Security in small and mid-size businesses is more than just preventing viruses and blocking spam. Protecting your assets is the key to the long-term success of your business and the foundation of a strong IT infrastructure. What are the basic building blocks of a secure infrastructure?

Insider theft is on the rise. Displaced workers are abusing their corporate data access to steal, exploit and damage information networks. In a survey of 800 worldwide CIOs, more than 40% agreed that displaced employees were the biggest threat to vital information. International companies are estimated to have lost more than $1 trillion in intellectual property last year. What steps are taking to ensure your most precious asset – your data – is protected?

What is the hardest thing we do in business…want to hazard a guess? Hiring someone to do a critical task for us is one of the hardest things we do, yet we face this challenge over and over again. We all hate it. It always happens at the worst time. Whether it’s because business is growing or because we lost an employee, we find ourselves faced with the daunting task of kissing a lot of frogs to find a charming prince.

The Standish group reported in 2009 that only 32% of IT projects were considered successful, leaving 24% to be cancelled before completion and 44% considered challenged. For many troubled projects, the source of the problems can be directly linked to a failure in implementing basic project management processes. Let’s get back to the basics. Here are the five basic processes for project management.

While we’ve seen recent indications of economic recovery, some are skeptical that IT spending will follow the trend. For the past year CIOs have been strapped with tighter-than-ever IT budgets. This week Microsoft’s CEO offered his thoughts on why we will see growth in IT spending, but we will not see recovery. Here’s what you ought to know.

A reactive approach to IT support can be costly and time-consuming. This is especially true for SMBs, which don’t usually have the resources to employ a full-time IT resource or spend a lot of money outsourcing IT. When there is a problem, the costs associated with solving IT issues can spiral out of control. So…what are the actual costs of managing and maintaining your IT?