Learn How to Pass (or Beat) a Polygraph Test | AntiPolygraph.org. Uncle Sam Wants You (To Fight Hackers) The U.S. government is stepping up recruitment of engineers who can help wage cyberwar Kyle Osborn does a good job impersonating a technical support rep. On a recent day in Southern California, the 19-year-old is working the phones, trying to persuade people on the other end to download malicious software. In cybercrime circles, this is called "social engineering," and criminals use the tactics to circumvent companies' Internet security software by tricking employees to download harmful software or cough up passwords.
Osborn doesn't look the part of a hacker, with his short blond hair, baby face, and glasses. Yet he's persuasive—after a few calls, he finds an employee who agrees to download malicious software that will open a door into the computer network and let Osborn break in. Demand for cybersecurity professionals is growing quickly. Government and industry executives say they need more cybersecurity employees but struggle to find qualified applicants. The Best Jobs In America (Infographic) IT salaries edge up back to 2008 levels | It jobs. Over the past year, the average IT salary has seen a modest increase of 0.81 percent to $78,299, putting overall compensation back at January 2008 levels. That may not be cause for partying like it's 1999, but Janco's 2012 IT Salary Survey, which will officially be released on Jan. 10, does contain nuggets of good news for certain IT professionals. In general, according to Janco, the United States added 33,100 IT jobs since last January, while layoffs have tapered off.
Still, cost cutting remains a high priority at organizations nationwide, which has led to increased hiring of part-time and contract IT employs working on critical projects. Full-timers, meanwhile, have continued to see a reduction in benefits. For example, IT professionals are required to pay for a greater portion of their health insurance. Digging into the numbers, IT pros at large companies earn $81,644 on average, up from $81,273. At midsize companies, the biggest winners included:
Resume. Freelance. Median Earnings by Major and Subject Area - Faculty. Table A-12. Unemployed persons by duration of unemployment. The tech jobs that the cloud will eliminate | Adventures in IT. As if outsourcing, virtualization, utility computing, automation, hosted applications, and a recession weren't enough to stress out the average IT professional, there's the emerging threat of cloud computing to take away even more IT jobs. As time progresses, analyst firms foresee the cloud becoming more prevalent, absorbing functions traditionally done by IT. IDC predicts that worldwide IT spending on cloud services will grow almost threefold by 2012 to $42 billion.
Gartner has even predicted that, for IT, cloud computing will become as influential as e-business has been. So exactly how -- and when -- will cloud computing reshape IT organizations and IT jobs? And what should the typical IT staffer do to protect his or her career? [ Prepare yourself for the changing IT landscape with InfoWorld's tech career survival guide. | Get sage career advice each week from Bob Lewis' Advice Line blog. ] First, don't panic. What Is a Master's Degree Worth. (Credit: Chip East/Reuters) Room for Debate recently published two forums on the burdens of student loans, and heard from a lot of former students, parents, professors and others who shared personal horror stories, blunt advice and critical observations about higher education.
A number of economists and education researchers say that the student debt problem, while real, has been overblown by the press and loan-forgiveness advocates, and that most students do not graduate with too much debt. But the debate presents difficult questions for young people, who face the most difficult economy since the Great Depression. Many have decided to go to graduate school, to wait out the storm. Several commenters on our forums even said they had no choice but to seek a master’s degree (and incur more debt), arguing that a B.A. today is the equivalent of having a high school diploma 20 years ago and more employers require a higher degree.
How do students know if an M.A. is worth it or not? Mark C. Employing America.