CTO and CIO Toolkits

CIOs and Lawyers Must Communicate

webmaster — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 17:30:19 -0600

IT chiefs and lawyers must learn to speak the same language if they are to work together to help organisations avoid risk. And although responsibility for IT risk management, the careful balancing act of businesses benefit against liability,must not begin and end with the IT department, it is important to run any policies past the techies.

It is vital the IT crowd is consulted, agrees with and has ownership of any policies that directly affect them, and technical teams must make the effort to try and communicate with legal eagles in a language other than IT speak. It is better to have a legal team which will tell the IT department what we need to be doing. But lawyers being lawyers, it is very difficult to work with them to understand what we want and if they could talk to us in an IT language life would be much easier.

If you express risk in the different languages make sure things are transparent and everyone does understand who is responsible for what.

Factors to Consider in a Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity Plan

webmaster — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:09:44 -0600

The Janco Disaster Recovery Plan & Business Continuity Template takes into consideration all of the items related to various layers of operations that most enterprises need to consider if they want to continue after a disaster occurs. These include:

Strategy - Items related to the strategies used by the business to complete day-to-day activities while enabling continuous operations. Examples include financial, manufacturing and disaster recovery strategies.
Organization - Items related to the structure, skills, communications and responsibilities of your employees. Examples include human resources, training, and internal and external communications.
Applications and data - Items related to the software necessary which enable business operations, as well as the method used to develop that software. Examples include customer relationship management (CRM) applications, enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications, databases and transaction processors.
Processes - Items related to the critical business processes necessary to run the business, as well as the IT processes used to ensure smooth operations. Examples include accounts receivable, accounts payable, change management and problem management.
Technology - Items related to the systems, network and industry-specific technology necessary to enable your applications and data. Examples include host systems, workstations and Internet Protocol (IP) networks.
Facilities- Items related to the buildings, factories and offices necessary to house your organization and your production or service technologies. Examples include data centers, office buildings and physical security operations.

Where CIOs spend their time

webmaster — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 09:37:48 -0600

In a survey of CIOs, it was found that they spend most of their time:

Aligning IT with enterprise goals
Cultivating the IT and enterprise relationship
Improving IT operations and system performance
Leading change efforts
Implementing new systems and architecture
Driving business innovation
Redesigning business processes
Controlling IT costs
Developing the business strategy
Looking for a competitive advantage
Managing IT crises
Managing security
Selecting and negotiating with vendors
Developing customer market strategies and technologies
Studying and understanding market trends and customer needs

Some improvement in the job market

webmaster — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 13:44:59 -0600

A technology job board is seeing a steady uptick in technology jobs for the financial industry. After the economys meltdown in 2008 and 2009, its taken some time to see recovery in this segment. If you have technology experience in the industry, there are jobs to be had.

Programming skills are way up in terms of demand, especially the C languages with C# being the skill most sought after right now, along with skills in C and C++. In New York City and the metropolitan area, financial technology positions garner 20 percent higher salaries than the general technology population.

There is good news on the technology jobs front if you have prior banking or financial industry experience. Salaries are higher than the average tech job, especially on Wall Street.

New Policy Templates Can be Customized

webmaster — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 07:50:22 -0600

Documenting a clear set of IT policies is a resource-intensive process for IT managers, due to the research and writing time involved. And once policies are created, the next step is to communicate and gain acceptance for those policies throughout the organization. Wouldn't it be nice to start with boiler-plate templates that require only minor customization?

Janco Associates is offering you CIO IT Infrastructure Policy Bundle. This updated, time-saving package will provide you with a stocked library of over 200 pages of policy templates. Plus, you get the tools, techniques and advice you need to successfully apply these policies in your company.

CIO continue to run with tight budgets

webmaster — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 16:37:54 -0600

Overall server spending in enterprises remains weak in 2010 as companies continue to look for ways to save money following the economic downturn, according to research firm TheInfoPro.

According to the survey, which gathered data from 252 decision makers at Fortune 1000 companies, 38 percent plan to reduce server budgets this year compared to 2009, while 25 percent plan to spend more.

Though demand for server hardware has picked up, spending has flattened due to growing trends like virtualization, which helps manage a larger number of tasks on fewer servers.

What is the Chief Technology Officer's (CTO) Role

webmaster — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 13:42:07 -0600

The Chief Technology Officer (CTO) is responsible for overall direction of all technology functions associated within the enterprise. This includes Information Technology applications, communications (voice, data, and wireless), and computing services within the enterprise that impact the both the enterprise, its products and its customers. As the top technical architect of the enterprise he or she provides a vision of how technology can be applied. These areas include product design, customer interactions with the enterprise, IT operating systems, communications (voice, data, and wireless), transaction processing and database administration, compliance with all mandated requirements, the information center, personal computers, electronic and optical storage, and multimedia applications.

You can get more by getting the Internet and Information Technology Position Descriptions Handiguide - 2010 version.

Virtualization improves disaster planning and change control

webmaster — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 01:30:43 -0600

IT has been reported that organizations implementing virtualization often experience less server downtime than organizations not deploying virtualization, and many have taken steps to provide better disaster recovery than they could have in an unvirtualized environment. Several surveys show that virtualized environments experience between 35% to 40% fewer server outage hours per year than unvirtualized environments.

The reasons often given are:

Simplification - Virtualization allows more OS workloads and more applications per server. This results in fewer servers and more standardization, which results in easier provisioning of new or redeployed applications.
Independence - Since the OS/application workload does not tie to a specific physical server, IT Management can migrate their workload from server to server thus becoming free a particular server. This facilitates the ability to dynamically migrate applications from an overused or failing server to a healthy server, avoiding outage.
Flexibility - Virtualization simplifies the process of initiating an OS/application. This enables IT management to have options for locating the OS/application on a particular physical server. In that way IT Managers can easily suspend, relocate, and restart applications that are degrading on a server.

Better Change Management - Virtualization makes it easier for system administrators to set up a replicate test OS image, which makes it easier to fully regression test new configurations (new application releases, new software versions, etc.). Fuller regression testing of new configurations results in fewer defects encountered in production.

I.T. hiring picks up

webmaster — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 23:24:40 -0600

Salaries and hiring are both on the rise, Janco reports.

The I.T. jobs outlook is strongest among large companies, where many chief information officers have received the go-ahead to fulfill I.T. positions that were left unfulfilled last year, Janco Associates Inc., a management consulting firm specializing in information systems technology, says in its Mid-Year 2010 IT Salary Survey report.

In contrast, technology executives at smaller companies are being more cautious about hiring out of concern that the economic recovery will not be strong enough to support increased I.T. spending, the survey found.

Nonetheless, most chief information officers who participated in the survey said in post-survey interviews that theyre planning for 2011 with the assumption that the economy will improve early next year. If that holds true, I.T. hiring and compensation should rise for more companies, Janco says

Consequences of too much social networking

webmaster — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 15:18:37 -0600

Facebook, MySpace, and other social networking sites make it easy to share information with friends. If you are not utilizing safety features and precautions, however, you are also sharing that information with strangers. Posting too much information on your profile can have consequences that reach all the way from your bank account to your future employment prospects.

According to Consumer Reports, in the last year 9 percent of social network users experienced some form of abuse, such as malware infections, scams, identity theft, or harassment. Many of these incidents are preventable, if you educate yourself about what to do and what not to do on social networking sites.

Similarly, an increasing number of prospective employers are turning to social networking sites to research applicants. Does your profile represent you the same way you would represent yourself in an interview?

Challenges CIOs face

webmaster — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 17:26:22 -0600

CIOs are now challenged more than any time in the past with the economic earthquake around the globe CIOs have to be smarter, creative and innovative. The only way for CIOs to survive the world economic reset in a knowledge age is to capitalize on our human capital, put their staffs creativity to work, stoke our innovative furnace. There are many ways to fuel the creative fires - from management techniques, to team building, and effectively leveraging existing and emerging technological investments. However, the key is infrastructure. CIOs that have a one that address metrics, change management, version control, system development methodology, service management, and human resources have a better chance to make it through these tough times.

Preventing Data Breaches

webmaster — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 10:54:37 -0600

It is critical that organizations are proactive in their approach to mitigating insider threats. Week-after week there are disturbing, déjà vu-like stories of significant data breaches, arrests connected to insider attacks, or investigation reports emphasizing the necessity to control privileged accounts that hold highly sensitive data. With no safeguards in place, insider attacks are often very difficult to detect and block, largely because of excessive privileges granted to users, users sharing common log-ins and accounts, and privileged users such as testers, developers and even DBAs having access to sensitive data.

This Security Manual for the Internet and Information Technology is over 220 pages in length. All versions of the Security Manual template include both the Business & IT Impact Questionnaire and the Threat & Vulnerability Assessment Tool (both were redesigned to address Sarbanes Oxley compliance). In addition, the Security Manual Template PREMIUM Edition contains 16 detail job descriptions that apply specifically to security and Sarbanes Oxley, ISO 27000, PCI DSS, and HIPAA.

Reasons why CIOs and CTOs get Fired

webmaster — Thu, 27 May 2010 00:29:40 -0600

Top ten list of things that fired CIOs do

1. Do not have a disaster recovery and business continuity plan integrated with a backup/archiving program.

2. Ignore warning signs

3. Do not document changes

4. Do not use logging processes

5. Do not install updates

6. Save money by not purchasing upgrades

7. Do not manage passwords well

8. Never say no to anyone

9. Never say yes to anyone

10. Do not train a replacement

Project Managers are paid well

webmaster — Wed, 12 May 2010 16:11:03 -0600

Companies seem willing to provide solid compensation for project maagers. According to a CIO.com article reporting results of the Project Management Institute's (PMI) 2009 Project Management Salary Survey, the median base salary for a project management professional in the United States is $100,000. Three-quarters of survey respondents take home more than $84,000 a year.

Even during the recession, between fall 2008 and fall 2009, 53 percent of American project managers got a raise. Thirty-four percent had salaries frozen, and 14 percent experienced a pay cut. And project management pros have an optimistic outlook for 2010. Sixty-seven percent of respondents believe their salaries will grow this year, while just 4 percent think their salaries will drop.

You have several options to obtain this study. You can get a summary for free if you participate by providing more than ten (10) data points or you have several option on how to purchase the data.

Summary Results and Changes in Demand for IT Jobs 2010

The Janco Associates, Inc. salary survey draws on data collected throughout the year by extensive internet-based and completed survey forms sent to businesses throughout the United States and Canada. Over 300 companies participate in the survey

CIO and IT departments are blamed for user shortfalls

webmaster — Tue, 04 May 2010 16:49:18 -0600

Now the CIO not only must be politically correct, but he must also be clairvoyant and understand what can go wrong, be misused, or be abused. The IT Infrastructure must be robust to address this.

When systems are abused the easiest scapegoat is the IT Department. In the recent school webcam case at the Pennsylvania school district the IT department was blamed because they not only failed to inform school officials and administrators of the tracking capabilities of the software, but argued that telling students about the software's ability to remotely trigger notebook Webcams would "defeat its purpose" as a way to recover lost or stolen computers.

Over one third of HR executives ignore unemployment status of employment candidates

webmaster — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:15:45 -0600

Boston - Results from new research released by Veritude, astaffing services provider, indicate a positive sign for the New England economy. All surveyed executives in New England, and across the country, are accepting of the economy as a reason for an extended unemployment when reviewing candidates. Specifically, when it came to examining the acceptable length of time for a candidate to be unemployed, 36 percent of responding executives said they did not believe it mattered how long a candidate was unemployed given the recessionary conditions, with 36 percent indicating that six months or less was their ideal length of unemployment.

The survey also revealed that when making hiring decisions, 44 percent of executives have no preference for a candidate's employment status. In addition, one-third of New England hiring managers and human resources professionals are considering rehiring information technology (IT) employees whom they had laid off.

According to our survey results, it appears that 2010 will be a better year for IT job seekers in New England, said a senior vice president of Veritude. With half of employers looking to hire back a portion of their laid off IT workers either as full time employees or contractors and employers accepting the economic downturn as a reason for an extended unemployment, IT job candidates should take heart that their employment status will not significantly bias a potential employer.

Although in the minority, 19 percent of those surveyed do prefer candidates who are currently employed as regular, full-time employees. Candidates who are either employed full-time or currently employed as temporary or contract workers are preferred by 22 percent.

Of all hiring executives, 53 percent did not care if a candidate was laid off in a first round as opposed to a subsequent round. While the majority did not have an issue with laid off workers, 17 percent of respondents found it more acceptable if a worker was not one of the first to be laid off.

US at risk for cyber attacks according to study

webmaster — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 18:14:10 -0600

A survey released by Lumension Security Inc. states that nearly three-quarters of federal IT decision-makers who work in national defense and security departments or agencies say the possibility is high for a cyber attack by a foreign nation in the next year. Additionally, a third of these respondents say they have already experienced such a cyber attack within the last year.

Of about 200 IT security managers in civilian and noncivilian federal agencies surveyed, 61% said there was a "high" threat of an attack being launched by a foreign nation sometime in the next year.

33 percent of respondents who work for departments or agencies affecting national security say they have experienced an attack by a foreign nation or terrorist organization in the last year;
61 percent of respondents view the threat of a cyber attack from foreign nations against critical U.S. IT infrastructure in the next year as high;
42 percent of respondents believe the U.S. governments ability to prevent or handle these attacks is only fair or poor;
64 percent of respondents identified the increasing sophistication and growth in the volume of cyber attacks as the number one IT security risk; and,
49 percent of respondents believe that negligent or malicious insiders/employees are the largest IT security risk.

At the same time, more than four out of 10 respondents in the Lumension survey said that they believe the U.S. government's ability to defend against the attacks is "poor" to "fair" at best.

Feds could learn from private sector IT

webmaster — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 04:29:06 -0600

The federal government can learn a lot from the private sector to improve IT program management and customer service and create a more modern government, concluded attendees of a forum comprised of both federal and private-sector leaders.

The government should take a more business-minded approach to how it manages its IT projects, as well as step up efforts already in place to increase transparency and accountability, according to a recently released report about the White House Forum on Modernizing Government.

PCI DSS compliance is more than checklist managment

webmaster — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:31:44 -0600

PCI DSS applies to any organization that accepts, stores or processes payment cards of any type and is a comprehensive checklist of actions these organizations must take to improve the security of global payment systems. Although the adoption of PCI DSS by an organization will most likely improve its security posture, being compliant with the PCI DSS does not ensure the organization is secure.

If Enterprises mechanically follow the PCI DSS checklist and our organization suffers a data securitybreach, they are still held responsible, and the organization still gets fined, suffers brand damage and may lose its ability to process credit card transactions. While checklists are useful tools, following them can lull us into a false sense of security.
To rely solely on the PCI DSS checklists to secure cardholder data is similar to a pilot relying only on the pre-flight checklist before takeoff, then colliding with another plane during takeoff. A checklist is not enough. In reality, the goal of effective security controls is to prevent security breaches from occurring, and when they do, to allow quick detection and recovery. This requires not just following a checklist, but understanding the organizations compliance and security objectives, understanding what the top risks to achieving those objectives are, having adequate situational awareness to identify where we need controls to mitigate those risk, and then having implementing and monitoring the correct production controls.

Cost cutting starts with simplifying operations

webmaster — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:13:00 -0600

Complexity produces cost, so IT departments may choose to standardize on a handful of preferred technologies or vendors. The biggest line item in IT budgets is people, so staffing must be addressed. That could mean hiring freezes, cutting back on use of consultants, replacing employees who leave with automation technologies (not another person) and similar measures to limit spending on people.

CIOs should plan proactively for spending cuts before they are mandated. That may involve rebalancing IT initiatives to focus on projects with near-term benefits while keeping momentum on longer-term, strategic projects. They also may need to align IT more closely with the business priorities, which are likely to focus on revenue.

Tax laws hamper IT independent contractors

webmaster — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:21:47 -0600

Section 1706 of the 1986 Tax Reform Act, an obscure law, certain classes of workers, including anyone who engages as a "computer programmer, systems analyst, or other similarly skilled worker engaged in a similar line of work," are considered de facto employees for tax purposes, regardless of whether they claim to operate their own businesses as independent contractors. The IRS can impose significant tax penalties on companies who hire such workers as contractors rather than full employees, a fact that can make it extremely difficult for self-employed programmers to find work.

Section 1706 was originally sponsored by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, who hoped that forcing highly paid software developers to become employees would limit their ability to take advantage of tax breaks for small businesses. Ironically, it was also Moynihan who, when a study determined the law was not bringing in the desired tax revenue, tried to have it repealed a year later. He failed, and it's still on the books today.

Employees typically do not have to pay for their own health insurance, the way contractors do. Individual health plans generally offer worse coverage than group plans, and they can be incredibly selective about who they allow to join. Those who are accepted can expect their premiums to rise every year, often by double-digit percentages. Given these conditions, developers who have families to support or preexisting medical conditions are well advised to hang on to their salaried jobs for dear life rather than run the gauntlet of the dysfunctional American health insurance industry.

And if the prospect of being bankrupted by medical bills is not frightening enough, add the increasingly hostile legal climate surrounding the software development profession. In response to all-too-common reports of software bugs and security breaches, some organizations have begun lobbying for contractual language that makes software developers accountable for any defects in their code. For example, the SANS Institute has proposed a detailed contract that would require developers to certify that they had received appropriate training, observed any and all security procedures deemed necessary, and that their code was free of defects to the best of their knowledge, among other clauses.

Windows Live Potential Data Breach

webmaster — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 13:10:13 -0600

Microsoft is looking into reports that some Windows Live customers may have gotten access to other users' information.

"Microsoft is investigating reports of a limited number of instances in which Windows Live customers may have access to other customers' accounts when accessing their account through mobile Web browser," the company said in a statement Tuesday. "Microsoft takes customers' privacy seriously, and immediately upon learning of these reports, we started an investigation."

The company added that it "will take appropriate action once we have completed the investigation."

Metrics to Manage Performance Defined by Janco

webmaster — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:23:17 -0600

The performance of the people within an organization determines the success of business outcomes. Without optimal performance an organization can find itself floundering in the market and eventually fizzling out. Measuring the performance of our people and our HR department is a critical function for making sound business decisions and performance management decisions. HR metrics can be valuable tools for ensuring our people practices are aligned with our organizational goals and supporting the effective and efficient use of our most valuable asset, our people.

Outsouring impact IT Service Management

webmaster — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 14:40:17 -0600

Lack of proactive monitoring threatens end-user satisfaction and application performance

To operate a cost-effective business in todays highly competitive market, an organisation requires an extremely efficient IT infrastructure to link its data centers, business operations and globally distributed customers. All business-critical applications must run smoothly to satisfy end-users and customers service level expectations. Consequently, an enterprise's IT support services play a vital role. Many international businesses, for example, operate multiple hosted data centers and have communication rooms in many of their overseas locations. These same businesses often outsource some of their IT operations management

However, executives are concerned about poor visibility of IT infrastructure problems, high levels of service disruption, low end-user satisfaction and the impact on application availability. Visibility of an enterprise's infrastructures performance and availability are often inadequate because they have very little monitoring and performance information. Thus, they are a reactive organization. Enterprises must introduce an IT Service Transformation process to improve all aspects of IT Service Management (ITSM) and act as a foundation to monitor the critical business processes, which cover multiple applications and infrastructure integrated incident, problem and asset management.

Key objectives are to manage the infrastructure and applications proactively; generate a centralized system for their outsourced service providers; and link problems to their existing help desk.

Data Breachs Costly

webmaster — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 16:05:24 -0600

The financial consequences of data breaches can be severe. Many organizations lose customers and revenue because of the violation of trust incurred from a breach. Due to the growing number of state privacy laws, most breaches require that those whose information is compromised must be notified. Most organizations now pay for credit monitoring services for several years for all those impacted by a breach -- these services typically cost about $100 per person per year. And in some cases, organizations are subject to fines for revealing personal information.

Security Policy Manual (policies and procedures template) is over 240 pages in length. All versions of the Security Manual template include both the Business & IT Impact Questionnaire and the Threat & Vulnerability Assessment Tool (both were redesigned to address Sarbanes Oxley compliance). In addition, the Security Manual Template PREMIUM Edition contains 16 detail job descriptions that apply specifically to security and Sarbanes Oxley, ISO 27000 (ISO27001 and ISO27002), PCI-DSS, and HIPAA. Data Protection is a priority and security myths need to addressed.

Dow sinks over 600 points as China and Obama square off

webmaster — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 12:25:45 -0600

WASHINGTON-- The Dow skids by over 600 points as the Obama adminsitration squares off with China. China responds with "no more loans".

U.S. Internet companies might soon need to find a new strategy for dealing with China.

In announcing that it is now U.S. policy to advocate a free and open Internet around the world, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday essentially dared U.S. companies to follow Google's lead and put an end to their complicit censorship of Internet content. Google has said it will shut down its Chinese search engine if it can't find a way to offer an uncensored version under Chinese law, and while no one else has jumped on that bandwagon, they may soon have little choice.

"We are urging U.S. media companies to take a proactive role in challenging foreign governments' demands for censorship and surveillance. The private sector has a shared responsibility to help safeguard free expression. And when their business dealings threaten to undermine this freedom, they need to consider what's right, not simply what's a quick profit," Clinton said in remarks Thursday at the Newseum, before an audience including members of Congress, representatives from nonprofit groups, and perhaps more than one Internet company executive forced to ponder the meaning of that paragraph.

Clinton stopped short of actually proposing regulations or sanctions on Internet companies that comply with censorship laws. But her tone was clear: it's now the policy of the U.S. government to renounce corporate "engagement," or the belief that by merely being in countries like China, U.S. Internet companies are helping expand access to information.

Will it work? Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo have already formed the Global Network Initiative, a consortium of companies and organizations designed to provide guidelines for operating in countries with authoritarian governments without turning into tools of those governments. Clinton acknowledged the work of the GNI during her speech, but is calling on companies to do more.

Firefox plugs away in a tough market

webmaster — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:04:13 -0600

Mozilla released a second release candidate of Firefox 3.6 browser, a modest upgrade that embodies Mozilla's effort to increase the frequency the open-source browser is developed.

The president of Firefox, announced second Firefox 3.6 release candidate Sunday but didn't share details. The release notes were equally mum, but the update process called the new software a "security and stability update."

The software is available from Mozilla's download site. More than 1 million people are testing Firefox 3.6 at present, and more than 300 million overall use Firefox, Mozilla said.

The new version includes Personas to let people customize the browser's appearance; blocks third-party software from encroaching on its file system turf to increase stability; and--perhaps most significantly given the competitive threat from Google Chrome--shortens start-up time and improves responsiveness and JavaScript performance.

Wireless spectrum may be overloaded

webmaster — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 07:30:06 -0600

The FCC has identified the limited supply of wireless spectrum as one of the factors that could limit the growth of broadband Internet services in the U.S., which could result in slower economic growth and job creation.

Wireless spectrum will be addressed, along with other factors affecting broadband access and services, in a national broadband plan that the FCC is now assembling. The plan was originally due to be completed next month, but the FCC received a 30-day extension from the U.S. Congress.

The wide array of devices on display at CES that rely on wireless broadband underscores the urgency of resolving the spectrum issue, Genachowski said. "The wireless infrastructure in the U.S. will be our platform for ongoing innovation and investment," he said.

With the explosion of technology into every facet of the day-to-day business environment there is a need to define an effective infrastructure to support operating environment; have a strategy for the deployment and technology; and clearly define responsibilities and accountabilities for the use and application of technology.

New CTO for Virginia

webmaster — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 08:55:31 -0600

Virginia Bob McDonnell has nominated Jim Duffey to serve as his secretary of technology, according to announcement today from the Northern Virginia Technology Council.

Duffey, president and chief executive of Duff Consulting, spent 24 years at EDS Corp., where he held a variety of positions in the United States and Europe, including three years as vice president and public-sector general manager, responsible for all of EDS' state and local, federal, civilian, military and Medicare client relationships.

He also is a former vice president and public-sector general manager at Dell.

Duffey has served on NVTCs board of directors since 2004 and was vice chair from July 2006 to January 2009.

"Jim will bring a strong private-sector perspective to state government and enthusiastically champion the issues and initiatives that are so critical to our regional and statewide technology community," said NVTC Chairwoman, president of U.S., Europe and Asia at CGI.

Credit Card Haker Pleads guilty

webmaster — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 00:35:38 -0600

(Reuters) - A 28-year-old college dropout pleaded guilty on Tuesday to charges that he stole tens of millions of payment card numbers by breaking into corporate computer systems.

The hacker, Albert Gonzalez, told a federal judge in Boston that he had engineered electronic thefts at companies including the card processor Heartland Payment Systems, the convenience store 7-Eleven and the Hannaford chain of New England grocery stores.

Mr. Gonzalez has previously pleaded guilty to computer break-ins at the retailers TJX Companies, BJ's Wholesale Club and Barnes & Noble.

"You face a considerable amount of time in jail as a result of your plea," Federal District Judge P. Douglas Woodlock told Mr. Gonzalez. "All aspects of your life are to be affected."

A federal court in Boston last week sentenced one of Mr. Gonzalez's conspirators, Stephen Watt of New York, to two years in prison for developing the software used to capture payment card data. It also ordered Mr. Watt to pay $171.5 million in restitution.

NASA to release multi-billion dollar IT contracts

webmaster — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 07:55:00 -0600

NASA says its on track to open competition as early as Dec. 4 for the first project in a series of large information technology services contracts that have been estimated to be worth more than $4 billion total.

NASA plans to award five contracts as part of the Information Technology Infrastructure Integration Program (I3P) acquisition to consolidate the agency's IT and data services. Input Inc., a market research firm, has estimated the total value for the five contracts, based on NASAs draft RFPs, to be $4.3 billion. The services contracts would consolidate current NASA contracts such as the Outsourcing Desktop Initiative for NASA and Unified NASA Information Technology Services.

The agency could release the Web Enterprise Service Technologies (WEST) final request for proposal (RFP) as early as Dec. 4, NASA said on Nov. 20. WEST would be a contract for public Web site hosting, Web content management, messaging and calendar services.

In addition, NASA said on Nov. 25 that it plans to release on or about Dec. 11 a final RFP for the NASA Integrated Communications Services or NICS contract for wide area network services, local area network services, telecommunications services, video services, and data services.

The agency also plans to release a final RFP for the Enterprise Applications Service Technologies or EAST contract for services that involve NASAs Enterprise Applications Competency Center on or about Dec. 18, the agency said.

Smartphone selection tool has major defects

webmaster — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 01:56:24 -0600

InfoWorld has put a smartphone selection tool on its web site that excludes several major factors that users need to keep in mind when they select a smartphone and provider. The calculator does not take into effect the coverage provided, if the phone can be used outside of the US, GPS, Wi-Fi, tethering, and features locked by the provider.

The selection tool includes only the iPhone, Eris, Droid, Pre, Blackberry Bold and Blackberry Storm. Whoever created the analysis must live in New York, Boston, or San Francisco. If they travel to places like Utah, Mexico, Canada, or Europe they would easily see the tool is not really very functional.

When you re-set the tool to InfoWorlds values you can see they have a basis to the iPhone which is a great phone but one that does not offer the coverage or features necessary to operate outside of big cities that have AT&T 3G services.

This does not help in setting standards for travel and off-site meeting policy and standards.

Job cuts continue

webmaster — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:27:08 -0600

Electronic Arts, the video game company, said it would lay off 1,500 workers and shrink its product lineup, even as it announced that it had acquired Playfish, a start-up that makes online games. Salaries will stay flat as well.

The company said the new job cuts were equivalent to 17 percent of its work force. It plans to cut its staff and close several offices by March 31. In a conference call with analysts, executives did not say which game titles they would cut, but that games in the bottom third in sales were at risk and that some games in development would be canceled. The cost-cutting plan would save at least $100 million this year, the company said.

Security Policies Required to Stop SPAM

webmaster — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 03:59:34 -0600

Security policies and audit procedures are required if enterprises look towards stopping spam. Courts and lawsuits do not help.

For example, spammers allegedly obtained the login credentials for Facebook accounts. The accounts were then used to send spam to those users' friends starting around November 2008. The spam either linked to other phishing sites that sought to collect more Facebook account credentials or linked to other commercial Web sites that paid spammers for referrals.

In May 2008, the same spammer was found guilty of violating the CAN-SPAM act and was ordered to pay $230 million for spamming and phishing on MySpace. The spam led to gambling, ringtone and pornography sites.

Facebook may choose to close the file once the default judgment is entered against the spammer, the court filing said.

Fraud in H-1B Visa Program Shows Huge Gaps In Monitoring

webmaster — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:00:00 -0600

An immigration lawyer in West Covina, Calif., a suburb of Los Angeles, and his business partners have been charged with visa fraud in relation to an elaborate scheme targeting immigrants, according to a report from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

IT Salary Survey

According to the ICE, the group is accused of selling the illegally obtained visas, including those in the H-1B category, for prices ranging from $6,000 to over $50,000. With the illegal proceeds from the immigrants, the group allegedly then purchased empty cemetery plots and plaques in Rose Hills Memorial Park, in Whittier, Calif., to hide the funds.

Why empty burial plots? Funeral professionals say these plots are considered investments that can grow at a rate of 10 percent a year, according to the ICE news release. ICE said this may be the first case of money laundering involving cemetery plots in California's history.

In the LA Times - 'It's unique in the sense that we haven't run into this before that an individual seeking to hide proceeds goes out and purchases cemetery plots,' said the ICE assistant special agent in charge. 'There are always new ways in which criminals will try and hide money, but this is by far one of the most unique.'

The question remains whether this case will weaken support for the H-1B visa program and help boost stronger, more proactive audit measures such as those in proposed legislation.

The FCC does not have a definition for what broadband is

webmaster — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 22:05:39 -0600

The FCC has launched a campaign to define exactly what constitutes "broadband" and providers of the high speed service may not like how it is defined and how the FCC views their delivery of broadband.

In a notice the FCC said it is seeking "tailored comment" on broadband in connection with developing a National Broadband Plan as it relates to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Consumers have often been bedeviled by service providers claiming features for their broadband services that somehow aren't experienced by the consumers.

"...Advertised throughput rates generally differ from actual rates, are not uniformly measured, and have different constraints over different technologies," the FCC noted in its posting and added that "it is unclear what the end points of the connection are over which throughput is measured or whether the performance of the end point is reflected in the stated throughput."

The FCC wants to develop accurate and uniform definitions for broadband to help in its development of a national broadband plan it expects to submit to Congress in February. The National Broadband Plan Notice of Inquiry has observed that "broadband can be defined in myriad ways."

U.S. broadband rankings have been slipping in recent years to the point that the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development found the U.S. was in the 19th place in the worldwide rankings with a 9.6 mbps advertised rate. Japan led the 2008 rankings with 92.8 mbps and Korean was second with 80.8 mbps.

Data deduplication an avenue towards cost savings

webmaster — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:05:08 -0600

It is estimated by some that corporate data has grown by 25% in 2009 after several years of increases at two to three times that rate. When you combine this with flat to decreasing IT budgets, something eventually has to give. Companies are now forced to make a choice. They will have to either keep buying more storage - which means other budgeted items go unfunded -and deal with the increased operating costs associated with managing more devices, such as power, cooling, and data center space or reduce the amount of data retained, which could impact compliance, recovery service level agreements, and business intelligence initiatives. Data deduplication approaches offer IT a hybrid alternative, which is to remove redundant content before it is ultimately stored - eliminating most of the downstream negative effects, which capacity would cause.

The gains in capacity savings provide customers with much more optimistic outcomes, such as the ability to retain more "virtual" and true information online for longer periods, dramatically lowering the operating impact of supporting that data and enhancing data protection operations with disk. These outcomes can lead to huge downstream financial benefits, such as moving corporate archives from tape to disk to assist corporate counsels in responding to electronic discovery requests.

For example, in a 2008 survey, approximately 60% of U.S.-based trial attorneys reported having cases that raise electronic discovery issues. Of that group, over 86% have issued or received a discovery request for electronically stored information since the new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure went into effect in December 2006. Corporate counsels need to quickly be able to run searches against centralized online archives in order to facilitate early case preparation and potentially avoid legal expenses because of reaching a settlement prior to trial.

Compliance Impacts IT Productivity - Costs Continue to Rise

webmaster — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:51:38 -0600

Already over-burdened IT and security teams struggle to collect, organize, and disseminate the required data. If administrators spend three to five hours each week supporting audits, that is a 10 percent tax against productivity. Further, more than half of larger organizations manage 10 or more regulations. Multiple regulations compound effort and complicate both policy and control decisions. System inefficiencies in the compliance audit process are:

Policy definition
Policy implementation and lifecycle management
Data collection to validate policies and configurations
Monitoring, issue, and patch management
Measurement and scoring to document non-compliance
Waiver management
Reporting against key mandates and internal policies

How to Identify Gaps in Your Security

webmaster — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 11:25:26 -0600

Define requirements and gaps. Start by defining the broader problem and document all relevant business, legal, and regulatory requirements. After defining the requirements, identify the gaps. Where can the current processes and team be improved? What is missing? What is being done right and who is involved? Often, interested parties can be entrusted to improve other processes. Bring in senior leadership, midlevel managers, IT, end-users, and the necessary ancillary departments such as legal and auditing.

Each gap should be threat-modeled and evaluated for security risk. Calculations for security risk need to include real risk, potential incidence of occurrence, and potential damage costs. Gaps with the highest security risk should be closed first. Of course, you cannot forget the political layer. Sometimes you must do a project simply because someone above wants it done.

Hiring the right employee - CIO issue number one

webmaster — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 11:08:50 -0600

Hiring is the most critical aspect of a CIO's role. For a CIO it can be fatal of they hire a new employee find out there is a mismatch.

While the new employee looked impressive on paper and interviewed well, your new hire's style, approach, and behavior on the job are simply inconsistent with the values and expectations of your organization. The new employee's modus operand is foreign to their colleagues. This results in:

Inadequate capability to perform in the job they were hired for
Poor relationship with co-workers
Poor relationship with managers and CIO

CIOs need to understand that capability does not necessarily mean an individual is a good fit. Capability refers to the skills, tools and experience that a person needs to successfully perform a job. It is no secret that most candidates exaggerate their abilities on their resumes and job applications. Things to look for are:

Skills Definition - Good Job Descriptions - Do you know what skills are needed to perform the job and whether the employee possesses those skills? If they do not possess the necessary skills, how will the CIO help them to acquire them, and how long do you expect that process to take? It is in everyone's best interest for the CIO to set appropriate expectations for the employee from the beginning. This is especially true if the job requires special technical capabilities.
Tools Definition - Good IT Infrastructure - Even if an individual has the skills and experience to do the job, do they have the tools to deliver peak performance? For example, a highly skilled and experienced web designer cannot build a website without adequate computer hardware and software. The tools do not have to be the most up-to-date, but a system that crashes can be incredibly frustrating and unproductive, even to the best performer.
Experience - Just because an employee has the skills to do a job does not mean that they has the experience to apply those skills in his specific position. This is especially true for recent graduates, outside hires from different industries and internal hires from different departments. While the required skills may be similar from one job to the next, differing applications and terminology may require that the new hire take time to learn the nuances of his new position.