by Josh Arrington
Returning from a holiday break is never easy, so if you were slightly neglectful to your industry news this week don’t fret – we’ve got it covered. It may have been a week of turkey hangovers for some of us, but the IT industry was busy reporting end-of-year recaps, forecasts for 2012 and of course, breaking news: Here is our summary of this week’s hottest stories.
Looking to achieve a life of “privilege” as an IT security pro? InformationWeek posted its annual “Best Paying IT Security Jobs In 2012” article and guess what? Security professionals can expect salaries to increase by an average of 4.5% in 2012—not bad in such a tumultuous economy. If you are a security professional in a midlevel/ senior role you are in a great position as demand is high. Supply, however, remains a different matter. Robert Half Technology said it expects to see “an abundance of positions and a shortage of skilled candidates.” As expected, the article also reported demand would soon increase for people who could manage “privileged identity management.”
Cyber crime linked to terrorism – In far more serious news, the FBI has revealed that four hackers were arrested in the Philippines last week in connection with an organized attack on the clients of U.S. telecommunications giant AT&T. Law enforcement officials believe the suspects were employed by the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah, which has been linked to numerous bombing attacks. According to Reuters, the FBI claims that AT&T’s customers were the targets of the hackers and were not the carriers themselves. An anonymous source reportedly added that the hackers breached the phone systems of AT&T customers and made calls to expensive international premium-rate services.
Water-pump hack pumped with errors – The SCADA hack that resulted in a water pump being destroyed has proven to be false – Wired reported this week that a contractor who was supposed to work on the system logged in according to permissions during a vacation trip to Russia, which was misconstrued as an outside hack. In truth, the water pump simply burned out, as pumps are wont to do, and a government-funded intelligence center incorrectly linked the failure to an internet connection from a Russian IP address months earlier.
That about wraps it up for this week – we’d love to hear your thoughts on this week’s happenings – leave your comments here…
