The hackers are in the oil refineries – and the gas pipelines and the power plants. So says a study the Center for Strategic and International Studies and security software firm McAfee released Thursday.

More than half of the companies running critical infrastructure such as electric grids, gas and oil supplies have sustained cyber attacks of stealth infiltrations by organized gangs or state-sponsored hackers. The rates of “stealth infiltration” were highest in oil and natural gas operation, with 71 percent claiming to have been targets.

The  cost of the downtime caused by cyber attacks is high, according to the study. For corporations, the average cost is $6.3 million a day.

The study – presented at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland – surveyed some 600 IT and security executives from the energy, transport, water and sewage, government, telecoms and financial sectors in 14 countries.

It’s in McAfee’s business interest to be alarmist, but still the findings are chilling, particularly as they come on the heels of both Operation Aurora – the high-profile episode whose targets included Google and Adobe Systems – and new revelations of orchestrated cyber attacks against Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, and Marathon Oil.

Even worse news: The risk of cyber attack – including everything from garden variety-viruses and “malware” on up to the more vicious – is rising. Nearly 40 percent of all IT executives expected a major cybersecurity incident, defined as an attack causing an outage of “at least 24 hours, loss of life or… failure of a company” in their sector within the next year, the report revealed. Four in five expected such an incident within five years.

Thanks to the recession, most IT departments are suffering budget cuts (including IT departments representing critical infrastructure). Two-thirds of those surveyed in the report – titled “In the Crossfire: Critical Infrastructure in the Age of Cyberwar” – blamed the current economic climate for shrinking security resources available, and 25 percent said resources had suffered cuts of 15 percent or more. The cuts were most severe in the energy, oil and gas sectors.

The report also showed more than half of executives have little faith that their nation’s laws will deter cyberattacks. The three countries named as most vulnerable to attacks: the U.S., Russia and China. Interestingly, respondents also named the U.S. as the biggest potential source of attacks.

“When they were asked which country ‘you worry is of greatest concern in the context of network attacks against your country/sector,’ 36 percent named the United States and 33 percent China — more than any other country on a list of six,” the report said. (China was praised, however, for its rapid adoption of security measures.)

Concluded the report: “If cyberspace is the Wild West, the sheriff needs to get to Dodge City.”

What do you think? Have you or your business partners suffered a cyberattack recently? How did you handle it?

Every business professional has fallen prey to the routine. One errant piece of mail becomes a looming pile. Empty cups from the morning coffee ritual stealthily begin to populate your desk, and soon, the entire workspace seems to vanish altogether. But office clutter isn’t just a matter of keeping up appearances – it can actually cripple your job performance, according to a recent survey by Office Depot on workspace organization. Out of more than 1,000 office workers surveyed in December, 82 percent said they feel being organized improves their performance, yet 32 percent admitted to keeping a disorganized workspace and 42 percent said they clean up clutter only once a month or less. The survey was part of a campaign launched by the office supply retail chain and the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO), a non-profit network of organizing consultants, to establish January as national “Get Organized Month.” ”Nobody is ever going to find the time to become more organized,” says Laura Leist, president of NAPO. “You need to make the time, just as you would make an appointment with a client.” According to the survey, clutter such as bestrewn papers, food containers, and even spare shoes can lead to many unprofessional situations, with a large number of respondents reporting lost time (47 percent), meeting tardiness (16 percent), and missed deadlines (14 percent) as a result of their behavior. Leist says small business owners are doubly vulnerable to these blunders, since they often “wear many more hats than in a larger organization” – though hiring an assistant isn’t always the quickest solution. ”That [assistant] is usually great at maintaining systems that have already been created, but not necessarily how to implement and create that system,” she says. A rather vocal assistant is what brought Margot Sterns, owner of MTS Promotions, a provider of promotional products for companies, to the realization that her home office in New York City was in desperate need of a makeover three years ago. Since she was the business’ sole employee, Sterns says she had trouble finding space for the orders she processed for the multiple clients she juggled at one time, and had to hired extra hands – despite her embarrassment. But after attempting to wade through Sterns’ sea of hats, T-shirts, foam hands, and water bottles, the new assistant eventually gave up and hit her with the honest truth. ”He basically said to me, ‘You really need help,’” says Sterns. “There were old samples mixed with new, there was stuff all over my desk … He tried, but it just got so overwhelming.” That’s when she decided to take a more proactive role in putting the kibosh on her office clutter. With the help of Sharon Danzger, owner of Control Chaos and member of NAPO, Sterns took two weeks to reorganize her office from what she called “chaotic and out of control” to a structured work environment that runs faster and smoother than ever. Now, all of her promotion samples go in labeled boxes, such as “school items.” Whenever she gets an invoice from a vendor, it goes directly into a folder instead of on her desk. And she’s instituted a policy that whenever a new item comes in, something else must go out. As a result of the new system, which she says is still in place to this day, Sterns says she’s saved more time, which has allowed her to take on more clients and hire a permanent assistant. She’s even started doing parties and bar mitzvahs and has increased her profits by more than 20 percent. ”I do believe [getting organized] is worth the investment of time and money, because what you get back, I think makes it more than worth it,” Sterns says. “Getting rid of all that stuff really made a huge difference in my life.” Along with labeling and creating folders and boxes for certain items, Leist of NAPO says there are plenty of things businesses can do to become more organized, such as appointing a current employee as the “project champion,” investing in CRM software, and making a decision about an item before it even goes on the desk. ”It’s a lifestyle choice people make,” she says. “If you don’t make a decision on something and just set it down and say, ‘I’ll deal with it later,’ that becomes clutter.”

Staring down a 10 percent national unemployment rate and his own plummeting approval ratings, President Barack Obama made big promises to small businesses during his first State of the Union address last night.

The president devoted a full two-thirds of his 71-minute speech to the economy, pledging to sign a new jobs bill and to create a new lending facility, funded with $30 billion, that will get community banks extending credit to small businesses again. (Where’s the money coming from? Wall Street’s repayment of what it borrowed to the Troubled Asset Relief Program.) All good news for entrepreneurs — if, of course, the White House can corral a skittish Congress into delivering.

Addressing an audience that included First Lady Michelle Obama, members of both houses of Congress, diplomats, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Supreme Court, Obama called for tax incentives for small business owners – who do 60 percent of the hiring in America – to bring on new employees and give raises to those they already employ.

“Now, the true engine of job creation in this country will always be America’s businesses. But government can create the conditions necessary for businesses to expand and hire more workers,” Obama said. “We should start where most new jobs do — in small businesses, companies that begin when an entrepreneur takes a chance on a dream, or a worker decides its time she became her own boss.”

To jump-start entrepreneurship, he proposed the elimination of capital gains taxes on small business investment. He also reiterated his plans to invest more in clean energy, which could juice funding — and innovation — in that sector. Thanks to last year’s Recovery Act provisions, the solar industry grew by almost 40 percent in 2009, creating 18,000 jobs, the Environment News Service reported.

“We need to encourage American innovation,” Obama said. “Last year we made the largest investment in basic research funding history – an investment that could lead to the world’s cheapest solar cells or treatment that kills cancer cells but leaves healthy ones untouched. And no area is more ripe for such innovation than energy.” (When they enshrined a State of the Union in the Constitution, we can’t imagine the Founding Fathers envisioned an audience at its feet, giving perhaps the biggest cheer of the night to the president’s call for construction of more nuclear power plants.)

Obama also set a goal of doubling American exports over the next five years, which would support two million jobs. It could also help companies looking to tap new overseas markets.

The Republicans’ post-address response focused on jobs, too.

Said Bob McDonnell, Virginia’s newly-elected governor: “We must enact policies that promote entrepreneurship and innovation so America can better compete with the world. What government should not do is pile on more taxation, regulation, and litigation that kill jobs and hurt the middle class.”

The iPad Cometh: Steve Jobs shows off Apple’s new iPad at the Yerba Buena Gardens theater in San Francisco.’>

As consumers debate the merits of the name iPad versus other contenders such as iSlate, the technology company Fujitsu is defending the widely-mocked moniker – as its own.

The Fujitsu iPad – a portable, touch-screen, Wi-Fi enabled device launched in 2002 – was designed for retail use, to help “shop clerks verify prices, check real-time inventory data and close sales on the go,” the New York Times reports. Now, following Apple’s grandiose product unveiling, the Tokyo-based technology company is claiming dibs on the name and bracing for a dispute with Apple.”It’s our understanding that the name is ours,” Masahiro Yamane, Fujitsu’s public relations director, told the Times. He said Fujitsu is consulting lawyers.Trademark disputes are, of course, nothing new for Apple. “This is so like Apple,” says San Francisco trademark lawyer Lawrence Townsend. “They launched the iPhone knowing Cisco had the name – quite a gorilla in the room. It seems to be their mode of doing business.” The Cupertino, California company also waged an infamous legal battle  against the Beatles-owned record label, Apple Records, in 1981. (As part of the resolution of that case, Steve Jobs promised he would never enter the music business.)With respect to this latest trademark squabble, Fujitsu applied to trademark the name iPad in 2003. This application was listed as “abandoned” as of last April, at which point the company reapplied for the trademark. Further clouding the ownership history of the name: A tech security company called Mag-Tek also moved to register the name iPad in the past. Does Apple have any basis for challenging Fujitsu? Perhaps. “Generally, in trademark law, it’s all about who is the first to use a name on a physical product, and ship that product across state lines to be seen by consumers,” Townsend says.

Moreover, Apple could potentially argue that Fujitsu’s original use of the name iPad was confusingly similar to that of Apple’s early iPod, which was trademarked in October 2001. it would be a risky position to stake out: Claiming senior rights to that vowel substitution gets muddled by the fact Apple would be simultaneously be arguing against the name’s use and for re-registering the handle. Fujitsu will likely argue that the names are not so similar when one considers Apple only used the iPod back then as a music-storage-and-playing device. Now that Apple has moved into Fujitsu’s mobile-wireless-device-with-touch-screen territory, Fujitsu could allege that Apple wants to grab a name already in use. Could the brewing suit stop Apple from getting its tablets in the hands of consumers? Probably not. Legal experts say Fujitsu would have to have an extraordinarily strong, clear-cut case to convince a judge to grant a preliminary injunction and stop Apple from shipping its product.

“It’s a pretty good stand-off,” Townsend said. “Clearly Apple is well advised legally, and has considered this. They probably think they have a better case on this one than they did over keeping the iPhone name.”What’s more likely is that a trial will be slated for more than a year in the future, giving the two companies ample time to work out a settlement. Whether the lesser iPads of the world, each with dibs on the name, will seek damages as well is hard to know. These contenders include a line of abrasive scrubbing pads for kitchen purposes, certain engines and motors made by Siemens, and the iPad padded bras by Canadian lingerie company Coconut Grove Pads.

AQUARIUS (January 20-Febuary 18th) You’re the top of the zodiac and the spotlight’s on you. Will you be able to take advantage of being center stage? Come mid-month, expect some social networking opportunities to arise; the potential payoff may not be obvious at first, but it will be worthwhile to pay attention to them. Finally, as exciting as the New Year is for Aquarians, you still have some unresolved issues (with an employee or business partner) lingering from months ago. They’re not going to go away by themselves. Tackle them head on.   PISCES (Febuary 19-March 20th) Need to schedule a touch-base with your investors? Save it until the last week of the month. Until then, you will face distractions and cross currents. At the start of February, the stars will align and your communications skills will be bolstered with extra clarity and coherence.   ARIES  (March 20 – April 19)Oy vey! Despite the resurgent GDP, 2010 seems to have started off in reverse for your company. You’re going to be put to the test with a series of sudden stops and starts that will put a larger-than-usual demand on your time. Take each setback in stride—your efforts to enter new markets or pursue other, non-core opportunities will start to gel come month’s end.   TAURUS (April 19-May 20) We know you have a habit of identifying a problem and charging headlong toward what you think is the obvious solution. But please heed our advice: The stars suggest that the roadblocks you face this month are formidable (aren’t they always?) and that, if you take your usual approach, you risk expending energy needlessly and recklessly. So take a breather and reflect. Maybe it’s time to pick up the latest Jim Collins.  GEMINI (May 21-June 20) There’s a lot of work to be done this month and we know how much you enjoy rolling up your sleeves. So revel in that full inbox, plan on eating lunch at your desk, and work into the wee hours of the morning if you so desire. What you get done this month will free up time for greater work-life balance later in the year, when your mental energy will not be at its peak.   CANCER (June 21-July 22) Your creative side is going to take the reins this month. But be careful about how you give direction to others. What makes sense to you may not immediatelyresonate with members of your staff. Take the time to flesh your thinking out for them. Now is not the time to bullheadedly push through new initiatives.   LEO (July 23- August 22) From-the-gut decisions may have backfired in the past, but the stars promise that your instincts are sharp this month. You’re feeling confident and assertive, and the world around you is going to like what you have to offer. Pursuing a new piece of business? Launching a new marketing campaign? Now is the time to go for it.  VIRGO (August 23-September 22) A little cynicism would do your usually optimistic outlook good this month. Yes, we know you have ideas to implement, we know you don’t like to put a damper on your strokes of genius, but there are relationship matters to which you should first attend—and it may well be that it’s time to let go of that person who has been causing undue workplace stress. There are better-suited people for you out there Virgo, and generous ones too.   LIBRA (September 23-October 22) Determination is your greatest strength but you should set your sites on easily-achievable goals this month. Now is not the time to change the strategic direction of your business. Sometimes it’s okay to apply yourself to a series of smaller goals instead of focusing on the big picture.

SCORPIO (October 24-November 21)For Scorpions the year begins with a bang. A big one—be it a pivotal customer meeting or a reshuffling of your management team, something will thoroughly shake the status quo. With your natural intensity you may tempted to act on your first instinct, but don’t. Take time to decipher the details, one day at a time.  SAGITTARIUS (November 22 – December 20)Sagittarians are happiest when on the move, but this month you would do well to resist the urge to go dashing off in a new direction. Take some time to address a few nagging financial issues left over from last year, and you’ll feel renewed self-confidence.  You’ll also be ready for action in the weeks ahead.

CAPRICORN (December 21-January 19th) Good news for business owners born under the sign of the mountain goat. Your natural inability to budge on issues may have resulted in some entangled horns at the close of last year, but the immediate path in front of you is clear of obstacles. Go ahead: Break into a gallop while you can. Put your freshest ideas to the test while there’s nothing around to stop you.

Terry McGraw, get thee to media training! Speaking to CNBC Tuesday night, the McGraw-Hill Companies CEO appeared to let slip several new pieces of information about the highly-anticipated Apple tablet.

He confirmed the device would be based on the iPhone operating system, and that it would double as e-book. (And – though the tablet is arguably the worst-kept secret in technology history – he confirmed the launch of the tablet itself. Apple’s invitation coyly says only ”come see our latest product,” but when CNBC’s Erin Burnett asked him whether McGraw-Hill would make its textbooks available on the tablet, McGraw responded: “They’ll make their announcement tomorrow.”)

McGraw was being interviewed about the company’s fourth-quarter results when he seemed to break Apple’s notorious omerta. (To see a video click here – it’s about minute 2:50).

Asked by Burnett about McGraw-Hill’s links with Apple, he said: “Yeah, very exciting. Yes, they’ll make their announcement tomorrow on this one.” So far, so anodyne.

Then he went on to say: “We have worked with Apple for quite a while – the tablet is going to be based on the iPhone operating system, and so it will be transferrable. So what you’re going to be able to do now… we have a consortium of e-books – we have 95 percent of all our materials that are in e-book format on that one – so with the tabloid you’re going to open up the higher education market, the professional market. The tabloid, the tablet is going to be just really terrific.”

(At least he didn’t let the name slip, calling it both a “tabloid” and a “tablet.”)

If it was a flat-out gaffe and not part of the campaign to build buzz, then Apple founder Steve Jobs – he of the flamethrower-like temper – isn’t likely to be thrilled that a content partner has put a crack in the tablet secret code. Jobs calls himself a “big bang guy” – building anticipation to feverish levels as part of the marketing game.

Other people unlikely to be happy about McGraw’s comments: executives at Amazon and Sony, who make their own e-book gadgets. Industry experts speculate that sales of the monochrome, button-operated Kindle and reading devices like it will plummet following Apple’s expected launch of a touch-screen, full color tablet.

The iPad Cometh: Steve Jobs shows off Apple’s new iPad at the Yerba Buena Gardens theater in San Francisco.’>

Apple finally unveiled its hotly anticipated tablet today at a press conference in San Francisco hosted by CEO Steve Jobs. The iPad, which  looks like a large iPhone, has a 9.7 inch LED-backlit display with a multi-touch screen. It weighs just 1.5 pounds and is one-half inch thick. The big surprise? It will cost  $499 for 16 GB of memory, $599 for 32 GB, and $699 for 64 GB. That’s much lower than the  $700 to $1,000 price tag expected by analysts. Like the iPhone, the iPad connects to iTunes via USB, allowing users to sync movies, contacts, calendars, TV shows, and apps. The device runs iPhone apps, which means you can transfer apps from your iTunes account. On the downside, it has no flash capability, so you won’t be able to watch flash videos on it. And the battery lasts only 10 hours, which could be a deal breaker for heavy users, though a fully-charged iPad can stand-by for 30 days. In the United States, you will be able to buy 3G models with service provided by AT&T.  You’ll pay $14.99 for 250 MB of data per month or $29.99 for unlimited data usage. To sweeten the deal, AT&T, which has caught a lot of flack for its subpar iPhone service in New York City, is throwing in free use of WiFi hotspots throughout the U.S. You can activate the service right on the iPad, and there’s no contract, so you can cancel any time. Apple also introduced a new suite of iWork apps includes touch-friendly Keynote software for creating slideshows with animations, a Numbers spreadsheet app that lets you easily move and format data, and a Pages word processing app, available in the app store for $9.99 each. More sophisticated gaming is another major component of the iPad. One new game, called Nova, debuted today. Desinging apps for the iPad is likely to be a major focus for video game developers in the coming weeks.In a shot over the bow at Amazon and its Kindle e-Reader, Apple announced a new iBook app that will let you browse through and purchase books and publications, including the New York Times, right on the iPad. The app contains a virtual bookshelf for storing your tomes and an e-books store button that opens  an iTunes-like marketplace. Finally, Apple also unveiled some cool iPad accessories, including a sleek keyboard dock and a stand for typing and watching movies. Unfortunately, anyone eager to get their hands on the iPad will have to wait a while longer; the device isn’t slated to ship for another two months.

Entrepreneurs have enough to worry about with managing their companies’ daily operations, but what if in the next decade, your entire industry is, as the British say, made redundant? A new report by the market research analysis firm IBISWorld, projects a long-term look at which 10 industries will be the strongest and the weakest.Voice over internet protocol providers top IBIS’ best industries list followed closely by retirement / pension plans, and biotechnology. The top fields fading from the spotlight are wired telecommunications carriers, tank and armored vehicle manufacturing, and small household appliance manufacturing. In total, the company tracks over 700 industries.While analysts can gather data on a company or industry’s sensitivities such as whom they buy from and whom they sell to, some threats to your livelihood are beyond even the strongest predictive powers. “Over long periods of time, the competitor that might be the most difficult is the one that creeps up from a completely different industry or possibly even a completely different country as we’ve seen with foreign trade and outsourcing,” says George Van Horn, a senior analyst at IBISWorld. For example, VoIP went from a non-existent field at the start of the past decade to holding the prime slot looking towards the future.On the plus side, while there is no such thing as a perfect crystal ball, Van Horn asserts that the size of an entrepreneur’s current or future business should be no impediment to capitalizing on these trends. He says if an entrepreneur is flush with ideas but not with capital, “one of the things that they might consider is looking at where all the capital flows are going in these new technologies and then find a way to provide services to that growing industry,” Van Horn counsels. However, the glut of opportunity doesn’t necessarily mean it’s time to make a switch into a new and unfamiliar industry. “There are a lot of reasons to make [career and industry] switches these days and it really should encompass a little bit of” both your fiscal and personal situation, says Stacey Mayo, an independent career and small business coach. She advises those venturesome enough to explore unfamiliar territory to shadow, interview or apprentice themselves to a number of experts in their new field to get a diversity of opinion on the state of the industry. A common problem is that entrepreneurs drag their feet about completing the jump. Mayo says, “People make the mistake of waiting until they feel they know everything and have it all perfectly lined up and that’s not possible.”Best Performing Industries In The Coming Decade (2010-2019)  Rank    Best Performing                                            Growth     1         Voice Over Internet Protocol Providers (VoIP)    149.6%     2         Retirement & Pension Plans                            133.7%     3         Biotechnology                                                127.6%     4         eCommerce & Online Auctions                         124.7%     5         Environmental Consulting                               120.3%     6         Video Games                                                112.9%     7         Trusts & Estates                                            105.7%     8         Search Engines                                              100.9%     9         Recycling Facilities                                           80.9%     10       Land Development                                           72.7%  Worst Performing Industries In The Coming Decade (2010-2019)  Rank   Worst Performing                                                             Growth     1         Wired Telecommunications Carriers                                    -52.0%     2         Tank & Armored Vehicle Manufacturing                               -51.9%     3         Vacuum, Fan & Small Household Appliance Manufacturing    -34.4%     4         DVD, Game & Video Rental                                                -32.8%     5         Photofinishing                                                                   -31.5%     6         Lighting & Bulb Manufacturing                                           -26.8%     7         Telecommunications Resellers                                            -26.4%     8         Laminated Plastics Manufacturing                                      -25.3%     9         Synthetic Fiber Manufacturing                                            -24.6%     10       Wire & Spring Manufacturing                                              -24.5% 

Whole Foods founder John Mackey has joked it may be 31 years before he publicly preaches more vegetables and less government-sponsored health care again, but he isn’t wasting time sticking to his vow for less dough for the CEO. Though his compensation rose in 2009, the man who put organic on the mainstream map held down his pay, handing over his gains to the Global Animal Partnership, an animal welfare nonprofit.

Mackey – whom Inc. named an entrepreneur of the decade – slashed his salary to $1 in 2007, when company results disappointed investors. (He wrote in a letter to employees that he had “reached a place in my life where I no longer want to work for money but simply for the joy of the work itself.”) He said he’d take no bonus or stock options, and announced proceeds from future stock options would go to charity.

For the 2009 fiscal year, Mackey’s compensation was valued at $653,671, up from $33,831 in fiscal 2008, according to Securities and Exchange Commission documents viewed by the Associated Press. He paid himself a salary of $1, and he took home no bonus, perks, or stock options.

The remaining $653,670 of his compensation was the balance of a previous incentive bonus plan that was frozen when he reduced his salary. He donated his after-tax profits of $379,636 to the animal charity.

Mackey has blogged that stratospheric CEO pay is bad for business. “Because of the yawning gap between the leaders and the led, employee morale is suffering, talented performers’ loyalty is evaporating, and strategy and execution is suffering at American companies,” he wrote.