Hacker claims breach of 50,000 accounts from Wall Street IT recruiting firm
A hacker today claimed to have broken into ITWallStreet.com, a website for IT professionals seeking jobs or working with Wall Street firms, and exposed highly detailed data belonging to tens of thousands of job applicants.
As many as 12 data files containing detailed information on job applicants were publicly posted today after apparently being accessed from an ITWallStreet database by a hacker belonging to a group called TeamGhostShell.
A Computerworld inspection of the published data showed the first and last names, mailing addresses, email addresses, usernames, hashed passwords and phone numbers of what appear to be thousands of people who have applied for IT jobs with Wall Street firms. Many of the thousands of hashed passwords appear to have already been decrypted into their clear text form. Read more...
As IT picks up the pace, can tech workers keep up?
There's good news and bad news on the salary front for IT professionals this year. With many businesses enjoying renewed growth following an extended period of economic gloom, IT workers saw another year of modest salary increases, and they reported significantly fewer pay cuts, hiring freezes and layoffs.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that tech professionals are working hard for every penny they bring home -- so hard that in many cases the extra workload outweighs the small boost in pay. Read more...
IT staff sheds 1,500 pounds
With his 50th birthday looming at the end of July last year, Frederick Curiel knew he had to lose weight. But like many IT professionals, the demands of his job had put diet and exercise on the back burner.
"My lab [results] were 'frightening,' according to my doctor," recalls Curiel, a consultant specialist in the Pleasanton, Calif., office of health maintenance organization Kaiser Permanente. "She wanted me to go on medications," but Curiel preferred diet and exercise. "I tried a bunch of things and had lost some weight, but I reached a plateau."
Fortunately for Curiel, he was about to get a little help from his IT co-workers.
At about the same time that Curiel needed a nudge, Philip Fasano, executive vice president and CIO of Kaiser Permanente, was looking for a little motivation of his own. Coming off an ankle injury, Fasano, 53, needed incentive to get back into shape. Read more...
Your next job: Mobile app developer?
As market demand surges for apps to run on iOS, Android and whatever operating system will power the next wave of smart devices, companies are facing a dearth of mobile development talent. For IT professionals with programming skills, that gap represents a fresh opportunity to embark on a career makeover.
To put the demand in perspective, consider that Apple racked up $1.78 billion in app sales in 2010, and global mobile app sales are forecast to hit $4 billion this year, according to market researcher IHS.
Just who is developing all of those apps? In its recent "America's Tech Talent Crunch" study, IT job site Dice.com found that job postings for Android developers soared 302% in the first quarter of this year compared to the first quarter of 2010; ads for iPhone-related positions rose 220% in the same time frame.
Elance.com, a website for freelancers, reports comparable demand: In the first quarter of 2011, there were 4,500 mobile developer jobs posted on the site -- an increase of 101% over the number of similar job postings in the same quarter last year. Read more...