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Today’s topics include Google introducing a Cost Forecast feature to its cloud billing tool, and SonicWall reporting a spike in ransomware attacks in the first half of 2018.
Google has introduced a new cloud-billing feature that lets administrators see much they are likely to spend on cloud usage in a particular month. Cost Forecast for Cloud Billing enables administrators to see how costs are trending during a particular month and how much they are projected to spend based on current usage.
This visibility into cloud spending allows enterprises to better align strategic priorities with cloud usage, according to Google. The feature provides a split view of the actual costs to date from the specified start and the forecasted cost for the specified period. A trend line will let administrators know how actual spending matches the forecast.
Cost Forecast for Cloud Billing is currently available to all enterprises using the company’s services from their Google cloud account’s management console.
According to SonicWall’s midyear 2018 cyber-threat report released July 10, there have been 5.99 billion malware attacks in the first six months of 2018, which is a 102 percent increase over the first six months of 2017.
Of particular note is a 229 percent year-over-year increase in ransomware attacks, with 181.5 million attacks since January. One such example is the Wannacrypt, also known as WannaCry, ransomware that first struck systems around the world in May 2017 and has remained an issue ever since.
Aside from ransomware, SonicWall noted that overall the use of encryption for data in transit using SSL/TLS for both legitimate traffic and cyber-attacks has grown to 69.7 percent, up from 68 percent in 2017.
Looking specifically at attacks that make use of encryption, SonicWall reported a 275 percent increase in the first half of 2018.