Almost 20 years since the commercialization of the Internet, no business or individual could possibly function without it. But the World Wide Web is not without its flaws. The online threat environment has intensified in the last few years due an increasing pool of sophisticated fraudsters and the availability of new technologies that has facilitated such criminal activities. In this article, Geoff Haydon, Vice President, Asia Pacific, RSA, identifies the Top 8 forms of online attacks to watch out for in 2010.

Bold predictions are the stuff of December and January. Harish Pillay, open source evangelist at Red Hat Asia Pacific throws in his view about the prospect of Asian governments finally getting off their seats and working on the opportunities that cloud computing presents.

Enterprises and governments alike are turning to web-based applications to counter the high costs of deploying and managing software systems. One of the recent trends in the security space is web-based security services.

You can install the latest anti-virus and firewall technologies but if you don't beef up your application and web security strategy, you will still get hacked and public confidence will quickly disappear. And you will lose your job!

The greatest challenge is not which technology to invest in, but how to extract greater value from existing investments in technology and synergize them across different platforms. The synergy of information across platforms makes it more convenient for the end users to engage in e-Government transactions, access related information and services, and enjoy benefits through partnerships with private sector service providers.

The US Government's leap into the SaaS bandwagon will signal to other government bodies in other countries that the pay as you go model works just as well for public sector organizations as it does for businesses in the private sector.

Innovation in the public sector is not about making new applications and new gadgets, but about creating unique solutions that demonstrate powerful results and satisfy multiple objectives. Start with developing a strong understanding of their culture and their public mission.

As governments renew their commitment to improve service delivery, the foundation infrastructure of networks, servers, storage and applications must also be revamped to meet these changing service objectives. Failing to do so would mean a failure to meet your promises to the people.

For governments to truly adopt cloud computing they must first resolve two thorny issues: laws relating to geographical location of a government’s stored data, and data security/privacy.

Looking into the business horizon, the accelerating expansion of information security, governance and compliance requirements will be driving the need for integrated log management and Security Incident and Event Management (SIEM) technologies.