Early cloud adopters reap benefits

Early adopters of cloud computing models seem to have reaped the benefits, according to new research, reports IT Pro.

The study by Fujitsu showed 97% of respondents had made savings by implementing cloud computing projects, with 71% of them saying savings met or exceeded their expectations.

On average, organisations were saving 24% on the projects, but for some this cost benefit was as high as 40%. Only 3% of companies claimed to have found no cost saving whatsoever.

Twenty-five of Europe's most innovative cloud computing companies will be pitching to an audience of elite venture capital firms and tech industry executives at the European Tech Tour Association Cloud and ICT 2.0 in Lausanne, Switzerland, reveals Network World.

The Summit aims to be a catalyst for the cloud computing industry in Europe, and aims to assist high-growth start-ups to expand globally by introducing them to potential investors and partners.

The 25 companies presenting were whittled down from an initial list of 234 rapidly growing cloud computing companies across Europe.

A German hacker claims to have used cloud computing to crack passwords stored in an algorithm that was developed by the National Security Agency, according to ZDNet.

Hacker Thomas Roth said he has used one of Amazon Web Service's Cluster GPU Instances to crack the passwords encrypted in a Secure Hashing Algorithm hash.

"I think that cloud cracking can be useful in the future because of its massive parallel nature. You can start a 100 node-cracking cluster with just a few clicks," Roth told ZDNet UK. "GPUs are known to be the best hardware accelerator for cracking passwords, so I decided to give it a try.”