People: The biggest security threat

As a recent story about ex-hacker Kevin Mitnick outlined, social engineering is often the biggest factor in hackers gaining confidential and financial information from unsuspecting users. A test case last month in London highlights the issue as unsuspecting PC users dropped in a CD offering a free vacation opportunity despite the potential security issues inherent in loading an unknown disk. The experiment by a consulting firm, The Training Camp, illustrates what most IT folks know already--that people are the weakest link in the computing environment.

For more on the social engineering test:
- read this InfoWorld article