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)
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
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.
(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)
(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)
(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)
(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.
(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)
(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)
(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)
(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)
(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)
(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)
(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)
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)
(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)
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)
(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)
(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)
(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)
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)
(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)
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