So you think that risk is all about security? Well, we deal with risks to our personal security every day – each time we cross the road! But ask someone to think about more impersonal risk, like that to IT, and it becomes difficult to define what we mean.

The latest Symantec IT Risk Management Report aims to build a common understanding about IT risk, which it views as consisting of four elements: security, performance, availability, and compliance. When most people consider the risk to their IT systems, they immediately think about security and the need to keep bad things out and good things in. However, the report shows that concerns about availability risk have now come to the fore—78 percent of participants saw it as a serious or critical risk to their business. This makes a lot of sense when you know what it can cost your business if you lose the...

Social networking sites are an increasingly popular way for people to keep in contact with friends, family and business colleagues. These sites offer a rich set of features that enable users to share personal information as well as videos, music, and images with members of their network—all in the name of keeping their contacts updated with what goes on in their lives. Although the ability to share information and multimedia files are among social networking sites’ greatest strengths, hackers see these assets as new vectors to attack unsuspecting users.

With the increased use of these sites in the workplace, businesses should examine and understand the risks social networking sites pose to the enterprise. We developed this short Ask the Expert document to provide an introduction to...

I know, it sounds like the name of an old school rock band, but it’s not. It’s actually going to be one of the most pressing issues for IT in 2008. With millions beginning to enter the workforce from Generation Y, CIOs are scrambling to understand and address perhaps their greatest risk ever.

In 2007 IT is just beginning to get its hands around the concept of IT risk management and figuring out how to translate that for executives and the board. Now they’re confronted by the millennial worker, which is almost cause to rethink IT risk management all over again. Trying to implement IT risk management policies with a "Millennial" workforce—one with members who have been labeled as "risk takers"—is very problematic. In general most "Millennials" tend to believe in a "no-walls" approach when it comes to sharing information. Why shouldn’t all information be shared? Their strength is digital sophistication; some would even...

I recently attended a pair of conferences in Las Vegas (yes, lovely Las Vegas). Not only was it hot, but because I was staying in one hotel and the conferences were in two other hotels, I had a long hike between where I was sleeping and where I was attending. Needless to say, walking through the desert heat I had lots of time to think about why I was dumb enough not to bring water with me, think about where the nearest air conditioning was, and also to think about things that I’ve said in front of crowds or things I’ve heard other people say. One of the most common phrases I heard at the conferences was “risk mitigation.” Well really, what does that mean?

I hear a lot of vendors talk about how they help clients mitigate their risks and how they use technical infrastructure to do so. But, should we mitigate risks? Well, let’s start with reminding ourselves what “mitigate” means. Dictionary.com defines “mitigate” as: to lessen in force or intensity, as...