Wellington man gets shock $16,000 bill after using a Google AI-ready tool, Meridian culls 53 jobs as it offshores billing

04-06-2025

Wellington tech contractor Drew Broadley says he racked up a surprise $15,760 bill during May using Google BigQuery, an online tool that's part of the Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
The tech giant describes BigQuery as 'a fully managed, AI-ready data platform for managing and analysing data'.
Broadley says it's

Hashtags

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Poor cloud security leaves secrets & data at risk, report finds

Techday NZ

19-06-2025

Techday NZ

Poor cloud security leaves secrets & data at risk, report finds

A new report from Tenable Research has detailed the ongoing risks facing organisations due to poor cloud security practices and widespread misconfigurations. The 2025 Cloud Security Risk Report analyses data from global cloud systems spanning October 2024 to March 2025. It highlights significant vulnerabilities related to data exposure, identity management, cloud workloads, and the use of artificial intelligence resources. The findings indicate that sensitive information and credentials remain at risk due to inconsistent security implementations across major public cloud providers. Exposure of sensitive data According to Tenable Research, 9% of publicly accessible cloud storage contains sensitive data, and 97% of this content is classified as restricted or confidential. These circumstances increase the risk of exploitation, particularly when misconfigurations or embedded secrets are also present. The report notes that cloud environments are subject to significantly heightened risk from exposed data, misconfigured access, and the insecure storage of secrets such as passwords, API keys, and other credentials. These issues are compounded by underlying vulnerabilities and inconsistent security practices across organisations using public cloud providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Microsoft Azure. Secrets and workload security The assessment documented that over half of organisations (54%) store at least one secret directly within AWS Elastic Container Service (ECS) task definitions, creating a direct attack path for threat actors. On GCP Cloud Run, similar patterns were observed, with 52% of organisations found to be storing secrets within resources, and 31% on Microsoft Azure Logic Apps workflows. Furthermore, 3.5% of all AWS Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances were identified as containing secrets within user data. AWS EC2's broad adoption means this level of exposure represents a substantial risk across the industry. The report points to some improvement in cloud workload security: the prevalence of the so-called "toxic cloud trilogy"-a situation in which a workload is publicly exposed, critically vulnerable, and endowed with high privilege-has decreased from 38% to 29%. However, Tenable researchers note that this combination continues to represent a significant risk for businesses. Issues in identity and access management One significant finding relates to the use of Identity Providers (IdPs). The research indicates that 83% of AWS organisations employ IdP services to manage cloud identities, which is regarded as best practice. Despite this, risks persist due to permissive default settings, excessive entitlements, and lingering standing permissions that give rise to identity-based threats. "Despite the security incidents we have witnessed over the past few years, organizations continue to leave critical cloud assets, from sensitive data to secrets, exposed through avoidable misconfigurations," said Ari Eitan, Director of Cloud Security Research, Tenable. The report suggests that attackers are often able to find entry points with relative ease, exploiting public access, extracting embedded secrets, or misusing over-privileged identities. Recommendations and risk management "The path for attackers is often simple: exploit public access, steal embedded secrets or abuse overprivileged identities. To close these gaps, security teams need full visibility across their environments and the ability to prioritize and automate remediation before threats escalate. The cloud demands continuous, proactive risk management, and not reactive patchwork," added Eitan. Tenable's analysis is based on telemetry collected from a diverse array of public cloud and enterprise environments and provides detailed insight into the cloud security challenges currently faced by businesses. The report offers practical recommendations to help security professionals reduce risks, mitigate vulnerabilities, and address gaps before they can be exploited. The findings underline the necessity for organisations to adopt unified cloud exposure management, increase visibility across their cloud assets, and take a systematic approach to automation and remediation of security risks, particularly as cloud adoption and reliance on AI-driven resources continue to rise.

Landis+Gyr halves costs by moving Oracle workloads to Google Cloud

Techday NZ

18-06-2025

Techday NZ

Landis+Gyr halves costs by moving Oracle workloads to Google Cloud

Landis+Gyr has optimised its total cost of ownership and operational scalability by migrating critical Oracle workloads to Google Cloud Platform using Tessell's Database-as-a-Service solution. Operating in over 30 countries, Landis+Gyr manages millions of smart meters for utility customers, aiming to support grid performance and energy efficiency. As global energy demand and the need for real-time energy grid intelligence increase, the company identified a requirement to shift from legacy on-premises systems to a more scalable, cloud-native infrastructure. The migration process involved moving complex Oracle workloads - most notably the Oracle Head End System (HES) and Meter Data Management (MDM) applications - previously running on a Windows platform. The legacy environment introduced high licensing expenses, performance limitations, and restricted scalability, prompting the need for change. Tessell and GCP Landis+Gyr collaborated with Tessell to execute a cross-platform migration from Windows to Linux in conjunction with adopting Google Cloud's infrastructure. Tessell's platform enabled a transition that the company states achieved real-time data ingestion with sub-second latency, over 99.99% application availability, a 50% reduction in infrastructure costs, and a 60% increase in labour efficiency for database administrators. Compliance with data residency requirements across global regions was also highlighted. "Tessell's ability to execute complex Oracle migrations with precision allowed us to unlock significant operational and financial value," said Martti Kontula, Head of OT & Data at Landis+Gyr. "Our smart metering applications now run with greater agility, enabling us to deliver better insights and services to our customers while setting the foundation for long-term growth." The project included a proof-of-concept phase on Google Cloud, which demonstrated that moving to a Linux-based system met the company's performance benchmarks. This encompassed the demands of real-time smart meter data ingestion and the required levels of system uptime and throughput at scale. Operational impact Landis+Gyr reports several outcomes resulting from the migration. Scalability has been enhanced through Google Cloud's elastic infrastructure, allowing for the ingestion and processing of data from millions of deployed smart meters and maintaining responsiveness during peak usage. The company has also experienced a reduction in licensing and support costs by shifting from Windows to Linux, and a decrease in maintenance overheads. Automation of essential operations such as patching, updates, and lifecycle management has enabled internal personnel to dedicate more time to innovation and analytics. Landis+Gyr stated that it is on schedule to retire its legacy data centres, and is adopting a cloud-first approach across its operations. Enhancing resilience Looking ahead, Landis+Gyr plans to extend its partnership with Tessell to improve high availability and disaster recovery capabilities. This includes deploying a multi-zone, multi-region high availability architecture on Google Cloud, automating cross-region disaster recovery with minimal data loss, and engaging in business continuity planning in line with industry standards. "With Tessell's robust cloud platform and GCP's global scale, Landis+Gyr is well-positioned to meet the rising demands of the energy sector while supporting its mission of creating a more sustainable and intelligent energy future," said Bakul Banthia, Co-Founder of Tessell. Landis+Gyr continues to focus on improving its cloud infrastructure to respond to the evolving requirements of energy utilities and the broader market. Follow us on: Share on:

NZ Herald

04-06-2025

NZ Herald