Technically News: LinkedIn Data Breach, Federal CIO Calls for More Modern Systems, Hybrid Cloud and Big Data

Update: 117 million LinkedIn email credentials found for sale on the dark web

LinkedIn’s security breach back in 2012 continues to haunt the company. Just last week, a source going by “Peace” reported to Motherboard, a popular tech blog, that they had access to 117 million LinkedIn credentials that stemmed from the large breach four years ago, and that the emails and passwords were being sold on an illegal marketplace. Although LinkedIn took precautions, both in 2012 and now, to make users aware of the threat and urged them change their passwords, the breach itself could have been avoided by using stronger encryption techniques. More dangerous than the passwords being public are the active, professional email addresses that hackers now have access to. For the full scoop, read more on SC Magazine.

Federal CIO on IT Upgrade Fund: ‘The Bigger Risk is Not Doing Anything’

Federal CIO, Tony Scott, says it’s time to invest in new IT systems. Close to 75 percent of the government’s $90 billion IT budget is spent on legacy systems – which in the case of the Defense Department includes floppy disks. To encourage IT modernization, Scott is arguing for legislation to create a $3.1 billion fund dedicated to new IT systems. Agencies will be able to borrow money from the fund and pay it back over time. Scott said that the $3.1 billion investment will turn into $12 billion over the next 10 years. See the full story on NextGov.

Hybrid Cloud is Here to Stay, Report Says

A recent survey by SolarWinds shows that IT professionals are embracing a hybrid cloud approach to IT management. While the cloud offers many benefits, it doesn’t make sense to migrate absolutely everything to the cloud, SolarWinds CIO Joel Dolisy argues. Rather, many IT managers believe that certain functions perform better on premise. 62 percent of respondents say they believe it is unlikely that their entire organization would be migrated to the cloud, however only 8 percent of respondents reported zero use of the cloud. For more information about the hybrid cloud, the full story is on Government Technology.

IT Wants (but struggles) to Operationalize Big Data

It’s clear that Big Data is top of mind to most IT executives, however many struggle to use their rich data to educate business decisions. A recent survey shows that 78 percent of large companies have at least one C-level executive encouraging the use of analytics, however 41 percent agree that their company’s data is too siloed to be useful to overall business goals. The issue here is that companies often do not have a full view of their data unless they have a designated Data Officer who can have a horizontal view on the company’s information. For the full survey, read more on CIO.