Cyber security is a pervasive concern that is growing in threat level every day, especially for the US government, and now the director of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command Chief, Gen. Keith Alexander, has deemed the US as unready for these severe cyber assaults.

Criminal Justice organizations make up a large part of our Federal, State and Local Governments. As such, they are also a large consumer of IT. But do they have the same security standards as other agencies for IT services?

With 20% of the world’s population using social media, and that number is expected to increase rapidly over the next five years, the need for cyber security is becoming imperative. Social media networking websites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+ enable users to communicate in a moment’s notice. However, this instantaneous communication also allows for the people who want to attack/harm others to get their message to a much bigger audience in even quicker time. For example, take the hacktivist group “Anonymous.” When they launch a DDoS attack on a government agency they can secretly plan and grow the attack without being noticed. They can create hundreds of fake accounts and communicate using them and they can go unnoticed. Once they launch these attacks it’s too late unless the agency has something in place to protect them.

As customer service demands rise and organizations constantly need to achieve more with less, many IT Helpdesk departments are faced with this question: “To outsource or not outsource?” IT departments offloading their tier 1 support has become a more frequent trend in today’s public and private sector. Tier 1 Helpdesks allow your team to focus solely on complex issues that require desk side assistance. By specializing in IT and end user support service, Helpdesks can aid in delivering three main mission-oriented goals: Employees gain access to the help they need, when they need it. In-house IT staff can offload the headaches of day-to-day tier 1 support and focus complicated support issues that need hands on assistance. Organizations complement and extend IT resources without adding head count.

Despite rumors of a looming fiscal cliff and a harsh reality for contractors, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the General Services Administration (GSA) are finalizing major IT acquisitions. These two technology contracts are expected to exceed $5 billion and $1.5 billion respectively. The VA is looking to award funding by September 30th and the GSA is releasing an RFI this week for continuous monitoring systems.

The 2012 London Olympics are currently at the height of media attention around the world. This year, the Olympics have had a unique challenge not seen before in any other games. The ever-increasing use of social media outlets like Twitter has caused hiccups in the reporting and communications of some competitions.