54,000 IT Jobs In Canada Unfilled: Report

The Canadian IT industry is short 54,000 jobs, IDC Canada reports.

IDC defines the skills gap as what is needed to "get the right resource at the right time and at the right price."

In 2014, the IT skills gap amounted to 54,000 people and cost Canadian organizations close to $1 billion, according to the report.

Rise of "forever day" bugs in industrial systems threatens critical infrastructure

The number of security holes that remain unpatched in software used to control refineries, factories, and other critical infrastructure is growing. It's becoming so common that security researchers have coined the term "forever days" to refer to the unfixed vulnerabilities.

The latest forever day vulnerability was disclosed in robotics software marketed by ABB, a maker of ICS (industrial control systems) for utilities and factories. According to an advisory (PDF) issued last week by the US Cyber Emergency Response Team, the flaw in ABB WebWare Server won't be fixed even though it provides the means to remotely execute malicious code on computers that run the application.

"Because these are legacy products nearing the end of their life cycle, ABB does not intend to patch these vulnerable components," the advisory stated. The notice went on to say that the development of a working exploit would require only a medium skill level on the part of the attacker.

Representatives of ABB didn't respond to requests to comment for this article.