A month is a long time in IT

A month is a long time in manufacturing business IT. As we go to press, Infor has unveiled its agreed purchase of Movex ERP developer Lawson Software, funded by Golden Gate Capital, while Epicor has announced its acquisition by Apax Partners, another big private equity firm. So the big-name consolidation game has restarted, signalling a return to some fragility in the industry and yet another round of change for users. Meanwhile, for those in the market for new systems or upgrades, the news provides a timely reminder that due diligence must include careful commercial analysis. There's little worse than spending significant company resource on an implementation, only to discover support isn't quite what you might have been promised. For the rest of us, other key news concerns the rising importance of regulatory compliance and a resurgence of targeted cyber attacks. Each is related, but looking first at compliance, the IT security and audit association ISACA suggests that this will be the top business issue for IT over the next 12 to 18 months. ISACA surveyed more than 2,400 of its members across 126 countries, and explains that increases in regulations, data breaches and new technologies – such as cloud computing and the rise of personal technology in the workplace – are making complexity and risk particularly tough nuts to crack. "From the growing number of government regulations to consumer privacy concerns and 'hacktivist' attacks, enterprise IT assets are being challenged in ways that go far beyond the server room," comments Tony Noble, a member of ISACA's guidance and practices committee and vice president of IT audit at Viacom. Meanwhile, on the subject of hacking, network security specialist Idappcom says it has detected a marked increase in the number of attacks targeting industrial control systems. According to CTO Anthony Haywood, last month alone witnessed 50 attacks related to SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems. "The threat landscape is in a continual state of flux, but this recent spate of attacks deliberately targeting previously unnoticed industrial systems is extremely concerning and could be an indicator of a new attack trend," he warns. The fear is that, as larger organisations get serious about security, attackers attentions are being diverted to smaller, more vulnerable systems that present an easier, albeit potentially less lucrative, target. Be warned.