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The InformationWeek December 2004 Archive « November 2004 | Main | January 2005 » |
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Tsunami Terror Aftermath
The devastation and carnage wreaked by the deadly combination of the world's most powerful earthquake in 40 years, and the tsunamis it spawned, have awed and horrified us all. At deadline, the death toll had risen to 76,000 and was expected to climb to well over 100,000. Entire communities have been wiped out and tens of thousands are missing. The full extent of this incomprehensible loss may never really be known. The compelling need to respond in some way, or to record this extraordinary demonstration of the earth's wrath, has touched many -- some lucky enough to gasp from a safe distance, and still others who were there on the scene.
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The Toughest CIO Job In The World
Imagine being the CIO of a newly created company with 180,000 employees and an annual budget topping $40 billion, including $226 million earmarked for enterprise technology investments. Task One: combine 22 diverse companies of size into a single enterprise with a unified architecture. Task Two: Help create imaginative use of technology to thwart terrorism.
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Happy Not-So-Secure New Year
Despite Microsoft’s “Trustworthy Computing” efforts during the past three years, it seems 2005 will be much like the past five years when it comes to Windows security. Just before the holiday break, a group of security researchers known as XForce released a hat trick of new security vulnerabilities in Windows software. Microsoft says it is investigating the flaws, which several security firms have ranked as critical. They affect all supported versions of Windows including NT, 2000, XP, Windows Server 2003, and one even Windows XP with Service Pack 2 installed.
Microsoft blasted XForce for releasing the detailed information about the flaws before giving the vendor the opportunity to proffer a patch. This gives attackers the jump on developing attacks long before any software company could develop, test, and deploy a patch. And within days that’s exactly what happened: Attacks began to surface, placing systems at risk until Microsoft publishes an update. Hopefully, by its next scheduled “Patch Tuesday” Jan. 11.
All of the thousands of folks who were given a new computer for the holidays can expect to be hacked within minutes of connecting to the Internet--unless their new system came equipped with Linux. According to the Honeynet Project, an unpatched Linux system will survive without being hacked for about three months. That’s up from roughly 72 hours in 2001. A recent study by a different group found that unpatched Windows XP SP1 systems without a firewall lasted a mere four minutes before being hacked.
The catch here is that it takes longer--much longer--to download all of the system updates from Microsoft. So many users will have found themselves infected with a worm while, if not before, they started downloading their updates. Here’s a handy paper from The SANS Institute, Windows XP: Surviving the First Day.
Hopefully, one of these New Years, it won’t be required reading.
Are Days Of PCs Numbered?
PCs, as we use them, seem destined to follow the path of another business tool, the fax machine.
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EPCglobal Approves Gen 2 RFID Specs
EPCglobal Inc. gave industry executives involved in radio frequency identification projects a much anticipated holiday gift Thursday evening when the nonprofit organization chartered to drive standards for RFID technology reported its 15 member board has approved the EPCglobal UHF Generation 2 specification.
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E-mail's Presidential Payoff
If you thought technology played a crucial role in last month's presidential election, that was only the beginning. Politicians have built a permanent onramp between the campaign trail and the information superhighway and will plan future campaigns mindful of what worked (or didn't work) in 2004. The future of campaigning isn't about how much technology a candidate has access to but how he uses that technology to outsmart his opponents.
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Managing The Grid
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison believes the industry is out of the "early adopter" phase of grid computing and into the "mainstream phase." In a matter of a few years, he says the technology will sustain a high rate of growth. Why? "It is much faster, much cheaper, and much more reliable" than mainframe-based environments, Ellison says. "This is an important innovation. It's the future of computing." The cost efficiencies of grid computing are impressive when you consider the attractive pricing of commodity servers that provide the building blocks. But I wonder what impact grids will have on systems-management costs. Grids have no single point of failure and, therefore, offer a high level of reliability, but the more systems that are involved, the more systems there are to manage. I'd love to hear from anyone who has experience with grid computing and what the impact has been on your management costs.
Oracle And The ISV Community
In its quest to make its software easier to use and more attractive to midsize businesses, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison told reporters yesterday that the company plans to integrate additional functions into its database -- functions currently served up by the ISV community. For example, the company will build Automatic Storage Management into the next database release, replacing the need for software from Veritas, which Ellison says "raises the price of Oracle." See story by CRN.
What does Veritas have to say?
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Say "Uncle"
The government is increasingly enlisting businesses to help fight terrorism, drug counterfeiting, and fraud. This means getting airlines, drug companies, financial service providers, defense department contractors, and telecommunication companies to invest in technology, the right technology. My December 13 feature entitled "Uncle Sam's Guiding Hand" addresses this issue in depth, but here's a preview of some key issues.
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CIO Shuffle
Are we about to see a turnover in CIOs at cabinet-level departments as the Bush administration begins its second term?
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Works In Progress
Future-proof your career and read our industry coverage: Is The Mobile Phone The Next Weak Link? When Your Outsourcer Gets Political, Down And Internet Out In NYC; When Disk Drives Give You Problems, Rip Them Out; A Competitor For RFID
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