InformationWeek: The Business Value of Technology

Salaries are rising slightly, with median compensation for IT staff at $90,000 and for managers at $120,000. Here are 11 key insights that IT pros should take from the findings from our 14,000 survey respondents.

How Hackers Fool Your Employees -- You Don’t Have To Stop All Attackers

Think backups are boring? Not according to our more than 500 respondents. Most, 60%, use two, three or even more different backup applications, and the percentage encrypting all media has jumped 15 points since 2011.

Salaries for staff and managers are up slightly, 0.9% for staff and 1.7% for managers, after a year of no increase, our ­survey finds. But IT employees want more than a pay raise -- they want to be engaged by their work.

Salaries are basically flat for managers and staff in network and data center positions, according to InformationWeek's 2013 U.S. IT Salary Survey. Base salaries rose by a median of less than 2%for staff and management vs. 2012. In other words, the weak economic recovery is reflected in paychecks for IT pros.

Salaries are up 2.1% for staffers and 3.4% for ­managers. But bonuses are lower, employer-paid training is hard to come by and outsourcing remains a threat to employment. Still, 63% of staffers and 66% of managers say they're satisfied or very satisfied with their jobs.

Regulatory compliance is a concern among many — if not most — organizations these days. Getting and staying compliant according to industry and government mandates is complicated. The regulations themselves are complex, they often conflict with other business and technology concerns, and they ­require a level of staffing and expertise that organizations often lack internally. If you’re having trouble when it comes to compliance, you’re not alone. Indeed, organizations often share the same ­compliance pain points. In this Dark Reading report, we list the most common issues that organizations run up against and provide recommendations for overcoming or even avoiding them.

"Where does all of that data come from?" It might sound like a simple question, but the answer can have a huge impact on your business. You see, where the data comes from very much influences if and how you can use it to create actionable business intelligence. In this report, we'll look at sources of open data, barriers to access and organizations that are helping to make open data sets widely available.

Executive compensation is a contentious topic in IT, but as it turns out, having their opinions valued, helping set company strategy and doing challenging work are what really matter to executives.

Don’t let anyone tell you that implementing a DLP system is easy. It takes time, patience and diplomacy to ensure that technical requirements, security policy and business needs are balanced. In this Dark Reading report, we recommend the 10 steps that must be taken to keep company data safe — and business managers and users happy and productive.