Stories about: Billion

Return on investment, or ROI, is a big deal in business. Any business venture needs to demonstrate a positive return on investment, and a good one at that, in order to be viable.

In the immortal words of the Young Ones "[A] social conscience is like a garden shed. If you try to eat it, it will stick in your throat!". At least that is the lesson that the EU seems to be learning [1] in its efforts to promote greater competition in the technology industry as it tries to implement the use of alternate (to Microsoft) office software and operating systems that adhere to open standards.

Security issues often seem to smolder more than burn, but these six are certainly capable of lighting a fire under IT professionals at a moment's notice. Handle with care.

Paris-based bank Societe Generale made headlines when it disclosed that one of its traders made a series of unauthorized transactions over the previous few years that ultimately cost the financial institution a staggering US$7.2 billion in losses.

The US CAN-SPAM law has chewed another alleged spam outfit, this time handing out a world record fine of US$234 million to two individuals.

The Srizbi botnet has stormed over its competition to become the Internet's biggest spammer.

The director of the Australian High Tech Crime Centre believes that the diversity of malware and its abilities to circumvent security products, is the greatest threat on the local cyber crime landscape.

Last week, I was an observer at a hands-on cyberattack simulation workshop organized by disaster recovery vendor SunGard at its facility just outside of Chicago. Taking part in the exercise were representatives from the local community, including workers or officials from retail, health care and government organizations. Each participant was assigned to one of five teams -- IT, operations, information security, sales and executive management -- within a fictitious $1.2 billion gourmet food manufacturing company. The idea was that a cyberattack would unfold, requiring participants to respond to it in the most effective manner.

This is a transcript of a keynote address presented at the RSA Conference on Thursday by Dave Hansen, corporate senior vice president and general manager for CA's Security Management Business Unit. The address is titled: "Strategic Security: The Evolving Role of the Security Professional."

As enterprises seek out ways to reduce IT costs, optimize resources and improve operational efficiencies, three technology trends have started to dominate: virtualization, service-oriented architecture and mobility. More promising yet is the intertwining of these unique technologies.

The Australasian Consumer Fraud Taskforce kicked off its Fraud Fortnight initiative this week, amid initial findings that Australians have dished out more than $700 million falling for online scams.