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We live in interesting times. According to Gartner Research VP Robert Anderson, if all the people on the MySpace virtual community banded together, they'd form the eighth largest country in the world. Never before in history could people create such large communities and communicate so readily as they can today, thanks to the social networking environment. New Web 2.0 technologies are changing the course of history and are certainly changing the way we work and play.

The proliferation of portable computing is fueling the need for mobile embedded security solutions. By enabling new applications while overcoming the risk of thefts and infringements, mobile security has become a vital requirement for both consumer and enterprise applications. Mobile applications such as music, video, TV, commerce, authentication, gaming and health care are just a sample of the applications that depend on the availability of robust security solutions.

Want to try an experiment? Part 1: Get yourself a crowd of willing co-experimenters -- about 20 to 30 -- and tell them that you're going to ask them a trivia question. Tell them you're going to read the question to them and when you count to three, everyone should shout out their answer at the same time. They should all shout out a guess -- even if they have no clue what the answer is. Just yell it out. Then ask the group some really esoteric question -- one that most people are unlikely to know but that isn't so out there that it's unanswerable.

Nobody likes it when people renege on a promise. You don't have to look very far to see how we as a society view people who lie, break promises or misrepresent themselves. In movies, the bad guy is always dishonest. In books, liars invariably get clobbered: Iago gets tortured, Claggart gets walloped, and Dante puts the liars all the way at the bottom of hell. In fact, even our English word "hell" is derived from the Old Norse "hel" -- a place for punishing "oathbreakers and criminals." So why all the negativity for the dishonest? In my opinion, it's hardwired.

How can smaller employers contend in today's competitive hiring market? By offering employees what large organizations often can't: a say in how the business is run and the freedom to explore and take risks. The key is getting employees invested in the organization's success at a deep level -- creating a sense of ownership that isn't quickly forfeited when other offers come. This message couldn't be timelier. There are plenty of reports that warn of an IT worker shortage.

Have you seen the recent television commercial that shows the Pentagon and says, "This building gets attacked 3 million times a day." The sad news is that it's true. Cyber-warfare and cyber-attacks have now become a reality. Ever consider how your business would be impacted if the Internet went away for an hour, a day or an even a longer period of time? Businesses, governments and industries have all become dependent on the Internet as a primary channel for business. They buy, sell and support their customers as well as their employees over the Internet.

Web application vulnerabilities put critical business applications and back-end databases at risk from attack, theft and fraud. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, which recognizes the threat Web application vulnerabilities pose to credit card data, allows organizations to choose between two mitigation techniques. Requirement 6.6 of PCI DSS specifies the means for protecting Web-facing applications, either by code review or by installing an application layer firewall.

Ever heard that story about the mother who lifted the car off of her son? I thought it was an urban legend until I looked it up. But apparently it's true: In 1982, Angela Cavallo saw her son being crushed by a 1964 Impala. Seeing that happen brought Angela to a state of panic so severe that she temporarily gained superhuman strength -- enough strength necessary to lift the car off her son. It's called "hysterical strength" -- tremendous strength brought about by severe stress.

Early adopters are typically characterized as progressive risk-takers who have little to lose and much to gain. Following this logic, it makes perfect sense that within this crowd we find bot herders -- hackers who control a large number of compromised PCs for malicious purposes. Yet it's unsettling that these unsavory characters are using some of the industry's most promising technologies to further their criminal agendas. Whether we like it or not, the fact of the matter is today's bot herders employ a savvy set of strategies and tactics.

Have you seen that movie "Groundhog Day?" You probably have, but on the off chance that you missed it, it's the movie where Bill Murray's character -- who's kind of a jerk -- wakes up every morning to find that it's the same day over and over again. He's forced to relive the same day repeatedly, and as he does so, he slowly learns enough about life to transform into a pretty likable guy. It's a great movie, but I'm not actually calling your attention to it to recommend watching it. Instead, I'm bringing it up because it makes a great metaphor for IT audit. Hear me out before you scoff.