Rosie Lombardi

Data is everywhere, but useful information is in short supply. Many companies have or are planning to put in place a business intelligence (BI) system to transform all that leaden data into golden information. About 22 per cent of Canadian companies have BI in place, while another 34 per cent plan to invest in one over the next three years, according to Jeff Dutrizac, a research analyst at Info-Tech, a London, Ont.-based research consultancy.

Security experts are in total agreement that the emergence of SPIT (Spam over Internet Telephony) is inevitable. No official cases of SPIT have yet been documented, but that

Filing an insurance claim when employee laptops get stolen is often just not worth the effort. That's what the Ontario Public Services Employees Union (OPSEU) discovered.

Companies want a single, accurate version of the truth about their customers, sales and revenues. Assembling a lot of mismatched jigsaw puzzle pieces into some semblance of a coherent whole is increasingly unacceptable.

No security system is 100 per cent bullet-proof, according to common wisdom. There are limits to what security technology and processes can protect. So what can be done about that small but potentially devastating percentage that cannot be secured?

Recent food security scares have triggered public outcries and intense concern. People want to know exactly what is in their food, and what is done to it by whom. In response, Canada and many other countries are introducing traceability requirements

Fun and games are serious business. The gaming industry is growing up fast, and is generating impressive revenues and fascinating job opportunities for certain IT professionals who are young at heart.

Few companies have cyber-security insurance despite the pervasive concern about identity theft and information security exposures. According to the 2005 CSI/FBI Computer Crime and Security Survey, only 25 per cent use insurance to manage cyber-security risks, although the vast majority of respondents experienced breaches, with average losses of $204,000.