Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/915954
6 | THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL www.datacenterjournal.com to look beyond just adding more tran- sistors if they want to deliver better IT products and services. e result could be a much needed greater focus on soware and hardware design. Like Intel, though, some will continue to claim that Moore's Law is alive. But the question for chip buy- ers won't be whether semiconductor companies can pack twice as many transistors on a wafer as they could two years ago. e question will be whether they can do so at the same cost, or less. Cost is the pragmatic factor that has made Moore's Law so powerful in actual products; ignoring it makes semiconductor progress a curiosity rather than something that drives new hardware and services. Quantum Computing on the hoRizon? Color me skeptical, but I still doubt that quantum computing, the heir apparent of traditional semicon- ductor computing, will accomplish anything like what its cheerleaders proclaim. Each year—and 2017 was no exception—we hear of this or that breakthrough in the field, supposedly bringing a true quantum computer within reach. But the issue may come down less to technical feasibility and more to practicality: will a quantum computer be worth the cost? Will we all eventually have our own quan- tum computers at home, or will each business have one or two, or will only a couple big-money megacompa- nies have them? Only time will tell. Perhaps, though, quantum computers will power a flying car or a virtual- reality system that actually catches on. SeCuRitY: the 8oo- pounD goRiLLa All the gadgets and services that modern IT provides (usually, at least in part, through data centers) are wonderful—until they get your bank account cleaned out, your identity stolen or your precious files held for ransom by same faceless extorter demanding Bitcoin. Our increasing reliance on digital services makes us more vulnerable to criminals operat- ing digitally. ese criminals can be located anywhere in the world and can attack from practically inacces- sible (to law enforcement) bases of operation. Among the biggest security sto- ries of 2017 were the Equifax breach, which compromised the sensitive per- sonal information of some 143 mil- lion Americans, according to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Among that information was Social Security numbers—that important nine-digit key to your work and financial life. Such breaches raise the question of whether things like Social Security numbers can possibly survive in a world where they can apparently be so easily compromised. Another well-known incident was the "WannaCry" ransomware, which affected computers around the globe by encrypting users' files and demanding payment for a password to decrypt them. And such incidents are on top of the usual suspects: phishing campaigns, "Nigerian" email scams, DDoS attacks and the standard array of malware. Interestingly, though, the secu- rity situation may contain little that's new. According to Michael Roytman, chief data scientist at Kenna Security, "e biggest threats in 2017 weren't all that different from those of the previous couple of years. Although the media may have highlighted specific examples of malware or ransomware, the root cause of all of them remains: old, unpatched vulner- abilities that have associated weap- onized exploits that are accessible by just about every class of attacker. is fact is evident in the WannaCry/ Petya/NotPetya cases, where the same vulnerabilities were responsible for the spread of the malware, but even more evident in the countless unpublicized exploitations using vulnerabilities from years past. We've seen 2,581,397,453 successful exploi- tations in 2017 using vulnerabilities published in 2016 or earlier. Some go back to the early 2000s." Yet despite the apparent worsen- ing of the situation, at least judging from headlines, the security front may be improving. "It's important to con- sider that we're now reporting more than ever; in fact a majority of states have mandatory breach-reporting requirements," said Roytman. "is situation causes us to perceive an increased risk even when there might not be one. But more importantly," he added, "things in security are getting better. More and more companies and scanning for vulnerabilities and implementing vulnerability-manage- ment programs, some are integrating threat intelligence into the mix, and some are giving serious attention to application security. e most mature ones have quantitative risk measure- ments and prioritization schemas. Under these process improvements, the state of security will continue to improve, even in the face of new vulnerabilities." io YeaRS SinCe the FiRSt iphone is past year marked one decade since the arrival of Apple's iPhone. Although that device is noth- ing unique today, it ushered in (i.e., made popular) the era of mobility. No longer did computing on the go mean a bulky or even thin laptop: it came in a device that could fit in the user's pocket. Following the smartphone, epitomized by the iPhone, came the tablet. Users on the go now have a range of device form factors to choose