The CFO must get involved in the organization’s security strategy. By 10:30 AM Eastern time, on Wednesday, March 3, Cisco had already posted three multi-vendor threat alerts. That followed about a dozen posted the day before.

IBM tracks security threats through its X-Force security intelligence team. Its latest quarterly report, issued last month, investigated Koobface, a cross-platform worm that targets users of social networking websites. Although originally designed to infect Microsoft Windows, the latest variants now can infect Mac OS X and Linux. Is your security team on top of that?

Most organizations implement security after they have been attacked, a reactive approach. To address today’s biggest security challenges IBM advocates a proactive strategy, which it calls security intelligence. Let’s take a look at today’s four biggest security challenges. more

Private clouds are appealing. They promise an end to overcrowded server rooms and the eliminate or at least reduce performance bottlenecks. Better yet, they promise the improved efficiency and enhanced practicality of cloud computing. Best of all for C-level executives, they promise a level of control and security not available in the public cloud.

Still, moving your existing server-based applications to a cloud platform requires a considerable level of development and effort and a different executive mindset. Even the private cloud’s vaunted security and control may turn out different than assumed.

Not surprisingly, IBM is jumping at the challenge with its SmartCloud Foundation Entry Solution, which consists of pre-integrated packages of hardware and software for running internal clouds and promises to deploy a functioning private cloud within a matter of hours. Still, when IBM surveyed 500 company executives, it found that only 33% had run a cloud pilot program although more than double the number plan to do so within the next year. Will you be one of them? more

Gartner declared 2011 the most complex year the mobile industry has ever experienced so just imagine how 2012 is likely to shape up. The researcher expects more handsets and tablets to appear and new services to emerge that exploit mobile payment, context, social networking, and location-based advertising. Near field communication (NFC) and RFID increasingly will carve out roles in mobile.

Similarly, employees will demand a choice of devices, fueling the growing adoption of the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) approach. Not surprisingly, enterprises will be forced to develop and support applications on a wider range of mobile devices and platforms.

The growing smartphone base combined with increased sales of media tablets is forcing a reassessment of the best practices to support mobile. Controlling burgeoning costs driven by device heterogeneity and bring-your-own-device models, while maintaining agility, is imperative, notes Gartner. But most important of all is security, which carries serious GRC implications. Below wiredFINANCE summarizes key steps you should take now to secure your mobile devices. more

Four years ago, Eric Berridge declared in his book Iterate or Die that traditional ERP systems were dinosaurs headed for extinction. He was right, but before ERP completely disappeared some products began to morph into something else. It took a few years and now we are witnessing the return of ERP. But this is not your father’s ERP.

As Gartner explains: Business applications are undergoing many changes. The realities of cloud computing, the accessibility provided by mobile technologies, and the impact of social paradigms are affecting the business application environment. And ERP is the business application most affected.

The recent recession and painstakingly slow recovery hurt the ERP business. Even worse, the costly, cumbersome, inflexible, outdated ERP systems the vendors were hawking hurt the businesses saddled with them. Now the survivors are creeping back and finding a radically changed ERP landscape. more

The online subscription services segment is hot, and almost any business can capitalize on the kind of recurring revenue stream online subscription services bring. Over the last few years, subscription-based services have become a bit of the rage, declared SF Fashion+Tech.

More than a rage, IDC forecasts the software-as-a-service (SaaS) subscription segment to increase revenues at 6X growth rate. Accenture estimates business process outsourcing (BPO), another subscription service segment, will top $300 billion in 2012. SaaS and BPO are just two segments of the online subscription services industry.

The rapid adoption of the Cloud-based commerce is making online subscription services a target opportunity for any company that wants to add a subscription services component to its revenue strategy. Driving the interest is the concept-to-cash model introduced by OneBill, a young SaaS company. Can you tap into this revenue stream? more