Global CIO: IBM-Google Security Snafu Shows #1 Vulnerability Is Ignorance

"And Sun went from 24 percent of unpatched bugs of all severity to 8 percent, and from 9 percent unpatched critical and high-risk ones to zero percent."

"Microsoft also fared better in the corrected data, with 7 percent unpatched critical and high-risk vulnerabilities versus 11 percent in the older version. Its percentage of bugs of all levels of severity stayed the same at 23 percent." But perhaps there's some cosmic justice in all of this, because after all the revisions and corrections, it turns out that the company holding the uncoveted #1 spot on the list of most unpatched critical and high-risk bugs is none other than IBM, with 29%. Good intentions are great, but they don't make up for the harmful repercussions from bad information, incomplete processes, faulty assumptions, and a lack of rigor, particularly in the context of such sensitive and vital findings. It might be a good idea for IBM and its X-Force Team to scrap even the consideration of issuing another report until they've tightened up their processes and results to the point where they've won the unwavering confidence of the software vendors they're analyzing and the enterprise customers who base critical decisions on those findings. The headline above this column uses the word "ignorance" and by that I mean the literal definition of the term: "lack of knowledge, learning, information, etc.". The X-Force Team is no doubt stuffed with brilliant people, but when they're dealing with incomplete information and are aware of uncertainties inherent in what they're reporting—as was clearly the case with this mid-year report—then it's clear they're operating from a position of a "lack of knowledge, learning, information, etc."—to wit, ignorance. The IT marketplace—software vendors, enterprise customers, and security specialists who work rigorously to make the online world a safer place—deserve a lot better than that. For Jackson Higgins' full story, click here. RECOMMENDED READING: Global CIO: IBM Top Product Exec On Strategy, Systems, & Oracle Global CIO: IBM's Brilliant Trojan-Horse Strategy Transcends Technology Global CIO: IBM And Oracle Expose Hewlett-Packard's Achilles' Heel Global CIO: Oracle's Phillips Says Standardizing On Oracle Is The IT Cure Global CIO: Burying Mark Hurd: Hewlett-Packard And Its Future Global CIO: Sam Palmisano's Grand Strategy For IBM Global CIO: Hewlett-Packard's New CEO: The Top 10 Challenges Global CIO: Oracle's Fowler Says Systems Performance About To Explode Global CIO: IBM Doubles Down On Red-Hot Optimized Systems Global CIO: Microsoft Joins IBM And Oracle In Rise Of The Machines Global CIO: Oracle Reveals Strategy & Customers For White-Hot Exadata Global CIO: Larry Ellison's Hardware Boasts Are Nonsense, Says IBM Global CIO: Larry Ellison's IBM-Slayer Is Oracle Exadata Machine Global CIO: Larry Ellison And The New Oracle Rock The Tech World Global CIO: 10 Indispensable Insights On Cloud Computing Bob Evans is senior VP and director of InformationWeek's Global CIO unit.

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