IBM is looking at using big data analysis to enhance corporate and homeland security, and detect and prevent cyber attacks.

The bottom line may be Wrangler Jeans. Just as security and business applications are blending together through technology, asset tracking, especially in retail, is fitting into enterprises as snug as a pair of blue jeans.

Attention enterprise security leaders: Biometrics, including face and voice recognition, are not only getting better but better integrated with other security technologies and mobile devices to provide higher security, more convenience or both.

For some retail enterprises, Big Data can include smaller steps such as the integration of security video into a sprawling mall of information. Another pet from the information technology arena, Big Data is a loosely-defined term describing data sets so large and complex that they become awkward to work with using traditional database management tools.

In the decade since 9/11, the United States has invested enormous resources into protecting our critical infrastructure from asymmetrical attacks, such as car bombs and hijacked airplanes. The problem is that our most vital facilities – pipelines, ports, refineries and power plants – are also vulnerable and difficult to secure due to their remote locations.

Today’s security investigators and loss prevention professionals routinely face the mammoth challenge of finding a small snippet of valuable footage among hours of recorded video.

Big Data Is…. Big! It also poses big risks and big opportunities. As you know, there has been a lot written lately about cloud computing, and due to the platform’s design, cloud computing security. Securing the cloud is the work of technical experts at places like Google, Amazon, NSA and the DOD. And that cloud is being secured more each minute through both better procurement policy and technology.

The director of loss prevention at Brown Shoe Co. talks about many benefits the company has seen from upgrading its alarm and surveillance systems, including operational improvements and apprehensions.

Don’t be afraid. This is all about habits. And it is a twin spin from an MIT lab and a self-help professor at Utah State University, a seemingly deadly combination, but which may hold the key to how to sell security to the boss and employees, how to balance values and principals professionally and personally as well as how to sell Febreze at Walmart, if you want.