It's election time both north and south of the border, and the world seems awash in political hacks these days, not to mention political hackers. No sooner has Repubilican VP candidate Sarah Palin had her email hacked and made public when Conservative leader Stephen Harper has fake emails sent to those on his mailing list software. Luckily for both candidates, the political fallout has been minimal. But everyone in political office should sit up and take notice of these events, for they're just a warning shot across the bow. In future, high- and not-so-high-profile candidates can expect a barrage of cyber-missiles to come their way. Once the smoke has cleared from this year's campaigns, I expect there'll be a lot of discussion in political camps across North America around such topics as information security and damage control in response to some form of cyber attack. After the Palin and Harper wake-up call, political parties will no doubt pay a lot more attention to security. Unfortunately for them, the hackers will always be one or two steps ahead of them. For those of us sitting on the sidelines, it'll be interesting to see what the next bombshell will be.