Fix your security before it breaks

If you break it, you own it. That's an old saying for anyone in the wrong place at the wrong time. For CIOs, the trick is to take the lead in dealing with security issues, fixing them before they break. There is no lack of products out there with which to assess a risk and prevent it. But where do you go? And how do you pick the best product for your firm? "We're finding security is the forgotten stepchild in the virtualization build-out," said Stephen Elliott, IDC's research director for enterprise systems management software. Is that true for your firm? Have you figured out the cost of putting up the best security or are you still in a never-never land of keeping your fingers crossed that you will never be attacked? "That's scary when you think about the number of production-level VMs," Elliott said. In 2008, CIOs will have to find a new balance to their work, resetting their priorities and making sure their systems are protected from every kind of attack even before they work on operational excellence. -Judi