IT management fails SanFran

The high-profile sabotage this month of the city of San Francisco's fibre backbone network clearly shows both the extent of damage a disgruntled employee can cause and the need for controls to mitigate the risk of such actions, says Computer World.

City officials lost administrative control of the network's routers and switches for more than a week after an IT worker allegedly reset passwords and refused to reveal them prior to and after his arrest on July 13.

"All in all, IT management is responsible for this mess, because it was their mandate to avoid this situation," commented Arshad Noor, CEO of StrongAuth, a supplier of compliance and identity management products.

According to a new report from analyst firm Gartner, IBM led all vendors worldwide in IT operations management software revenue in 2007, reports Market Watch.

IBM led all vendors in revenue and grew its revenue share to 24.5%, nearly double the share of its nearest competitor, said the independent report.

The Gartner report shows that IBM grew 14.1%, faster than the overall market which grew 13.5% to more than $12.9 billion in total revenue in 2007.

Information technology systems used to manage the US Department of Homeland Security's (DHS's) finances have security weaknesses that could threaten the integrity of the department's financial data, according to a report recently released by DHS's inspector general (IG), says FCW.

According to the results of an investigation by the accounting firm KPMG, despite "significant steps" taken by DHS component agencies to improve the security of financial management systems during fiscal 2007, weaknesses remain.

Hundreds of access control, change control, integration and continuity-of-operations issues that could affect DHS' financial data were identified by the IT management letter released by the department's IG on 25 July.