New specifications can help avoid mobile security issues, says Janne Uusilehto.

Now that DefCon 15 has passed, I'm feeling the need to have a really good reason to dredge up people's happy, but increasingly distant memories of the industry's beloved Dionysian hacker-fest held in August.

The fundamental values of security should be baked into vendor solutions, says Anton Grashion.

By aggregating information, executives can ease regulatory burdens, says Pravin Kothari.

Recent high profile data breaches have underscored the need for robust information security within organizations. But with names like Pfizer, TJX and the Department of Veterans Affairs dominating headlines, smaller organizations might infer that they have nothing to fear. Nevertheless, no company — large or small — is immune to a data breach or network intrusion, and the best form of protection is a holistic and proactive approach.

In the future, we will have bug-free software, computing will make paper redundant, networks will be self-defending and soon, very soon, we will have solved the spam problem.

Years ago, a friend's e-commerce company took a major hit when customer credit card information was stolen from the company database. Everyone initially assumed it was a network security breach — someone had hacked into the database and stolen the numbers. In fact, when the dust settled it was a far simpler heist — a former employee had walked into the server room and lifted the server.

Criminals use computers. Police forces around the world use computers, too. But when police need to investigate a possible crime, the methods they are allowed to use vary greatly from one country to another.

The hotel you're staying in is great. It even has a computer center for you to surf the internet or tweak the last of the network diagrams for your meeting in the morning. You open the document on your USB pen drive and within minutes you've completed what you deem to be absolute perfection. A quick print and a save and you're done for the night.

Security practitioners are constantly faced with making choices. These choices swing from enforcing a complete lockdown to placing full trust in the users.