Over the holidays, I watched an old movie called "The Net" with Sandra Bullock. Amazingly, the plot was about the loss of her online identity and a corrupted computer system.

Even more incredulous, the movie came out in 1995 before many of us even knew anything about these kinds of dangers in cyberspace.

The real question is: If Hollywood knew about it 15 years ago, why are we still grappling with a problem that has become a real monster?

I'm writing about cybersecurity developments and breaches in virtually every issue of FierceCIO. Hardly a day goes by when there isn't a security problem that inflicts tremendous damage.

Executives at many companies are working to keep the systems tight and secure even as the threat grows bigger. But the real question is why are we still struggling to come up with a secure system? Why are hackers outfoxing the experts? Why aren't employees better trained to keep data secret instead of becoming careless and letting it all hang out?

One of our biggest projects last year was reporting on the Biggest IT Debacles of 2009. Yes, it was a pretty bad year, and no, there are no signs that it's going to get better.

IT executives are faced with the harsh reality of spending more money and hopefully buying better security or playing the odds that a hacker will just miss their site. Neither option is very good.

What executives need to do this year is develop a plan. Hopefully, one was on the drawing boards by the end of last year and has already been deployed. If not, get cracking.

This week, we report on the likelihood that hackers will be targeting Facebook and Twitter because they are becoming an integral part of the Internet and are so widely used. It's also predicted that hackers will target Adobe and Google's Chrome OS. With so much intelligence already in the pipeline, it's time to eliminate the ease with which criminals are accessing these targets.

We've already seen too many IT breaches from the inside and attacks from the outside. We've discussed many times the simple initiatives you can put in place in your IT shop. It's a critical time. We hope that your first New Year's resolution for 2010 is doing a better job to prevent a major IT breach. - Judi