CompTIA Blog

Literally moments after releasing more than a quarter-million sensitive U.S. diplomatic documents, WikiLeaks issued a distress call via Twitter that sounded like something out of Star Trek. It essentially read: “We’re under attack.”The assault aiming to block access to the classified documents was nothing more than a distributed denial of service attack – commonly called DDoS. In hacking circles, DDoS is one of the oldest and relatively simplest of attacks. It leverages the Syn-Ack handshake tha ...

As of December 13th, CompTIA’s new address will be 3500 Lacey Road, Suite 100, Downers Grove, IL 60515.  We’ve been an ardent Chicagoan for 25 years – so we’re not moving far.  In fact, our new office is only 3.5 miles from our former headquarters in Oakbrook Terrace, IL.  But as the Jeffersons said in their iconic TV show, we’re truly moving on up.Why move?  It’s simple.  Our new office space will allow us to better serve you, our members and the larger IT channel.With our new space, we will en ...

Service abuse and warranty fraud (hereafter referred to simply as “warranty fraud”) has been a hot topic in our CompTIA services communities as well as within the industry at large over the past year. And well it should be; recent research by PwC estimates that the cost to the industry is between 3 to 5 percent of revenue. We have all been touched in one way or another by warranty fraud. It’s a pervasive industry problem that, much like shoplifting, can inflate the cost of goods and services to ...

This month the CompTIA Educational Foundation awarded IT Merit Award Scholarships of $250 each to 25 students who are pursuing careers in the information technology industry.  These are kids and young adults who want to make our industry their own. The scholarships are to reward them for their extra efforts in studying for and passing their certification exams and to encourage them to keep going in their studies.  As an industry, we need to cheer on these students and others who want to become p ...

From the first face-to-face meeting of the CompTIA Cloud/SaaS Community, there was ample evidence that we needed to add a sense of clarity to the much used term, ‘cloud’. The questions started out as simple as what exactly ‘cloud’ was and evolved into deeper concerns relative to its impact on the channel (regardless of its meaning). As such, the group decided early on to focus its efforts on providing that clarity for the marketplace, while recognizing it might not be as simple as stringing toge ...

For most of us in the Channel-Lands, it was a short week. The Thanksgiving holiday usually means two-and-a-half days of work, most of which is consumed with preparations for the annual festival of food, family and football. Ah, precisely the reason our forefathers ventured to this great continent. But the technology world didn’t stop spinning just because the menu included cranberry sauce and mashed sweet potatoes. Channel-Lands was still very active with the acquisition of Novell, Oracle winnin ...

Some of the latest Microsoft TV commercials reflect scenes familiar to us all: stranded at airports waiting for crowded flights. In one spot, a couple is dismayed by the wait time for their delayed flight. How will they pass the time? “To the Cloud,” the man exclaims! He connects to his home PC to access a recorded TV show, “Celebrity Rehab: Season Premier.” Boredom abated, his wife says, “Yeah cloud.”Is this the cloud? Or better yet, what is the cloud?Defining cloud computing continues to confo ...

A look at the week of November 22, 2010, in public advocacy for the IT channelThis week, the SBA is cracking down on contractors pretending to be small firms in order to qualify for government deals.  The federal government adopted a new policy requiring agencies to default to cloud-based IT solutions when possible.   Politicians and industry leaders predict favorable tech legislation in 2011.SBA Takes Closer Look At Federal Contractors — The Small Business Administration is stepping up its effo ...

Despite all the attention placed on the importance of health care records and patient confidentiality, U.S. hospitals say data breaches are a fairly common and expensive experience, according to a new report by the Ponemon Institute. The study, sponsored by ID Experts, released last week finds that data breaches are exacting a heavy toll on health care providers. Sixty percent had more than two security breaches in the last year, and the average security breach costs $2 million in direct and in ...

The good people of the Channel-Lands are growing tired of the calendar packed with vendor and industry channel events. The last thing many VARs want to do is climb on another plane to go to Las Vegas or Orlando for another confab. And that’s partly why Comdex returned this week as a virtual trade show. It’s one of the many big things happening in the Channel-Lands this week.Comdex Returns Virtually; RetroDex Debuts LiveBack from the dead, virtually, this week was Comdex. Everything Channel reviv ...

Just when I thought every conceivable use for an iPhone had been devised, along comes another app to prove me wrong. I recently stumbled upon the ‘Fake Conversation’ app which lets me setup a bogus call along with a phony ringtone, display and voice feedback just to complete the deception! I’m not sure what bothers me more; that the demand for a sham call program is so great or that a software developer actually sat down and built it. From fake beer goggles to a mirror program that uses the fron ...

A look at the week of November 15, 2010, in public advocacy for the IT channel This week, a leading Senate Democrat vowed to repeal the controversial 1099 reporting requirement.  The Obama Administration is preparing an active and sweeping approach to Internet privacy policy, including the creation of a new watchdog to oversee operations.  Although Congress is now back in session, passage of a cybersecurity bill remains unlikely.Senator Vows to Repeal 1099 Filing Rule From Healthcare Law — Sen. ...

Last night at an event at the Seattle Music Experience, I met a couple of seasoned IT professionals – one a former head of security for a major (albeit defunct) bank. When I say they are “seasoned”, I mean their experience is matched by the number of gray hairs on their head. They had worked for major corporations, held numerous technical and professional certifications, and both are out of work and back in school.Continual education is one of underpinnings of the technology industry. Vendors re ...

From time to time, CompTIA's Public Policy team invites elected officials who are leaders on IT issues to contribute to our blog. Congressman Cliff Stearns is a thought leader on privacy, data breach and other emerging technology issues.Stearns was elected in 1988 to the U.S. House of Representatives, his only elected office. Stearns is the Republican Leader on the Communications, Technology and the Internet Subcommittee (formerly the Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee). He is acti ...

Cloud computing is the much overhyped term reflecting businesses migrating their consumption of applications and IT infrastructure to services remotely delivered over the Internet. There’s no question that “the cloud” is transforming the way businesses use and pay for IT, as well as how vendors develop and sell technology. But where does the channel fit into that equation?A new survey by IBM and MicroScope of solution providers in the British Isles asks that very question: What impact will the c ...