Mary K. Pratt

The help desk is a hotbed of activity these days.

Despite the average person's growing technical acumen, workers still rely on corporate help when systems crash, applications bewilder and any number of other tech-related mishaps occur.

If your company were hit with a cyberattack today, would it be able to foot the bill? The entire bill, including costs from regulatory fines, potential lawsuits, damage to your organizations' brand, and hardware and software repair, recovery and protection?

It's a question worth careful consideration, given that the price of cyberattacks is rising at an alarming rate. The second annual Cost of Cyber Crime study, released last August by the Ponemon Institute, reported that the median annualized cost of cybercrime for a company is $5.9 million -- a 56% increase from the 2010 median figure.

Bruce Smith is feeling some tablet pressure. As director of computing services for Cummins Inc., Smith helps the company's 40,000 employees get the right computers for their jobs.

For a majority of those employees, it's a desktop PC. For mobile professionals, it's a laptop. Select employees, such as engineers, get both a laptop and a workstation capable of high-capacity computing.

Kevin Joyce is taking on tasks that aren't usually given to a network manager.

He's part of a committee to make sure that his employer, St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Utica, N.Y., is prepared for a disaster. And he recently volunteered to be the IT representative on another hospitalwide committee, even though he's not yet sure of the committee's focus.

The ability to transition ethically and legally from one job to another has always been something of an art.

Now, in these days of personal gadgetry and social media mania, it's become infinitely more difficult moving from old employment to new. Today's job changers must figure out how to untangle personal information and unplug personal electronics from company property. And the lines aren't always clear.

Employees are exposing personal and professional information unknowingly as they log onto public Wi-Fi hot spots at hotels, airports and coffee shops, experts say.

Ryan Crum, former director of information security at PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory Services, said he has observed unprotected Social Security numbers, corporate financial data and information about mergers and acquisitions circulating on public Wi-Fi networks, particularly in e-mails.

With summer here at last, offices are emptying out as workers head out for some well-deserved R&R.

Even vacation-shy tech managers are venturing out of their cubicles, and when they do, they're trading their manuals and e-mail logs for reading material of a different ilk.

Security experts say that employees are increasingly exposing personal and professional information unknowingly as they log in at Wi-Fi hot spots. Although these breaches haven't yet made big headlines, given corporate America's increasing reliance on smartphones, laptops and other portable devices, it's only a matter of time, experts say.

Ryan Crumb, director of information security for PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory Services, has seen all sorts of information gleaned from hot spots -- including Social Security numbers, corporate financial data and information about M&A deals -- that was never meant for him to see. Sometimes Crumb deliberately looks to see what unprotected data is traveling over the network in public spaces.

Christina Hanger is chief operating officer at Worksoft Inc., a small, entrepreneurial software company in Addison, Texas. She has never had a big training budget, yet she acknowledges that a highly skilled technical staff is the lifeblood of Worksoft.

"We have to keep programmers and developers on the cutting edge," she says. "There's no way around that."

She made it part of her regular work schedule while an IT executive, and it's now part of her current job in academia.

But Farnsley, a visiting professor at Purdue University's College of Technology in West Lafayette, Ind., says her networking skills didn't come easily. An introvert by nature, she says she was sick with nerves the first time she had to speak to the board of directors at one of her former employers.

Aya Karpinska had a story to tell. She could hear the words and envision how the tale would unfold. All she needed, she says, was the right iPhone app.

So Karpinska hired a programmer, paying him $500 to deliver in five days an application that would disseminate her piece, called " Shadows Never Sleep," through an iPhone application.

For those of you who want the world at your fingertips, the wait is almost over.

The future PC promises to put nearly everything you could need or want right in your palm.