Sometimes, I think we’re doomed. Our IT, our cyberspace, they all belong to hackers. Hackers of the bad sort. The world is at their mercy. It’s one thing for the layman to be lost and give up in defeat. But it’s quite another thing for an IT professional to think of computer viruses as part and parcel of IT.

Okay, I know, computer viruses are indeed rampant and everywhere. But if it is on your own computer, you don’t just give up and surrender, do you? I’m talking about IT professionals here.

Some time ago I was stunned by the remarks of the keynote speaker of a security conference, who apparently was resigned to sharing her notebook with a virus. It is just so bizarre that an IT security professional would say such a thing, and more so in an IT security conference.

So what happened? Well, to safeguard the anonymity of the person, system and circumstances involved (it’s a security system too, after all), let’s just say: System administrator didn’t actually consider the virus infection to be a significant event that had to be dealt with urgently. In fact, the said system administrator was, like the above keynote speaker, resigned to living with the virus.

I think we have a serious problem. Not that I don’t know already.