Wednesday, April 9, 2014

News Scan: Consumers put retailers on data breach notice...

Retailers are being put on notice by consumers that they hold them responsible for preventing future data breaches, such as those experienced by Target and Neiman Marcus. A recent study by Feedzai, a big data science company, reveals that "60 percent of those who knew about any data breaches at notable retailers, such as Target and Neiman Marcus, hold the merchant responsible for preventing future incidents." The "2014 Consumer Reaction to Financial Data Breaches Study" also found that 43 percent of respondents think nothing is more aggravating than having credit or debit card data stolen. "These findings show that consumers believe it is the merchant's responsibility, but really it is a collective problem that the industry needs to understand in order to distinguish customers from criminals and keep payment data safe," said Dr. Pedro Bizarro, chief data scientist at Feedzai said in an email to FierceCIO.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

25% of your staff could be leaving you

One of every four workers in your IT department could be gone this year--lured away by headhunters and hiring managers at the competition. They will grab for more money, better recognition or just walk away from an unsatisfying job.
 
Those are the harsh realities facing IT managers this year, according to survey results and anecdotal evidence from a recent study by CareerBuilder, which looked at job satisfaction and retention issues in the workforce.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

News Scan: Billionaire IDG founder Pat McGovern dies...

International Data Group founder and Chairman Patrick J. McGovern died March 19 at Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto, Calif., it was announced by the company. McGovern had a career dedicated to information technology, and over the span of 50 years, he oversaw IDG's launch of more than 300 magazines and newspapers and the expansion of IDG's network to include more than 460 websites, 200 mobile apps and 700 events worldwide, it was reported by CIO. He launched the company's flagship publication, Computerworld, in 1972. "IDG has lost a true visionary, and the IT community has lost one of its most exceptional citizens," said newly elected IDG board chairman Walter Boyd. "He created a unique workplace where we have the outstanding leadership team in place to ensure that the company he created will continue to grow and prosper." (This editor had the very great pleasure of working with Mr. McGovern for seven years at Computerworld)

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

Affordable Care Act opening doors to IT security attacks

The Affordable Care Act may be bringing millions more Americans into the fold of the insured, but it is also creating a virtual smorgasbord of security vulnerabilities that cybercriminals can feast on.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

News Scan: SMBs feel immune from cyberattacks...

Three-quarters of small and mid-sized businesses reportedly believe they are too small to be of interest to cyber criminals, and therefore safe from cyberattacks. That is the finding of new research from security firm Kaspersky Labs. In addition, 59 percent of the companies surveyed said the information they hold would not be of interest to cyber criminals. Neither of which are the case, an article at Computer Weekly says. "Whether it is a supplier, a partner or a customer, SMEs tend to have links to other, larger companies. With this in mind, cyber criminals increasingly target SMEs to get information that will enable them to access the larger company's infrastructure," the article quotes David Emm, senior security researcher at Kaspersky Labs as saying.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

Your next staffing crisis: project managers

Many organizations may soon find themselves understaffed with project managers, putting them at great disadvantage as the economy continues to recover.
 
That is the finding of the recent study ESI 2013 Project Manager Salary and Development Survey by project management training company ESI International. The firm surveyed 1,800 project managers in 12 different industries in the U.S.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

Embrace, don't fear, your COO and CFO relationships

The role of CIO is as much about managing relationships as it is mastering technology. With that in mind, Michael Hugos, principal at the Center for Systems Innovation, recently offered up his thoughts on the CIO and COO relationship, and on the CIO and CFO relationship.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

News Scan: Pirated software malware threats...

Malware deliberately loaded onto pirated or counterfeit software could cost organizations an estimated $491 billion this year alone. That is the conclusion of a new study on the connection between pirated software and cyber breaches by International Data Corp (IDC) and the University of Singapore. According to an article at Computer Weekly, the study is "based on forensic analytics of 203 PCs that were bought from PC resellers, specialty shops and PC markets in typical buying situations in 11 countries." The global study also surveyed 1,700 consumers, IT professionals, CIOs and government officials in 13 countries. The study revealed that the likelihood of encountering malware in pirated software is one in three, and the change of encountering malware in a PC purchased with pirated software was 61 percent.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Ukrainian IT center campaign assures world that 'it's business as usual'

In the midst of, and because of, tremendous political unrest in its country, the Ukrainian Information Technology Development Center has launched an awareness campaign to promote the Ukrainian IT industry. The initiative's mission is to let the world know that despite the current political situation, the Ukrainian IT industry is going strong, organizers say.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

Tech execs meet with White House over 'too slow' NSA reforms

Google's Eric Schmidt, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and several other top tech executives met with President Obama on Friday to discuss White House efforts to reform the National Security Agency's surveillance practices.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

News Scan: State governments embracing big data; Harvard to debut new HBX online learning platform; more

State governments are increasingly aware of opportunities with big data and are making them an important part of how they do business, according to Utah State CIO David Fletcher. Writing at Enterprise Efficiency this week, Fletcher discusses some of the current big data-focused projects that various states have underway, as we enter the third year of the Obama administration's Big Data Research and Development Initiative. Among the examples Fletcher cites are those of Massachusetts with its Billion Mile Data Challenge to encourage travel across the Commonwealth; efforts by California to use big data to fight its biggest drought in the last 100 years; and the use of big data to drive innovative transportation solutions in Utah. "State and federal government agencies are increasingly opening up their data and are encouraging its use for economic growth and development. Businesses seeking data sources to utilize in their big data innovations can begin by accessing data.gov," Fletcher notes.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

App support kills off 38 percent of IT budget for top firms

Application support and maintenance is now costing 38 percent of the IT budgets of the Global 2000 companies--an increase of 29 percent, according to a new study.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

Convincing the C-suite to fund IT security

It is said that the best defense is a strong offense, but when it comes to IT security, too many companies have neither.

That is the take of Alex Moss, managing partner of security consultancy Conventus. He says most corporate executives are still ignorant of their organizations vulnerabilities and risks. Indeed, they may not even know the difference between the two. The result is that for too many, IT security is an afterthought--done in reactive mode rather than as proactive strategy.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

News Scan: Is open data a $3 trillion market?...

Train wreck or treasure trove? The vast amount of public data now available to businesses under the Open Data Executive Order signed by President Obama last May has been called both. But according to an article at InfoWorld, "the business opportunities are unprecedented--open data offers bits and bytes of public information that are freely available for anyone to use to build new businesses, generate revenue, develop new products, conduct research or empower consumers. With the federal government as the single largest source of open data in the U.S., we now have unfettered access to information about everything from bus routes and pollution levels to SEC filings and weather patterns." More good news: the McKinsey Global Institute estimates that all this open data could be a catalyst for $3 trillion or more in new business value in the global economy.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

IT staff to CIOs: Keep the bonuses coming!

Recent job studies have agreed that IT workers are a restless lot this year as a whole, and employers better be ready to open the purse strings a bit more in order to attract and retain them.

That is certainly the advice of Shravan Goli, president of Dice, the online job site. Goli spoke with FierceCIO recently about the findings from the annual Dice Tech Salary Survey, which confirms that more IT managers are doling out bonuses and merit raises to their IT staff, and they need to keep that trend going.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

News Scan: Security firms face data breach liability...

IT security vendors were put on notice this week that they could become targets of lawsuits if they fail to detect security attacks that lead to client data breaches. According to an article at InfoWorld, security vendor Trustwave was named as a defendant in a class-action suit for failing to detect the attack that led to Target's breach, one of the largest on record. Trustwave "failed to live up to its promise to meet industry standards," the suit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois alleges. The plaintiffs are Trustmark National Bank of New York and Green Bank of Houston. "The lawsuit, one of dozens filed against Target, illustrates the growing frustration of banks burdened with the costs of reissuing compromised cards and their willingness to pull in other companies viewed as culpable into legal battles," the article notes.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

Obama confident NSA reform proposal provides security needs, privacy protections

President Barack Obama will be proposing legislation that would end the bulk collection of phone data by the National Security Agency, and instead allow the vast database of phone records to stay in the hands of phone companies.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

News Scan: Yahoo! encrypting all data...

Yahoo! has revealed that effective last week it has started encrypting all data on its servers in response to concerns over government surveillance practices. According to an article at Silicon Republic, "Yahoo! revealed the move on its official blog and promises all its current products should be free from the prying eyes of governments and hackers alike." Over the coming months the firm plans additional measures, including HSTS, Perfect Forward Secrecy and Certificate Transparency, the article noted. "One of our biggest areas of focus in the coming months is to work with and encourage thousands of our partners across all of Yahoo!'s hundreds of global properties to make sure that any data that is running on our network is secure," Alex Stamos, Yahoo!'s chief information security officer wrote in the blog post.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

CFOs coulda, shoulda be IT's top advocates

CFOs could be the strongest evangelists for IT in most organizations, if only they were so inclined.

That is the conclusion of a new research report by Accenture and Oracle, which looked at the changing role of the CFO.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

Summer IT hiring: 6% more money, double that in pain

Prepare to dig deep in your pockets if you're looking to hire IT's top talent this summer. That is the latest word from Dice's president Shravan Goli, who says that 73 percent of IT hiring managers will be looking to add staff, and nearly one quarter plan "substantial" hiring.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

Monday, April 7, 2014

News Scan: Data analytics: Who needs IT?...

Business groups are increasingly forging ahead with data analytics projects without inviting IT along, according to new research by International Data Corp. An article at InfoWorld notes that "Business managers and IT managers appear to have different assessments of the value enterprise IT organizations bring to big data and data analytics projects. While IT groups see themselves as enablers, business leaders tend to view IT as a stumbling block." As a result, the article explains that many business groups are using their data analysts rather than involve the organization's in-house IT staff and technology. The IDC findings are based on a survey of 578 business managers, IT managers, data analysts and business executives.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

CIOs advance boldly into scary cloud territory

Despite continuous concerns over security, CIOs continue to move an increasing percentage of organizational information to the cloud, and are making growing use of private cloud and software-as-a-service models.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

Report looks at most pesky, risky apps

The rise of BYOD and mobility in general has brought all sorts of security headaches to organizations. But some types of applications are clearly more vulnerable to security threats than others.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

News Scan: Honoring government innovation in the cloud...

Amazon Web Services has announced the City on a Cloud Innovation Challenge, a new global program to recognize local governments and application developers who are innovating for the benefit of citizens using the AWS Cloud. In an email to FierceCIO, Amazon explained that from May to June a panel of worldwide experts from organizations driving local government innovation will select seven grand prize winners from among two award categories: Best Practices and Partners in Innovation. "Three AWS local government projects will be awarded the Best Practices Award, recognizing local governments who have already adopted cloud technology, each receiving $50,000 AWS credits," Amazon announced. "Four application developers will be awarded the Partners in Innovation Award for individuals and companies engaged in creating applications that solve local government challenges, each receiving $25,000 in AWS credits." The deadline to submit entries is May 12.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

Internet of Things won't be gentle on your data center

Much is being written about the potential of the Internet of Things, or IoT for short, including a recent forecast by Gartner that it is driving a product and services industry which will be worth approximately $300 billion by 2020.

That estimate includes a prediction that there will be 26 billion installed and interconnected devices by that time.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

IT staff unhappy with their jobs? No worries, they'll nearly all be changing anyway

If you think your IT staffers are uncomfortable in their current skin, just wait. According to new research from member-based advisory firm CEB, nearly 80 percent of IT job roles will undergo transformation in the next four years.

This may not to come as welcome news to some IT organizations, which are already struggling to keep pace with changing technologies and to bridge existing skills gaps. As an article in Information-Age notes, "as the 'baby boom' generation retires, many companies are already struggling to fill the knowledge gap."

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

News Scan: Jobs, money up for IT security pros...

Job opportunities for professionals with security clearances are on the decline, unless you work in the areas of IT and cybersecurity. That is the word from a recent survey by ClearanceJobs.com. According to the job site, the number of security-cleared professionals working in tech and cybersecurity increased from 22 to 24 percent in 2013, while salaries for these professionals saw a modest 1 percent increase, to $102,164. But as noted at Next Gov, "IT program and project managers saw the highest jump in pay and the highest salaries of all security-related professionals in 2013, earning on average $125,864, an increase of 10 percent over 2010 levels."

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

CIO project power sharing: get used to it

Collaboration by CIOs has never been more critical, as an increasing number of IT-related projects are now handled jointly by CIO-led teams and business groups.
That is the finding of recent research by Forrester, which reveals a changing landscape for IT project management. While the report does not suggest that the CIO role is in mortal danger, it does suggest more power sharing when it comes to tech decision making.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

Rise of the CSO: a CIO's power threat or job savior?

The series of high profile data breaches that punctuated 2013 brought intense scrutiny on data security and the accountability of IT. At most organizations, the ultimate responsibility for IT security falls in the lap of the CIO. But it shouldn't, argues Dr. Eric Cole, a SANS Institute faculty fellow and head of SAN's Cyber Defense Foundations program. FierceCIO spoke with Dr. Cole about the need at many organizations for a chief security officer, where that individual should come from and why the CIO should embrace, not shun, this new colleague.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

News Scan: IT mandates stymy CIOs...

IT leaders are struggling to provide more value from IT to their organizations, but are doing so without corresponding increases in staff of budget. That is the finding of new research from The Hackett Group, which conducted a survey of 150 IT leaders on their top objectives this year. As reported at ZDNet, "information technology executives are aiming to become more valuable to the enterprise (and prove it via metrics), utilize data and analytics better, and revamp the talent pool, according to The Hackett Group, a technology staffing firm. The catch? IT needs to be more innovative and grow businesses amid stagnant budgets and staff cuts." The study revealed that data management; data architecture and data analytics are top priorities. But it also found that IT costs overall will need to be cut to make room for anything innovative. That is due to the projection that IT budgets will only grow by 1.7 percent this year.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

1 in 3 IT managers say: The CIO must go!

As if CIOs didn't have enough job survival concerns--what with satisfying the CEO, CFO and COO. Now they learn that one of every three managers in their own IT ranks thinks they need to be shown the door.

That is the finding of new research by strategy consulting firm McKinsey, which reveals "growing dissatisfaction" with IT performance. But we're not talking just among the business executives. That dissatisfaction translates to IT management ranks as well.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

News Scan: Silicon Valley wage case heads to court ...

The class action lawsuits against several Silicon Valley giants that alleges collusion over wages and recruiting practices will go forward, and could begin by May 27, notes an article at The Register. The suit alleges that several companies, including Google, Apple, Intel, Adobe, Pixar and Lucasfilm, conspired to prevent recruiting staff from each other, and to share confidential salary information in an effort to control wage levels. The article says "The judge notes that the plaintiffs 'have presented sufficient evidence that tends to exclude the possibility that Defendants acted independently' regardless of whether or not there is a 'plausible and justifiable reason for their conduct that is consistent with proper business practices."

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

IT spending makes its return, Gartner says

Sales of devices and software are helping to drive IT spending worldwide, which will rise to $3.8 trillion this year, according to research firm Gartner.

Analysts from the firm will discuss the latest spending outlook in a webinar on April 8, but have released highlights from the report in the meantime. The Worldwide IT Spending Forecast finds a 3.2 percent increase in 2014. Enterprise software revenue will jump 6.9 percent to $320 billion, the firm predicts.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

IT security pros: Worst pressures come from inside

The number one obstacle to IT security solutions are business pressures within the same organizations, which is causing tremendous dissatisfaction among IT security pros.
 
Those are among the findings of what is intended to be a new annual survey, The "2014 Security Pressures Report," which was recently released by Trustwave. The report surveyed 833 IT security decision makers to better understand the pressures that they live with in making security decisions.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

News Scan: Wired telecom, semiconductor jobs among most endangered...

Yahoo's Hot Jobs web site has just released its updated listing of the 10 most endangered job sectors, two tech-related job fields make the list of industries expected to lose the greatest number of jobs by 2018. Grabbing the number two spot of largest job percentage loss is the semiconductor industry, with a 33.7 percent job loss (of the 432,000 jobs the industry had in 2008). Wired telecom jobs makes the list in the number 10 slot. According to the web site, wired telecom is expected to lose 11 percent of its 666,000 job base. The number one job loss field is cut-and-sew apparel manufacturing, which Yahoo Hot Jobs says will see 57 percent of its 155,000-job workforce disappear in the next four years.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

Government moves could force data breach confessions

Organizations in virtually all industries could soon be impacted by government moves in response to data breaches like the one that affected Target at the close of 2013.

The Federal Trade Commission has asked Congress to pass a national breach notification bill, which would require companies that have their systems compromised to alert consumer and appropriate government authorities within a specific time frame. The legislation is intended to correct a situation in which a company could withhold such information for long periods of time while it tries to resolve the problem internally, but thereby leave customers at long-term risk of identity theft and personal data compromise.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

Inside the H-1B program: One employer speaks out

Few topics in IT are more polarizing than that of the H-1B program, which allows foreign workers to take skilled jobs here in the U.S. if an employer can demonstrate that it is having a hard time filling those job roles.
 
Last week the government opened and closed the window of opportunity for companies to submit applications for H-1B workers. The government currently allows 65,000 H-1B workers annually, and the program enables those workers to stay for up to six years in this country working on that visa. Congress is debating allowing up to another 125,000 visas under the program for 2014, a move which occurs on an almost annual basis now.

While a dozen or so large employers take the lion's share of the H-1B visas, there are countless smaller firms that employ just a few H-1B workers. FierceCIO spoke with Giorgos Zacharia, chief technology officer at travel search engine company Kayak, in Concord, MA, about the company's experience with hiring just a half dozen H-1B workers at a time.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

Thursday, April 3, 2014

National Retirement Planning Week Offers Critical Tools for Advisors

With older working Americans needing retirement advice more than ever, financial planners can take advantage of a wealth of tools and resources being made available for National Retirement Planning Week, which runs April 7-11, 2014.

The event is a national effort to encourage Americans to plan for their financial needs in retirement. The observance has been held continuously since 2002, and is targeted to both professional advisors and especially to consumers.

(Read my complete article at Think Advisor)