Record temperatures aside, the vast majority of IT buyers say they feel the heat to make purchases they know their infrastructure can’t support, according to a recent report by flash storage firm Pure Storage.

As part of its report on the state of IT modernization, Pure Storage commissioned a Wakefield Research poll of 500 IT buyers across the US and Europe. It found 90% of respondents felt like they were under pressure to purchase technology their organizations didn’t have the technical resources in place to adequately support, while 62% said they felt pressure on their decisions “all the time or often.”

According to the survey, 80% of IT buyers plan to “invest in emerging technologies due to the current economic environment,” with around one-third of those anticipating larger spend. Just over three out of four expected increased scrutiny around their decisions on which tech to buy and when—while nearly as many reported that inadequate infrastructure meant they weren’t able to meet leadership’s expectations around implementation.

Shawn Rosemarin, VP of R&D, customer engineering at Pure Storage, told IT Brew the survey reflects the tumultuous past few years: Organizations went through a “decade’s worth of innovation packed into 18 or 24 months” and “put a tremendous amount of pressure on it to deploy at a scale at a pace that hadn’t been seen before.”

Read more here.—TM

Getting the right people the right access to the right applications? That’s a toughie in the simplest of times, and let’s face it—times aren’t so simple right now. IT leaders run a mile and back to build secure multicloud access.

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Information from a dating app server was recently exposed, a researcher revealed on July 17, potentially disclosing sensitive information from apps serving upward of 50 million users.

The breach was discovered by Jeremiah Fowler, a cybersecurity researcher. Fowler published his findings with vpnMentor, an online safety site.

The information was primarily on the 419 Dating App - Chat & Flirt app, a subsidiary of Hong Kong company Siling App. The two other dating apps whose information was breached were Meet You - Local Dating App, a subsidiary of Enjoy Social App, and Speed Dating App For American, from MyCircle Network Corp.

Despite the severity of the breach exposing approximately 2.3 million records, Fowler told SC Media it’s unknown whether the data was disseminated to bad actors.

“We have no way of knowing if malicious actors gained access,” Fowler told the outlet, adding, “At this point there is no indication the data has made it to the usual underground markets.”

The data exposed in one database, by the numbers.—EH

Writer, speaker, and security consultant Kevin Mitnick has died after a 14-month battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 59 years old.

Mitnick served nearly five years in prison for computer and wire fraud related to illegally gaining access to data, including as many as 20,000 credit card numbers, and hacking government and university networks.

After his prison release, Mitnick was prohibited from using cell phones, computers, modems, or any other devices that connect to the internet as part of his parole.

“Not being allowed to use the internet is kind of like not being allowed to use a telephone,” Mitnick told the Washington Post in 2002.

Throughout his career, Kevin Mitnick became a symbol of the hacker turned security specialist, showcasing that even those with a questionable past could positively impact the world.

Keep reading here.—MM

Today’s top IT reads.

Stat: 10 years. That’s how long, on average, cybersecurity for satellites lags behind cutting-edge security research, according to a Ruhr University and CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security study. (Gizmodo)

Quote: “If we don’t talk about this, it could jeopardize my family. Will I be jobless?”—Ylonda Sherrod, a worker and union leader at an AT&T call center, on whether their call transcripts are being used to train AI replacements (the New York Times)

Read: DDoS attacks around the world are getting alarmingly sophisticated. (Ars Technica)

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