Michael Crawford

An "apprentice" hacker broke into the PABX system of John James Hospital in Canberra, Australia, last week and made more than A$5,000 (US$3,850) worth of international calls.

Honiara, we have a problem. A satellite leased by Telecom New Zealand has inexplicably died in the saddle and wiped-out international telecommunications services throughout the South Pacific islands in the process, forcing the Kiwi telco onto emergency back-up systems.

Viruses are among the most chanllenging problems IT managers face.

A million-dollar venture to ease IT burdens for small business in remote Australian locations could potentially find itself an exported as a wireless business model.

A million-dollar venture to ease IT burdens for small business in remote Australian locations could potentially find itself an exported as a wireless business model.

Spam and the bandwidth it wastes is the most pressing problem IT managers face. Not only does it slow down production and clog the network, but according to Paul Ducklin, head of technology for Sophos PLC, the real case for clamping down on spam is the huge amount of useless traffic it creates in unwanted replies, which doubles the flow on a network.

Australia continues to be a major beneficiary of offshoring by global companies but research company Gartner Inc. warns it is an opportunity largely going to waste.