{"id":204,"date":"2016-03-13T16:40:02","date_gmt":"2016-03-13T16:40:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/press75massive.wpengine.com\/?p=204"},"modified":"2016-03-13T16:40:02","modified_gmt":"2016-03-13T16:40:02","slug":"were-putting-everything-in-the-cloud-and-thats-scary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demos.press75.com\/massive-news\/were-putting-everything-in-the-cloud-and-thats-scary\/","title":{"rendered":"We\u2019re Putting Everything in the Cloud. And That&#8217;s Scary."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/149891765\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" frameborder=\"0\" title=\"The People&#039;s Cloud [Official Trailer]\" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Did you open up a Google doc\u00a0today? You used the cloud. You did it again when you checked email\u00a0and\u00a0Facebook. And when you uploaded that file to\u00a0Dropbox? You used cloud storage. You can see where this is going. The cloud dominates the modern internet. In fact, global cloud IP traffic will reach\u00a0<a class=\"managed-link external-link\" href=\"http:\/\/global%20cloud%20traffic%20will%20reach%206.5%20zettabytes%20annually%20by%20the%20end%20of%202018\/\" target=\"_blank\">6.5 zettabytes<\/a>\u2014or a\u00a0trillion gigabytes\u2014annually by the end of 2018. That\u2019s the equivalent of\u00a0<a class=\"managed-link external-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/blog\/2011\/jun\/29\/zettabyte-data-internet-cisco\" target=\"_blank\">streaming 234 million years<\/a>\u00a0of HD-TV. Everyone from mega-corporations to individual internet users store data in the cloud, both non-sensitive and private\u2014often extremely personal\u2014information.<\/p>\n<p>So what exactly is this mystical\u00a0floating storage device? No, it\u2019s not a \u201cfarting\u2026\u00a0Monty Python cloud\u201d that \u201cemanates the voice of God,\u201d\u00a0nor can it \u201cfit inside a cellphone,\u201d as people semi-seriously\u00a0<a class=\"managed-link external-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.startribune.com\/lifestyle\/276964141.html\" target=\"_blank\">told the <em>Star Tribune<\/em><\/a>. The cloud has\u00a0a physical presence: It\u2019s\u00a0a massive network of\u00a0<a class=\"managed-link external-link\" href=\"http:\/\/mashable.com\/2013\/08\/26\/what-is-the-cloud\/\" target=\"_blank\">multi-functional servers<\/a>\u00a0held in<a class=\"managed-link external-link\" href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/video\/technology\/2014\/09\/03\/tech-cloud-computing-data-center-facebook-google-amazon-storage.cnnmoney\/\" target=\"_blank\">warehouses<\/a> around the world. Apple\u2019s iCloud\u00a0warehouse occupies 200 acres; one of Facebook\u2019s two warehouses occupies the square footage of an 81-story building (powered by 950 miles of cable).\u00a0Whenever you upload a piece of information, it crosses the transom to a tactile location and settles down in\u00a0servers owned by a range of companies.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Code Spaces contacted the hackers, who demanded an actual ransom in exchange for ceasing their assault.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And just like your home\u00a0hard drive, the cloud can crash or be violated by people with\u00a0nefarious intentions.<\/p>\n<p>You might have first been made aware of the cloud\u2019s\u00a0vulnerability when Apple fell\u00a0prey to cloud-based\u00a0<a class=\"managed-link external-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2014\/sep\/01\/naked-celebrity-hack-icloud-backup-jennifer-lawrence\" target=\"_blank\">hacks into iCloud\u2019s back-up systems<\/a>, resulting in the release of\u00a0dozens of celebrity nude photos.\u00a0But small companies are targets, too\u2014and the attacks on them have significant\u00a0real-world implications.\u00a0Code Spaces, a hosting provider that offered project management and development assistance,\u00a0was\u00a0<a class=\"managed-link external-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.csoonline.com\/article\/2365062\/disaster-recovery\/code-spaces-forced-to-close-its-doors-after-security-incident.html\" target=\"_blank\">forced to go out of business<\/a>\u00a0after their cloud system\u00a0was hacked. First, the hackers initiated a DDoS attack on the site, sending a bandwidth-overwhelming amount of fake traffic to the service that was enough to block legitimate traffic. Code Spaces contacted the hackers, who demanded an actual ransom in exchange for ceasing their assault. When\u00a0Code Spaces declined to pay, the hackers didn\u2019t simply continue bombarding the company\u2019s\u00a0service with traffic. They started to delete\u00a0archived information at random from Code Spaces\u2019s\u00a0cloud storage, resulting in potential recovery costs that were high enough to compel Code Spaces to cease operations.<\/p>\n<p>The hijacking\u00a0of Code Spaces\u2019 business operations\u00a0offers\u00a0a valuable lesson. If cloud providers aren\u2019t following a protocol of keeping multiple copies of data in multiple locations, all of that information can and likely will be compromised, whether through malicious actions or simple physical fallibility, the kind that\u00a0comes from\u00a0water damage or aging\u00a0components.<\/p>\n<p><em>Illustrations by Brian Hurst<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.good.is\/articles\/relying-on-the-cloud-is-not-safe\">Original article link<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Did you open up a Google doc\u00a0today? You used the cloud. You did it again when you checked email\u00a0and\u00a0Facebook. And when you uploaded that file to\u00a0Dropbox? You used cloud storage. You can see where this &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech","category-video","post_format-post-format-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demos.press75.com\/massive-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demos.press75.com\/massive-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demos.press75.com\/massive-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demos.press75.com\/massive-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demos.press75.com\/massive-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demos.press75.com\/massive-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demos.press75.com\/massive-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demos.press75.com\/massive-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demos.press75.com\/massive-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demos.press75.com\/massive-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}