Security superguide — all you need to know

When chief information officers and other technology managers talk about their priorities, security is always high on the list.

It's not just age-old concerns such as corporate espionage and disruption to the business that CIOs worry about. Those issues have been around as long as corporations and governments — the use of information and communications technology has just made everything faster.

Discovering that corporate PCs are part of a botnet not only means the company's system resources are being stolen, it is also likely that the infected computers are being used by criminals for activities such as sending spam, hosting phishing websites or launching DDoS attacks.

It's commonly agreed that there is no way to guarantee the security of any large organisation's systems. Instead, the debate generally revolves around balancing risks, costs and flexibility so the business can continue to function effectively.

Keeping operating systems and applications up to date and working around potentially damaging vulnerabilities — such as the domain name system hole discovered by researcher Dan Kaminsky — ensure those tasked with security need to be up-to-date with new threats.

Then there's the need to protect every end-point device; the advent of data-rich handsets such as Research in Motion's BlackBerry and Apple's iPhone are making the job even more difficult.

ZDNet.com.au's dynamic guide to security will keep you up to date with all the current issues, debates, opinions and products in the security field.