Brand reputation, risk management and preventing data loss surfaced clearly as the burning concerns of senior security professionals participating in the London meeting of the CSO Interchange, a high level forum geared to discussing hot topics of the day. 60% profess to having only "some idea" as to where their customer data is stored and "limited controls" over it. 72% see the impact of payment card loss on brand reputation as their biggest concern.

Concerns about data loss were clearly a running theme throughout the debate. Although 32% felt they did know where their customer data was being kept and had controls in place. Alarmingly, 9% of those present had not even yet considered data loss as a specific issue.

Websense has issued its annual security predictions for 2008–with content-based threats topping the list. Specifically, the Websense Security Labs expects: the Olympics will spur a flurry of hacker activity such as compromises of popular Olympic news or other sports sites; hackers will leverage the increased adoption of Macs and iPhones as new means for cross-platform Web attacks; special interest groups that fall within a certain age group, wealth bracket, or people with particular purchasing habits, will become targets of Web 2.0 attacks; and spam will increase in the blogosphere and "talk back" sections of news sites to drive traffic and increase search engine rankings of infected Web sites.

Lets pretend that you’re responsible for email and scheduling for 60,000 employees in 60 functional groups ranging in size from 15 members to 3000. They’re all currently using Microsoft Exchange on Windows/XP desktops with Active Directory as installed in mid 2005. In that situation both the Windows desktop and active directory will be organizational givens you have no power to affect–in fact, you would typically be in the frustrating position that you get no respect for keeping Exchange running while the CIO simultaneously ignores your contributions to the organization and uses the relative stability you’ve achieved for email and scheduling to justify Active Directory, other Microsoft tools purchases, and the further imposition of centralized management on users.

On the personal side, messaging products that co-exist well with Active Directory but are functionally independent of it offer significant potential payoffs; most notably the opportunity to raise your organizational profile relative to that of others at your level. If you saved a few bucks by switching to Domino, for example, the organization’s cost of running Active Directory would be completely unaffected, but the guy running that side of the business would suddenly have to justify a much larger share of his own costs–because right now you’re carrying him, and getting no recognition for it.

MIT just got a whole lot less exclusive. MIT celebrated a milestone Nov. 28 in its efforts to open its course content to the public–the core teaching materials, including syllabi, lecture notes, assignments and exams from MIT’s 1,800 courses, are now online and free to the public.

The site includes voluntary contributions from 90 percent of faculty and more than 2,600 members of the MIT community, together reaching an estimated 35 million individuals–60 percent of them from outside the United States. Nearly 600 courses have been translated into languages including Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese and Thai. More than 120 paper copies of the site were provided to bandwidth-constrained countries in Sub-Saharan regions.

The interview yesterday with MyPointRadio went great! David and Jenn were excellent hosts and the show was fun as well as informative. I had a chance to talk about the book, but what’s becoming more and more apparent is how concerned (and still relatively uninformed) regular people are about their own computer and email security.

As I do more press, I think it’ll be very important to focus on the things real people can do to safeguard themselves from online troublemakers. Since you can never hear this often enough, let’s do a quick recap of what you should do to keep yourself protected.

First, always update your operating system. Second, be sure you’re running an antivirus program and keep it updated. Third, be sure you’re running an anti-spyware program and keep that updated. Update these things daily. And, as we’ve told you over and over and over and over: NEVER OPEN ATTACHMENTS!

There’s more to online security, but if you follow these four rules, you’ll be a lot safer than when you started.

If you want to hear the entire interview, you can download it or play it off the BlogTalkRadio page. You can either hit play to play in their player or download to download an MP3 for your computer (to keep and to cherish). Both choices are safe, so go ahead and listen in. — David

Data storage and security provider Symantec has completed its acquisition of Vontu, a San Francisco-based maker of data loss prevention software. The purchase price was $350 million in cash and assumed options.

Symantec’s deal to buy Vontu, announced Nov. 5, comes after a busy few months in the DLP sector. Security rivals McAfee and Trend Micro both made moves of their own, with McAfee announcing plans to buy data encryption provider SafeBoot and Trend Micro declaring its intent to acquire Provilla.

Panda Security is arming customers with new software–Panda Security for Business Version 4.02SP1–that takes advantage of its "Collective Intelligence" strategy. The Madrid-based company is bringing the Collective Intelligence approach to bear with integration between the latest version of Panda Security for Business and Malware Radar, an on-demand service that provides an automated malware audit for customers.

The Collective Intelligence approach pushes malware analysis and detection into the cloud by gathering information on the latest malware threats via the Panda Collective Intelligence agent and uploading it to Panda servers. From there, it is processed and classified and ultimately remediated with a signature made available to the entire Collective Intelligence community.

Solid Documents, provider of document utility products, announced the release of Solid PDF Creator version 2.0. In addition to improvements to PDF creation quality, version 2 features support encryption, document properties and output to standard PDF or PDF/A-1b archive compliant format and much more.

File in the category of Things Only Get More Interesting. Turns out the reporter from the local NBC station decided there was more interesting news going on in Central Florida last night. This really comes as no surprise. I’ve been bumped from local news before.

Back in the mid-80s, I introduced the very first computer-based live video product, BigTime TV. This was the precursor for what would become QuickTime, Flash video, and even the YouTube boom. It was important tech. But even though we did the interview, it never aired because a local elementary school was holding a bubble-blowing contest. And, so, I got bumped by bubbles. After all, what’s more important: the future of video or cute kids blowing bubbles?

Ah, but the shameless book promotion news isn’t all bad. If you want to hear your esteemed Editor-in-Chief talk about the book, you can tune in online to my first official interview. I’ll be on MyPointRadio tonight at 7pm.

Now, here’s a heads up: we normally talk tech in the ZATZ magazines. But since the book crosses both tech and political lines, I’m bound to be talking to non-techies. This is a talk show that is decidedly political — and decidedly conservative oriented. It’s also on the Web, so it’s completely uncensored.

I’m telling you this to provide you with a bit of a caution before you click on through. Also, the destination Web page isn’t 100% safe for work. Even so, I’m expecting this to be whole heck of a lot of fun. As the promotion process goes on, I hope to be talking to people on both sides of the aisle, so this’ll be a good chance to meet an audience I might not ordinarily ever get to talk with.

Should you miss the full broadcast, you can also download the interview at BlogTalkRadio. This page might be a bit safer for those of you concerned about seeing (or being seen) around naughty words. — David

IT is in the midst of a hiring schism, where the people that the field needs the most are the least interested in joining.

IT has a lot of hiring to do, thanks to the significant turnover expected in the field over the next decade brought on by Baby Boomer retirements, professionals who have left the field and declining enrollments in computer science degree programs.

At the same time, IT is in the midst of a hiring quandary of crisis proportions, where the people that the field needs the most are the ones least interested in joining, according to several experts.