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Rising Pay and Job Satisfaction Push Tech Professionals Ahead of Other Segments

distancelearning — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 15:07:13 +0000

According to Marianne Kolbasuk McGee at InformationWeek two new surveys show that technology professionals are more confident and satisfied with their jobs than other segments. As reported in the August 02, 2006 issue of VAR Business,

Technology workers were more optimistic in July than they’ve been at any other time this year, according to Hudson, a professional staffing and outsourcing services firm that conducts monthly phone surveys of 9,000 workers in several industries, including more than 400 IT and telecom workers.

Compared to a base score of 100, job optimism among techies climbed 4.3 points to 112.5 in July. Tech pros were also more upbeat in July than the same month a year ago, which saw a confidence rating of 109.9.

Workers nationwide across all industries weren’t as buoyant. Overall, their confidence levels fell slightly last month–half a point–to 101.9, according to Hudson.

“It’s hot out there right now for tech pros,” says Kevin Knaul, a Hudson VP.

Fueling the confidence of tech pros is heavy demand by employers. “There is definitely more demand than supply right now,” he says. “It’s a struggle to keep up.”

Especially hot are those with skills in Web services, .Net, Java, and ERP. “All the major ERP vendors are updating their products this year,” driving the need for those pros, says Knaul.

For more information about increased job satisfaction and rising pay, see the complete article, “Tech Worker Surveys Show Happy Days Are Here Again.”

Two Antivirus Strategies: Either Train Your Staff…or “Nuke” Your Whole System

distancelearning — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 14:14:44 +0000

Rootkits and advanced spyware have fundamentally changed the playing field says Mike Danseglio, Program Manager in the Security Solutions group at Microsoft, according to Fox News’ “Microsoft Official: Malware Recovery Not Always Possible” by Ryan Naraine, reporting from InfoSec World on April 5^th, 2006. “When you are dealing with rootkits and some advanced spyware programs, the only solution is to rebuild from scratch. In some cases, there really is no way to recover without nuking the systems from orbit,” states Mr. Danseglio.

He cites a recent instance where an unnamed branch of the U.S. government struggled to design an automated process to wipe and rebuild 2,000 infected client machines. “In that case, it was so severe that trying to recover was meaningless.” While training costs can be high, they pale in comparison to the mounting expenses incurred by detecting damage, recovering lost work and rebuilding compromised systems–let alone “nuking” and starting all over again from scratch.

Rootkits, for example, use kernel hooks which often make them undetectable. Because of this, they are able to hide malware programs, making them the weapon of choice to compromise computer systems. Mr. Danseglio adds that IT administrators may never even know if the entire rootkit has been successfully removed. The cleanup process is “just way too hard.”

“We’ve seen the self-healing malware that actually detects that you’re trying to get rid of it. You remove it, and the next time you look in that directory, it’s sitting there. It can simply reinstall itself,” he said.

“Detection is difficult, and remediation is often impossible,” Danseglio declared. “If it doesn’t crash your system or cause your system to freeze, how do you know it’s there? The answer is you just don’t know,” he explained. “Lots of times, you never see the infection occur in real time, and you don’t see the malware lingering or running in the background.

Fortunately, however, the alternative–training–is easier than it ever was, thanks to new online technologies such as distance learning courses like the highly recommended CompTIA Security + training program. The important point to remember is that, with today’s viruses, all employees–not just IT people–must be trained.

Thomas McClintock

Senior Analyst

eLearnConnect.com

Welcome!

distancelearning — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 02:03:30 +0000

Welcome to the eLearnConnect blog. Feel free to send us an email to ask any question related to distance learning, and we will do our best to post all of the answers here for all to share.