Stories by: Meridith Levinson

Cole Hanson's career goal is to become an information security executive. Currently, he serves as a high-level information security professional with the U.S. Army. In February, Hanson, who is also a reservist with a rank of Lieutenant, will start a new job with the Marine Corps as the technology integration officer and deputy for its Communications Directorate. In this new position he will act as a project manager and oversee a major network infrastructure replacement.

If you resolved earlier this month to work smarter, stop procrastinating and be more productive, your best intentions may have quickly been subverted by your regularly scheduled work routine.

Keith Fafel entered the world of cloud computing during the summer of 2010, while he was working as a product manager with Rackspace, the San Antonio, Texas-based provider of hosted IT infrastructure services.

Last July, the FBI executed what is arguably its most public campaign against hacktivists--individuals who breach computer systems to make a political or ideological statement. On Tuesday, July 19, the G-men cuffed 12 men and two women allegedly associated with hacktivist group Anonymous for their supposed involvement in a dedicated denial of service (DDoS) attack against PayPal's website in December 2010.

If you had to pick two words to describe how the market for management- and executive- level IT jobs is shaping up for 2012, you might channel Curb Your Enthusiasm star Larry David and say "pretty good. Pri-tay, pri-tay, pri-tay, pri-tay good."

Despite ominous predictions about how cloud computing will eviscerate IT departments, 2012 is shaping up to be a great year for IT careers. Cloud computing is in fact creating new roles for IT professionals, while the proliferation of smartphones and tablets has ignited demand for software developers. The IT job market, which experienced a strong rebound in 2011 after the recession, is expected to burn even brighter in 2012, despite global economic challenges, according to IT staffing industry executives.

Henry Cole has held his position as an IT manager with a global life sciences company for nearly eight years. Like all ambitious IT managers, he wants to move up to the executive level. Cole believes he's ready to step into an executive-level IT management position with a large company or into the top IT management spot at a small company based on his accomplishments, positive feedback he's received from his employer, and recognitions with which he's recently been honored. Since there are no opportunities for career growth with his employer, he's looking outside his company, as he has been for the last year and a half.

On July 19, 2011, FBI agents in nine states rounded up 14 men and two women ranging in age from 21 to 36 for their alleged involvement with the international hacking group Anonymous. Fourteen of these individuals were arrested for allegedly plotting and executing a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack in December 2010 that took down PayPal's Website.

When Roy Bostock, the chairman of Yahoo's board of directors, fired Carol Bartz over the phone last month, the company's cold handling of the termination was widely regarded as an example of how not to fire an executive--or any employee for that matter.

There comes a time in many IT consultants' careers when they decide to exchange the trappings of their jet-set professional lives for a corporate IT job with more stability. For Sevin Straus, an IT consultant based in Chicago, that moment came at the height of the financial crisis in 2009.