Securing the World Against Terrorists, Scammers, and Thugs

An information technology employee for one of the world's top stock brokerages is let go, but before he leaves, he plants a logic bomb that knocks 3,000 of the firm's workstations offline.

The internal network of a federal agency is penetrated by a drug cartel and used to obscure international communications among various members.

A law firm discovers that an impostor has been using a caller ID generator to call members of the public and pose as one of its attorneys.

These are some of the emergencies today's cyber investigators are expected to respond to, the head of forensics for Chevron told attendees of a security conference Wednesday. Given the ongoing spike in computer-based crime, and new laws requiring firms to store ever more amounts of digital data, the workload will only increase.

"This is a field that is in its infancy," Robert Schperberg, forensics lead for Chevron, said at the MIS Training Institute's IT Security World conference in San Francisco. "In today's environment, it's more needed than ever, especially in the states - if you've heard of the new rules of federal civil procedures."

The rules mandate how businesses must store, gather and safeguard information that's admitted into evidence in federal cases.

Rather than focus on such banal parts of the job, however, Schperberg talked about the ongoing fight he and his counterparts engage in to keep their networks free of scammers, organized crime gangs and even terrorists.

Data Security Becomes More Affordable

Security for data – whether it be e-mail archives, projects under development or even access to an employee workstation – is becoming increasingly important for businesses. Data that has been stolen, whether from hacking into a network or from a laptop taken from an employee’s car, has been sold to competitors, even posted on Ebay.

Practices that have been used by large corporations to protect their data and systems have started to trickle into the small and medium-sized business marketplace, said John Steindorf, president of Capital Data Inc., a Milwaukee IT solutions provider.

IT Pros Climb Out of the Basement

We all know the stereotype of the basement-office, introverted information technology worker. But some large law firms are exploding that cliche by having more and more of their IT professionals work directly -- even full-time -- with clients.

Of course, many large firms have litigation support teams that sometimes work directly with clients on discovery issues.

Wisconsin-based Foley & Lardner is one firm that takes it a step further. There, technology consultant Charlotte Logullo's time is largely devoted to working with clients to set up secure online Web sites, or extranets. In addition to housing vast amounts of data, they also allow for things like conference calls -- complete with idea "white-boarding." These days, extranets are created for all kinds of legal work.