I got passed a link to this picture which made me smile during an otherwise smile-unworthy morning.

Pictures like this can put the plight of IT operations, even security, into a fairly realistic light. There are plenty of DIY/homebrew solutions simply because Doing It Right unfortunately Costs Money. (And sometimes Doing It Smartly doesn’t work with Unsmart Admins!) Besides, few organizations are in the business of having perfect IT operations or security; it is more about Getting By.

This is really why I’m not always very surprised by most security incidents. I think our general perception of security operations is far better than the reality, even with all the media babbling about it. We have this sense that businesses are doing their best to keep systems up and secure, when in fact there is an oscillating fan keeping a critical server cool. Then again, we also have this weird sense that we’re secure in our homes, when in fact we do even less to actually provide security.