Let it snow, let it snow... until such time as the kids can't get to school and the rest of us start cancelling meetings, at which point people start to get a bit flummoxed. In Britain, and no doubt in other countries, we treat the arrival of snow with slight surprise, as we find out once again that our transport and heating systems are unable to cope with it all.

From a security perspective of course,the moment of truth is when three-quarters of the workforce find themselves working from home. Too late by then for the SSL VPNs, NACs and NAPs,as execs and staff alike hastily copy the few files they were working on, onto a USB stick which then gets plugged into the kids' PC. It's a test, and a pretty good one at that, given that no exec is going to listen to the IT department saying, "don't do it" if it is the only way they're going to get the job done.

What's the answer? We would suggest education - and fast. If there are ways of working that are more secure than others, then people should know. Not least for example, imposing at the very least a thorough antivirus and spyware check of any computer that will be squatted by the snow-bound employee. There are free packages galore, and if an employee has to use their home computer for work use, they could at least install the minimum of protections on it first (and without breaking the licensing restrictions on said free versions).

No doubt IT support will have its work cut out this week. But a simple email sent now, with some sage advice, could well prevent all kinds of headaches later.

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