The dramatic news that one of the U.K.’s leading financial services organisations had suffered a data outage that led to millions of customers unable to access their accounts should be a wake-up call for every CIO. The event tells them that their operation is entirely dependent on IT and in particular on the IT resources they have to run their systems.

It was once said that financial services can be thought of as a technology business with a financial domain of expertise. Whether or not that is the case, every bank—indeed every business—needs to have in place a watertight disaster recovery that ensures data is continuously available, whatever the scenario. As that major U.K. financial institution is now finding to its cost, the aftermath of a service stoppage can be...

Symantec’s latest Internet Security Threat Report Volume 17 showed that 2011 saw an increase in targeted attacks, and  18 percent of these targeted attacks were directed at businesses with 250 or fewer employees. Now that we’re halfway through the new year, how do things look for SMBs? According to the latest Symantec Intelligence Report – not good.

Targeted attacks still increasing

After reaching a record high in December of 154 attacks per day, daily attacks dipped briefly in January before returning to similar levels in February. For the most part, the daily attack average remained around this level for the first half of 2012 resulting in an average increase in targeted attacks per day of around 24 percent for the first half of 2012.

Attacks against SMBs double

Over the last six months, the number of attacks against SMBs has doubled, jumping to 36 percent compared to the 18 percent we saw just...

With every ring of its cash registers, Tesco is getting smarter. Each month the company collects billions of pieces of information on its customers’ shopping habits and uses them to adjust its promotions and pricing, giving the company a huge competitive advantage. In essence, this British retail giant is harnessing the power of data analytics in order to help put the “I” back in Information Technology. 

And Tesco is not alone. From confidential customer data to intellectual property to financial transactions, organizations possess massive amounts of information that not only enable them to be productive and competitive, but also grow their business.  In fact, Symantec’s 2012 State of Information Survey of more than 4,500...

In a recent court case U.S. v. David Nosal, Judge Alex Kozinski ruled that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the nation’s anti-hacking law, applies to people accessing data by circumventing technological access barriers, but it does not extend to employees violating their employer’s restrictions on the use of that information. Under the new interpretation, an employee who has valid credentials to access company data and then misuses that data, however inappropriately, cannot be prosecuted under the CFAA. However, an employee who has valid credentials to access a company computer, but hacks into company data for which he does not have authorization can be prosecuted under CFAA.

The reason for the new interpretation, according to the ruling summary, was that using the CFAA to take action against employees that violate use restrictions could lead to prosecution...