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Spectrum: Goverment Reports from the IT Horizon

Spectrum: Goverment Reports from the IT Horizon

Google me
Almost half of all U.S. Internet users - 47 percent- have searched for information about themselves online, according to a poll conducted in 2006 and released in December 2007 by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Only 22 percent of Internet users googled themselves in 2002.

Satisfaction not Guaranteed
Citizens are less satisfied with federal government services than with private-sector services, according to an annual report from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). In aggregate, citizen satisfaction with the federal government is 67.8 on ACSI's 100-point scale, 11 percent lower than the average national ACSI (75.2). Private-sector services scored 74.

Biggest Cyber-Threats
Here are the 10 most prevalent computer malware threats, as a percentage of all e-mail borne malware, along with the 10 countries hosting the most malware during November 2007, according to Sophos, an IT security and control firm. 

E-Mail-Based Malware Threats
1.      Troj/Pushdo - 29%

2.      W32/Traxg - 24%

3.      W32/Netsky - 18%

4.      Mal/Dropper - 5%

5.      W32/Zafi - 5%

6.      W32/Mytob - 5%

7.      W32/Flcss - 3%

8.      W32/MyDoom - 3%

9.      W32/Strati - 3%

10.  W32/Bagle - 1%

 

Countries Hosting Web Malware
1.      China (inc. Hong Kong) - 55%

2.      United States - 20%

3.      Russia - 11%

4.      Ukraine - 2%

5.      Germany -2%

6.      Turkey - 1%

7.      Canada - 0.8%

8.      United Kingdom - 0.7%

9.      Poland - 0.7%

10.     France - 0.6% 

Behind the Curve
Neither public- nor private-sector organizations are adequately planning and investing in new data centers, according to a survey conducted by the Aperture Research Institute. The survey covered 600 data center facilities in the finance, health-care, government, retail, pharmaceutical and telecommunications industries across the U.S.

Almost two-thirds (64 percent) admitted they weren't planning or building new data centers. Thirty-six percent predicted demand for scaling their operations, and are building and/or planning new data centers.

Despite the age and unreadiness of some data centers, there's already an investment in high-density computing, with 87 percent of organizations having introduced blade servers. Of survey respondents that were building a data center, 26 percent anticipated between two and three years before the center would go live, while 15 percent planned for more than three years. 

Ignoring Security
The increasingly mobile U.S. work force is creating new security challenges for IT staffs, according to research from the Computing Technology Industry Association. Sixty percent of the 1,070 organizations surveyed said security issues related to the use of handheld devices for data access and transfer increased significantly or increased somewhat over the past 12 months.

Nearly 80 percent of the organizations allow data access by remote or mobile employees, but just 32 percent of organizations said they have implemented security awareness training for these workers. Just 10 percent plan to implement training in the next 12 months.