Stories by Mary Brandel

While there are an infinite number of social engineering exploits, typical ones include the following:

Antivirus software has been around-well, nearly as long as viruses. But thanks to the ever-growing variety of threats to the PC environment, this is a fast-changing market that is undergoing two major trends:

A Web application firewall (WAF) is designed to protect Web applications against common attacks such as <a href="http://blogs.csoonline.com/xss_the_spark_to_the_ajax_dynamite">cross-site scripting</a> and <a href="http://blogs.csoonline.com/sans_warns_of_mass_sql_injection_attacks">SQL injection</a>. Whereas network firewalls defend the perimeter of the network, WAFs sit between the Web client and Web server, analyzing application-layer traffic for violations in the programmed security policy, says Michael Cobb, founder of Cobweb Applications, a security consultancy.

Video management software (VMS) allows you to record and view live video from multiple surveillance cameras--either IP-based or analog cameras with an encoder--monitor alarms, control cameras and retrieve recordings from an archive. Because they are IP-based, VMS systems are more expandable and flexible than DVR-based systems, and employees can control the software from anywhere on the network. Surveillance and security teams can use the software for live monitoring, as well as investigative and forensic purposes, using archived footage.

Think you can guess the No. 1 threat to the security of your stored data? If you said hackers, or even trouble-making insiders, you'd be wrong. While malicious threats are an ongoing concern, it's your well-meaning employees who are more likely to unknowingly expose your company's stored data through, say, a file-sharing network or a misplaced laptop.

As an IT professional, you don't often have the luxury of going with the flow. With businesses everywhere seeking both efficiencies and revenue growth, IT's mission is increasingly geared toward implementing and even spearheading many types of change.

Early 2008, well before the financial meltdown in mid-September, CIO Michael Twohig met with the executive leadership at Clean Harbors Environmental Services, to discuss the company's 2009 budget. It was the first of many meetings intended to address what they saw as a troubling economy in the coming year, given conditions in the financial markets and general economic indicators.

Jock? Geek? Artist? Underachiever? Do our high school selves predict our career paths?

So you accept that new position, and within the first couple of weeks on the job, it all becomes clear: Your boss is an idiot. Now what?

It's a management axiom that the smarter the employees are, the harder they are to manage. Employees with a high degree of left-brain intelligence, which is common among IT professionals, can be demanding, blind to the opinions of others, easily bored and bent on being "right," according to the people who manage them.

You'd think the words "brain drain" would strike fear into the hearts of IT managers. As the calendar has turned to 2008 -- and the oldest baby boomers are now eligible to receive Social Security -- it has become clear that growth in the number of older workers will soon surpass the growth in the number of those just starting out. In eight year's time, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, one in four workers will be 55 or older. And particularly in IT, there's not a big influx of new talent. According to the Computing Research Association, computer science enrollments dropped 14 per cent each year between 2004 and 2006.

There's a lot of focus today on the greening of the data centre. But the energy conservation movement and the proliferation of IP-based data transport are also causing IT to pay more attention to building and facilities management, an area that has traditionally been outside its purview.

In effect, offshoring has grown up. In its infancy, just a handful of adventurous companies sent highly codified work overseas. During its rebellious adolescence, it stirred a furious national debate, and the practice's previously unrecognized management challenges and hidden costs came to light.