Largest known prime number discovered

The new prime number, also known as M77232917, is calculated by multiplying together 77,232,917 twos, and then subtracting one. It is nearly one million digits larger than the previous record prime number, in a special class of extremely rare prime numbers known as Mersenne primes. It is only the 50th known Mersenne prime ever discovered, each increasingly difficult to find. Mersenne primes were named for the French monk Marin Mersenne, who studied these numbers more than 350 years ago. GIMPS, founded in 1996, has discovered the last 16 Mersenne primes. Volunteers download a free program to search for these primes, with a cash award offered to anyone lucky enough to find a new prime. Prof. Chris Caldwell maintains an authoritative web site on the largest known primes, and has an excellent history of Mersenne primes.

The primality proof took six days of non-stop computing on a PC with an Intel i5-6600 CPU. To prove there were no errors in the prime discovery process, the new prime was independently verified using four different programs on four different hardware configurations.

• Aaron Blosser verified it using Prime95 on an Intel Xeon server in 37 hours.
• David Stanfill verified it using gpuOwL on an AMD RX Vega 64 GPU in 34 hours.
• Andreas Höglund verified the prime using CUDALucas running on NVidia Titan Black GPU in 73 hours.
• Ernst Mayer also verified it using his own program Mlucas on 32-core Xeon server in 82 hours. Andreas Höglund also confirmed using Mlucas running on an Amazon AWS instance in 65 hours.

Jonathan Pace is a 51-year old Electrical Engineer living in Germantown, Tennessee. Perseverance has finally paid off for Jon -- he has been hunting for big primes with GIMPS for over 14 years. The discovery is eligible for a $3,000 GIMPS research discovery award.

GIMPS Prime95 client software was developed by founder George Woltman. Scott Kurowski wrote the PrimeNet system software that coordinates GIMPS' computers. Aaron Blosser is now the system administrator, upgrading and maintaining PrimeNet as needed. Volunteers have a chance to earn research discovery awards of $3,000 or $50,000 if their computer discovers a new Mersenne prime. GIMPS' next major goal is to win the $150,000 award administered by the Electronic Frontier Foundation offered for finding a 100 million digit prime number.

Credit for this prime goes not only to Jonathan Pace for running the Prime95 software, Woltman for writing the software, Kurowski and Blosser for their work on the Primenet server, but also the thousands of GIMPS volunteers that sifted through millions of non-prime candidates. In recognition of all the above people, official credit for this discovery goes to "J. Pace, G. Woltman, S. Kurowski, A. Blosser, et al."

The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) was formed in January 1996 by George Woltman to discover new world record size Mersenne primes. In 1997 Scott Kurowski enabled GIMPS to automatically harness the power of thousands of ordinary computers to search for these "needles in a haystack." Most GIMPS members join the search for the thrill of possibly discovering a record-setting, rare, and historic new Mersenne prime. The search for more Mersenne primes is already under way. There may be smaller, as yet undiscovered Mersenne primes, and there almost certainly are larger Mersenne primes waiting to be found. Anyone with a reasonably powerful PC can join GIMPS and become a big prime hunter, and possibly earn a cash research discovery award.

Five biggest security technology trends for 2018

Looking ahead, a number of emerging IT security advances will arm organizations with the right information at the right time to help spot and mitigate potential breaches before they can occur. Here, in no particular order, are five security trends that are set to make a big impression on enterprise in 2018.   

1. Security compliance will get serious 

Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic are clamping down on security practices that put customer data at risk. In the U.S. NIST Special Publication 800-171, which comes into force December 31, 2017, will regulate the protection of controlled unclassified information (CUI) in non-federal information systems and organizations. Over in Europe, the much anticipated General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will ensure organizations worldwide that handle information relating to European citizens fully understand what data they have, where it is stored and who is responsible for it. These, along with stricter penalties for non-compliance, will require businesses to upgrade their data privacy controls.    

2. Advanced analytics will improve data security 

Organizations currently use a combination of security products from antivirus software and data loss prevention (DLP) tools to full-blown security information and event management (SIEM) software in an attempt to reduce data breach risk. SIEM in particular generates large volumes of data making it hard to spot information requiring immediate attention. Advanced data analytics tools will help organizations see the wood from the trees much more clearly. The growing adoption of technologies like user and entity behaviour analytics (UEBA) will enable organizations to establish stricter control over their IT infrastructures and better understand their weak points, so they can fix security holes before a data breach occurs. 

3. Tailor-made security  

The global cybersecurity market is evolving. Security vendors are rapidly expanding their range of solutions to allow them to solve similar pain points differently according to the customer’s infrastructure. With strong data protection practices in high demand, security vendors will start to offer a more personalized approach, taking into account factors like IT infrastructure size and complexity, industry and budget. A more customized approach to IT security will provide organizations with solutions that are uniquely tailored to their requirements. Smaller, more specialist software providers will win business against larger, less flexible vendors by providing offerings that are ideally suited to meet specific business needs.

4. Gartner’s CARTA approach will improve decision-making 

In 2017, Gartner proposed a new approach to security based on a continuous process of regular review, re-assessment and adjustment. Known as CARTA (Continuous Risk and Trust Assessment), the new approach is intended to replace the old fit-it-and-forget-it mantra. We can expect this approach to become more central in 2018 as organizations take a fresh look at how the mitigate cyber risks. Real-time assessment of risk and trust in the IT environment enables companies to make better decisions regarding their security posture. A good example is to grant extended access rights to users only once previous patterns of behaviour on the network have been carefully studied to show they present minimal risk of privilege abuse.    

5. Blockchain principles to be applied to data security  

An emerging approach to mitigate the increasing number and sophistication of cyber threats is to harness blockchain principles to strengthen security. With blockchain technology data is stored in a decentralized and distributed manner. Instead of residing in a single location, data is stored in an open source ledger. It renders mass data hacking or data tampering much more difficult because all participants in the blockchain network would immediately see that the ledger had altered in some way. Blockchain has the potential to be a major leap forward for securing sensitive information, especially in highly regulated industries like finance, government, health and law.