefront of business concerns, 50% of respondents now recognise the importance of ‘advanced observability’ of the cloud environment. That is, visibility that provides real-time intelligence at the network level and actionable information to mitigate risk.

While both European and US IT managers see visibility as a key element in strengthening cloud security, European-based organisations ranked visibility of cloud traffic, as well as application access and control of data in motion, between 20 and 30 points higher than their US counterparts.

In addition, 64% of European IT managers have made visibility their number one priority when it comes to building a more secure cloud environment.
Cost and complexity are the two confirmed barriers to cloud migration

The Pulse and Gigamon survey also identified cost and complexity as two major barriers to cloud migration. According to the survey, 78% of European IT managers believe that the high cost of cloud makes it more difficult to migrate workloads and applications.

Other migration issues raised include

Finally, the survey results indicate that IT managers want to streamline their approach to the cloud to ensure security and performance are optimised across multiple cloud environments.

• 97% of respondents believe that network bottlenecks and complex cloud incident resolution operations slow down migration to hybrid or multi-cloud
• 99% say teams are not meeting expected application workload SLAs due to the complexity of cloud infrastructures
• 60% believe that the cost and complexity of cloud infrastructure is reducing the budget that would otherwise be required for investment in other mission-critical applications.

In Europe, 68% of respondents said they prefer to manage the security of their working environments with a single source of visibility across the entire environment, rather than working in silos.

“The cloud is now an integral part of business strategies and the speed of migration has accelerated dramatically. This means that organisations are facing a number of challenges for which they were not prepared and for which they did not necessarily budget,” comments Bertrand de Labrouhe, Sales Director Southern Europe at Gigamon France. “It is very positive to see that companies value visibility as a top priority for cloud security, as well as for performance and cost reduction. Ultimately, an advanced level of observability through an overview of all data in motion has never been more valuable for the continuity and success of business development.

Chrome is one of the most used web browsers in the world, if not the most used. Whether on a computer or smartphone, on Android, Chrome OS, Windows, macOS, or iOS, the browser offers a relatively similar experience on all platforms it is present. A visual experience, on the one hand, but also the protection of users. Chrome provides the possibility to save and enter passwords.

Chrome putting security first

Google has updated the protection tools built into Chrome, including those related to passwords. The main new feature is a message that alerts the user if they have entered their credentials on a site whose security has been compromised. Protection against phishing has also been extended.

However, if the identifiers stored at Google are globally secure, they are not necessarily stored outside Chrome. Two situations are potentially at risk: servers of websites where passwords are stored can be attacked, and websites to which users connect can be fraudulent. Google has an answer to both these problems. Today the Mountain View firm detailed how it plans to improve the safety of Chrome users.

The first interesting element: the security alert. If you have saved a password in Chrome and the security of the website associated with that password has been compromised, Chrome displays an alert inviting the user to check the password and change it. This function was first integrated into the Password Checkup extension. It is now extended to Chrome in the Safe Browsing protection package. Log into Chrome with a Google Account for this to work.

Predictive and real-time protection against phishing

The second interesting element is the predictive detection of phishing sites. To understand the interest of this function, let us recall the rules of phishing. It is a fraudulent site that poses as a legitimate site and invites you to enter your login and password to steal your credentials and usurp your identity (or take a few pennies). Google has a list of sites identified as dangerous or potentially dangerous. When you click on a link to a hazardous site, Chrome protects you from it.

This list is updated every 30 minutes. During this time, new fraudulent sites may appear (or old sites may change their address). And you are exposed. Hence the interest of predictive protection, which identifies potentially dangerous sites according to their behavior. This protection already existed for all Chrome users connected to their accounts and having activated synchronization between devices. It now extends to everyone, even without synchronization. It is especially useful if you connect with a device that does not belong to you (such as a public computer).