This is a very special issue to me and the team at SC Labs because it is based on a year of seeing the good and the not so good. We actually saw almost no bad products, so it was a pretty good year overall. It is special for you because it helps answer the question, "If we are going to buy security tools in the next 12 to 18 months, what should we be looking at?"

We handed out crystal balls to several analysts, consultants, professors and CSOs and asked them to answer questions about next year.

The top cybersecurity events of the year.

The end of yet another year sees in this final 2007 edition of SC Magazine our annual roundup of top thinkers, interesting happenings, business developments and criminal acts.

On the hunt for more innovative solutions to holistically safeguard organizations' growing networks, Peter Stephenson pinpoints the product categories and solutions you might consider next year.

Of the classifications we looked at, access control is among the most multidimensional. We defined access control fairly broadly as including identification, authentication and authorization. Network access control — NAC — is a very hot topic at the moment.

All levels of government face critical issues in securing their data - whether shared via the web or through email, USB sticks or IM.

As biometric technologies gain further acceptance, one retailer fights insider theft with fingerprint readers, reports Jim Carr.

Access control is the order of the day for this issue. All of our reviews focus on aspects of access control and management. This, of course, is a key aspect of enforcing the security of the enterprise. We address the topic with two First Looks and two Group Test reviews.

Organizations must catch on to the growing risks of smartphones, PDAs and other mobile devices before it is too late, reports Dan Kaplan.