IT Professionals have approached me to say they feel unhappy with their compensation. And some executives ask how much is enough pay. There are ways to know…

Websites such as Pay Scale dot com, Career Builder dot com, and Salary Expert dot com provide estimated pay ranges based on location and skills.

Executives: Quality IT Professionals are really difficult to find these days. So you don’t want to lose the ones you have. HR specialists have said that money is not the primary motivation for someone to keep their job, as long as the compensation meets a minimum. Your IT Professionals are likely very loyal to you and will invest a great amount of energy to help you. Just know that they may be receiving job offers from others.

IT Professionals: Keep up with certifications – those new skills will help your organization too. You enjoy learning or you’d never have selected an IT career anyway. One source of training and certifications is CompTIA dot org. They offer hardware, networking, security project management, and other certifications referred to with names such as A+ Computer Technician, Network+, Security+, etc. Talk to your employer about ways you can become more valuable to them. Some of you are very good about putting the needs of the organization that you serve, before your own needs. Be careful. If you give too much, and feel undercompensated, the resulting unhappiness can be bad for you and the organization too.

The difficulty executives face is not realizing how much a dedicated IT Pro does. When an IT Professional performs a miracle by breathing life back into a crashed server, it is sometimes difficult for non-IT Professionals to appreciate the level of accomplishment. What IT calls a miracle, executives consider the accomplishment as being part of their job description. They have no idea what is, and is not, involved.

Executives, I’m not saying that every IT Professional needs a pay raise. If you are unhappy with your IT Pro, you may be looking forward to when another company hires them away. In fact, if you aren’t happy with their performance, there is no reason to keep them around. They do, as many executives have said, hold the keys to your kingdom. Or, as I like to say it, they have their fingers on the jugular vein of your company. Do not let them hold you hostage with that power, and don’t be worried about kicking them out if you need to.

But if your IT Professional is someone who you like, and appreciate, and you can see that they are good at what they do, keep in mind that good IT Professionals are a hot commodity these days.

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Flash is a tool used on web-sites to, among other things, play videos.

When people visit websites, they can be vulnerable to what is referred to as a drive by download. Just by visiting a site, even a legitimate site, their computer may be exposed to an attack.

That attack can happen via a Flash video within an advertisement that was surreptitiously posted by an attacker.

It is always a good idea to use “click to play” functionality that prevents Flash content from running automatically.

Now, when Google stops accepting advertisements with Flash content, that will significantly diminish the Flash vector of attack.

The post No Flash Attacks After June 30 appeared first on Foster Institute.

Chrome has dropped support for Java Applets, although there are ways to get Java to work. Other browsers such as Firefox may follow suit.

There are many different flavors of Java. This blog focuses on Java applets running in your browser.

If you choose to help protect your systems from Java exploits, your IT Professional can remove Java support from all of your browsers.

If you visit sites that require Java, and visiting those sites is essential to your business, then you need to leave Java enabled. But at least upgrade to the newest version of Java. At home, you can get the latest version at java dot com. Be careful of any other software that will be automatically downloaded too.

Remove Java completely if doing so won’t interfere with a web application that is essential to your life. Even if you remove support for Java now, you can always re-install Java at a later time. Just don’t expect Chrome to support Java Applets.

The post Is Java Going Away? appeared first on Foster Institute.

Help protect yourself at the foundation: First, discuss and determine how aggressive you want to be with your patches – and get them applied. Second, be sure to make users something other than local administrators.

The post Hacking Easier than Protection appeared first on Foster Institute.

The guidelines can be found by entering this search into Google:

Top 10 IA Mitigation Strategies site:nsa.gov

He also explained that, when it comes to Cyber-Security, the point of contact needs to be the person who handles risk management.

I see that too. IT Professionals are often overwhelmed with tasks related to keeping the network, applications, and managers happy. When a risk manager is able to intervene on their behalf and free up some of an IT Professional’s time, then IT Pros have time to implement important tactical security steps.

Review the 10 Guidelines with your IT Pro. See what you find out.

And forward this to the other executives that you know… so they can help the NSA make the US a safer place. They need your help to do so.

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