Security secures more funding

Could other IT services become as important in the boardroom?

Security now accounts for 10 per cent of spending on IT, with further investment expected in the sector. A survey of 1200 enterprises by Forrester Research says that despite the economic downturn, 21 per cent will increase spend on security, with all but six per cent of the remaining organisations keeping budgets constant.

Security has also succeeded in transcending IT to become a boardroom level issue, with almost 50 per cent of respondents reporting directly to the board. Whether or not this exposure will help highlight other IT issues is as yet unclear, but perhaps there are lessons to learn about how security has been promoted as a business rather than technical issue that could be applied to other IT services.

A bad day out the office for Canadian support technician

“I’m holding you hostage until you fix my PC”

IT support staff are used to dealing with unreasonable and sometimes abusive customers, but a Canadian woman has taken the concept of awkward customer to a new level by holding a technician hostage until a connection problem was fixed.

Canadian actress Carol Sinclair said that she had been on the phone to her ISP over 20 times with no conclusion until finally an onsite repair visit was arranged. Sinclair claims that when the engineer couldn’t fix the problem she asked for him to stay until the second technician arrived.

However, local police said that in reality she told the man he couldn’t leave until her issue was resolved, implying she had a gun to keep him hostage. Sinclair was charged and banned from speaking to Aliant employees.

To read the full article:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nova-scotia/story/2008/09/02/technician-hostage.html