In businesses throughout Europe and the United States, the segregation of IT security and system operations has become entrenched. Further confounding the rift is the pursuit of all things 'compliance' (e.g., BS7799, ISO 17799, BASEL II, etc.). Industry analysts and vendors alike anticipate an extension of the compliance movement that focuses on the actual IT audit, which may further confound efforts to reunite IT operations under a common banner. As anxiety heightens over when the next 'Big Problem' will hit the Internet, there are some things that systems administrator and C-level executives can do to fortify their IT business processes against that unseen storm that's looming just over the horizon.