* This article originally ran on StateScoop on March 19, 2013.

"The golden age never was the present age."

That's a quote from Benjamin Franklin, who was about as close to a State CIO as you could get back in 18th century Pennsylvania.

And while it may seem jarring to think that we've progressed in just a few short years from a "golden age" of simple-to-secure state-owned mobile IT to a turbulent new era of employee-owned mobile IT, it's a reasonable assessment.

In state government today, attempting to own, distribute, and manage all of the mobile devices connecting to your network is about as practical as catching lightning with a kite.

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that the best lens through which to look at this issue is a historical one; by...

There has been a data explosion within security teams, as organisations everywhere seek to increase their effectiveness in preventing breaches of defences through improved correlation and data sharing. You have probably seen this happening within your own working environment, too.

In the quest to achieve this sought-after level of ‘good enough’ security, the findings of new research from the Enterprise Strategy Group, ‘Big Data Intersection with Security Analytics’, partially sponsored by Symantec, are encouraging.

You won’t be too surprised to hear that, in our ‘Big Data’ world, we are collecting a lot more data than we used to two years ago. There is only one direction in which that arrow is going to be pointing from now on. What is interesting here, though, is that lots of people are vested in this information to do their job – and that is likely to envelop even more people, across a wide range of roles over the next...

Symantec received a finalist nomination in 9 categories of the upcoming SC Magazine 2013 Awards, representing Symantec's broad portfolio of superior security offerings. SC Magazine will announce the winners at a dinner event during RSA 2013. Symantec looks forward to attending!

• Best Anti-Malware Gateway (Symantec Web Gateway)
• Best Mobile/Portable Device Security (Symantec Mobile Management Suite )
• Best Cloud Computing Security (Symantec O3)
• Best Fraud Prevention Solution (Symantec...

Approximately two weeks since my last post I write again this morning (times as per current location) whilst on a break in between sessions in a Worldwide Technical Symposium based Las Vegas. This is where a number of Symantec Technical employees attend a five day conference to not only enhance their knowledge around Symantec products and Solutions, but to also develop existing relationships further and knowledge share, ultimately to ensure our customers have a much better experience. We are all here so we can better protect the world people and information.

I am sat near the front of the lab today, learning about the advanced configurations of the Symantec Web Gateway and how it works when connected to SSIM and the DLP offerings - powerful is a plain understatement of what this solution can do for an organisation.

Whilst I write, a lot of the people in the lab have gone for a quick coffee break and I am sat here with approximately three other people, who in the...