It isn't good news when Mike Engle's pager goes off in the middle of the night. Not long ago, the 2 a.m. warnings didn't necessarily signal bad news, either--and that was a problem. All too often, the VP of information security at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. would rise, bleary-eyed, ready to confront an attack that never existed. He'd discover the alarm was a false positive only after combing through a myriad of firewall and intrusion-detection system logs.

Determined to defend their networks from hackers, cybercriminals, disgruntled employees, or the next sophisticated "blended threat," security pros such as Engle have taken to heart the Boy Scout motto of always being prepared. They've locked down their networks by installing antivirus software, firewalls, and intrusion-detection and content-filtering systems. Those efforts have become even more important as businesses ratchet up their defenses against the threat of cyberterrorism.

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