Forecasting the future - or more precisely, attempting to forecast the future - is an exercise as old as mankind itself. The ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, for example, engaged in all kinds of rituals and propitiatory sacrifices to ensure good fortune in their future endeavors. Back then, as it is still today, there were all sorts of individuals whose role was to "peer into the future" for the benefit of the uninitiated. More often than not, these foretellers offered up more questions than answers.

In the last issue of CBR, we focused on an important and timely topic: security and IT risk management.There I made the case for why the "uninitiated public" has a strong incentive to care about security: "The increasing prevalence of computer systems as well as the growing amount of our personal data that is stored by business firms, nonprofit organizations, and governmental entities (and can therefore be compromised) suggests that even the uninitiated public should pay attention." But, as we learn from our experts in this installment of CBR, our personal data being compr

Viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time bombs, adware, spyware, keystroke tracking tools, spoofing, snooping, sniffers -- these are some of the most popular examples of malicious code and techniques that modern organizations find themselves fighting. Couple this seemingly unabated tide of new releases and new forms of harmful software with human threats like crackers, thieves, industrial espionage contractors, and your own disgruntled or ill-intentioned employees, and what do you get? You get a complex cocktail of potential security headaches. How big a headache?