My editor over at TechRepublic contacted me a few weeks ago and said she had an "off the wall" idea - how about an article on self defense tips for IT people to keep in mind when they have to work late alone. Given my background in law enforcement, she thought I might be interested in writing it.

As I told her, I could easily have written a book on the subject. Packing what I wanted to say into a 2000 word "Ten Tips" article wasn't easy, and I had to leave out a lot, but it was one of the most fun things I've written in a long time and I felt it was an important topic. However, like her, I wondered if there would be much interest from our audience of tech folks.

We needn't have wondered. It was published one week ago and already there have been 112 comments posted. Most are positive and enthusiastic (although there were a few of the inevitable "guns are evil" and "martial arts don't work in real life" posts - but to my relief the discussion did not deteriorate into a big Second Amendment debate).

My hope is that it will make a few of those IT people who live in their heads and don't pay much attention to what's going on outside stop and think, look and listen, and plan and prepare for the worst - so that if it ever does happen, they'll have a better chance of being around to see another reboot.

Check it out at http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=383 

We're always being told that an important element in keeping our systems secure is to diligently apply all security patches as they're released - but what if you can't?  Some organizations are experiencing problems recently in attempting to deploy Microsoft's monthly security fixes. First it was a problem with users of System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM). Now something similar is happening with WSUS 3.0 (with or without SP1) in environments running Office 2003.

They're apparently two separate issues, but have the same effect: you're unable to install the security updates. Microsoft is investigating the problem and expects to issue a fix, and in the meantime there are workarounds. See this article in Redmond Channel Partner magazine for more details.

Meanwhile, we're hearing about a new wave of an old scam: spam messages claiming to direct you to a critical Microsoft security update that really redirect you to a web site that downloads malware to install a back door for hackers to infiltrate the system. Read more about that one here.