Today’s topics include a Harris Poll by Google finding that password reuse remains a barrier to safe internet use, and Google advancing confidential computing with the open-source Aylo project.
In the spirit of Safer Internet Day on Feb. 5, Google conducted a study along with a Harris Poll of 3,000 Americans over the age of 16 to try to gauge the current state of safe, or in many cases unsafe, internet usage.
Apparently, there is a clear gap between user perception and reality for cyber-security, especially as far as passwords are concerned. Sixty-nine percent of respondents rated themselves highly for how they protect their accounts.
However, according to Emily Schechter, product manager of Chrome security at Google, “Two in three people … reuse the same password for multiple accounts.” She claims that “[u]sing unique passwords is important for good password management, and tools like password managers can help you easily generate and store strong unique passwords.”
Google is working to advance the next stage of cloud cyber-security with an approach known as confidential computing and the open-source Asylo project, which makes it easier to implement.
Google is positioning confidential computing as the next step in advancing trust, control and security for the cloud. A core element of the approach is making sure data in use is protected and encrypted against potential risks from underlying malicious hardware.
Confidential computing also offers an additional layer of protection against malicious insiders, network vulnerabilities and compromised operating systems.
According to Brandon Baker, tech lead for Cloud Security at Google Cloud, “The overall goal for Google is certainly to make cloud as secure, if not more secure than running things on premises, and we see confidential computing as an important part of that.”