The global credit-crunch has affected many, including my former employer. It is now strongly likely that I will be packing up the family and heading off to continue seeking fame and fortune. With the current financial market volatility it is important to keep focus on the benefits that the recent crisis will have for the security industry and individuals.

As organisations and individuals (including organised crime) are put under financial pressure, crime and employee misdeed will surely increase. History has shown that during these tough times, law enforcement and others charged with the protection of property (physical and intellectual) have their work cut out for them. It stands to reason that the demand for information security and risk has been on the increase.

Now may be a time of turmoil and change, however change more often than not, brings with it new opportunities.

Even with housing prices, fuel costs and interest rates on the decrease not everyone will be as fortunate. As you consider your circumstances, you may like to spare a thought for those most impacted by the crisis.

The last 12 months has been a whirlwind of devastation for all who have experienced it.

Global Warming, Financial Meltdown and the end of Big Brother from Australian TV

These times of hardship raise many questions, one of which is, “apart from the cockroaches, who will survive?”

According to Yahoos Hotjobs and Wikipedia there is a range of professions which will weather the storm better than others. But what can you do to help ease the financial burdens on your employer and improve your value to them?

The key is to start today, before crunch time comes. Here are some suggestions to improve your value:

• Strengthen relationships with your customers.
• Strengthen relationships with your team.
• Focus on the wildly important (franklin covey). What things MUST be done?
• Spend some time considering efficiency. Can a task be automated or techniques improved. Is there a bureacracy which should be changed, challenged or reconsidered?
• Take initiative and be proactive. Addressing issues before they become a problem.
• Provide timely and worthwhile MI which will be valued by your stakeholders.
• Undertake self-improvement, training or professional development.
• Conduct mentoring, training and knowledge transfer.

Don’t you just hate it when:

1. ISP’s auto respond to email bounce messages
2. Someone forges/spoofs email from your domain
3. That same someone sends spam

The result is obvious. Lots of email bounces from MTA’s bouncing back email which appears to come from me.

In the words of one of my colleagues “that is pants!”. I am not completely sure what this means or its origin but

its meant to represent a state of badness.

Last week I had a call from one of IINETs customers who was trying to send me email.

Unfortunately for him, but probably fortunate for me, his aforementioned ISP still had DNS records for my domain which were:

Bogus and

5 years old!!!

This got me thinking about how many junk DNS entries exist for domains and what are the implications?

Assuming the poor schmo who received my old fixed IP address from IINET was watching his traffic, he would have seen

• web requests from any user using their DNS
• email connection requests for anyone trying to send email to me
• and possibly much worse

It is a good thing that I am a trusting soul