Poor Internet hygiene, not increased cybercrime, is what's really to blame for the increased botnet traffic the online world is battling, say cybersecurity experts Tom Kellermann and Rod Rasmussen.

The folks at PricewaterhouseCoopers, after surveying 500 U.S. business, law enforcement and government executives, conclude that the vast majority of cybersecurity programs fall very short of the federal government's cybersecurity framework goals.

Healthcare organizations are becoming a bigger target for cybercriminals because so much more clinical and financial information is now stored in potentially vulnerable information systems, says security expert Mac McMillan.

High-profile retail breaches, such as the one suffered by Target Corp., could spur more merchants to promote increased use of mobile payments to boost security, says Thad Peterson, a new analyst at Aite Group.

Fighting fraud tied to synthetic identities requires revamping the credit infrastructure to improve detection of fraudsters' activities, says risk management specialist Richard Parry.

What does "IT security as a business enabler" mean? For a definition, Gartner's Paul Proctor looks to the way IT managers at a European car maker translate security problems into a language a CEO can understand.

A multi-layered approach known as "context-aware security" is the most effective strategy for fighting both insider and external cyberthreats, says Gartner analyst Avivah Litan, who explains how this strategy works.

Embedding some information security practitioners within business units could help improve IT security awareness in many enterprises, reducing security risk, says Steve Durbin, global vice president of the Information Security Forum.

Timely analysis of data residing in an organization's information systems is a critical element of IT security, say Haiyan Song and Joe Goldberg of the security firm Splunk.

Today's cybercriminals are perfecting the use of advanced-persistent-threat attacks to pilfer valuable information from precisely targeted victims, says Greg Day of security provider FireEye.