Consider stalled IT budgets and a lingering feeling of insecurity a mandate to get a handle on new security technologies and products in 2003. Of course, with vendors bombarding you with an ever-widening range of gee-whiz security gizmos, that's easier said than done.

The first step: Identify what you need to protect, from physical assets to digital data. Then consider how your applications function, what access these applications and your users need, and who will be using the information.

You're probably thinking, "Easy for you to say." Out there in the trenches, after you finish configuring your firewall, deploying your VPN, monitoring your IDS, updating your virus scanners, examining your logs, getting current on the latest vulnerabilities, keeping up with the endless stream of patches and putting out fires, there's precious little time to fine tune your security architecture.

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