Here's a time-saver for IT executives swamped by last-minute budget cuts and end-of-the-year performance reviews: We've written your 2009 goals for you, with our list of nine Web sites you need to study during the next 12 months.

This list is not for geeks. It’s for IT professionals of a certain age, who don’t spend every waking hour online but need to keep up with the latest innovations on the Internet.

[ Want more career pointers? Spruce up your resume with our tips for techies. | Keep up on the latest tech news headlines at InfoWorld News, or subscribe to the Today's Headlines newsletter. ]

Master these Web sites, and you’ll prove you can innovate during the most trying economic times. And you’ll do it more efficiently than your 20-something employees, who waste too much time chasing the new, new thing on the Internet that may not survive the downturn.

1. LinkedIn
Forget Facebook. In the last six months, LinkedIn has become the de rigueur Web 2.0 site for IT professionals. LinkedIn has 30 million members, almost double what it had a year ago. And it raised more than $75 million in venture capital during 2008, so it has staying power. It has a host of new features that make it the most productive networking site on the Web. Spend some time updating your LinkedIn profile and reaching out to current and former colleagues. You can show your boss that you’re well connected, and you’ll be ready in case you’re on the next layoff list. In 2008, LinkedIn made our list of the 20 most useful social networking sites on the Web.

2. Google Apps for Business
Call it what you like – software as a service or cloud computing – but it’s the future of enterprise IT departments, and you need to get on board with it. You’ll be under more pressure than ever in 2009 to find cheaper ways to deliver IT services. One way to do that is to pilot a Google Apps project, such as document sharing via GoogleDocs or video sharing via Google Video. Your staff can build one of these collaboration projects in a jiffy, and the information will be available to employees from any location on any computer. Among Google Apps proponents: The District of Columbia government. 

3. VMware Communities
Chances are you’ve already embarked on a server virtualization project, and continued consolidation of your servers is a key money-saving goal for 2009. Most of you are using VMware for your server virtualization projects, and our product reviewers recommend you stick with VMware over Microsoft’s Hyper-V for the foreseeable future. To get the best real-world feedback on how best to deploy VMware, keep your eyes on the VMware Communities Web site. It’s got user groups in your community and lots of tips from other VMware developers that can help you solve problems faster.

4. Secunia
Security will continue to be a top priority for 2009, but you’ll need to figure out how to do it on the cheap. That’s where Secunia.com comes in. This site aggregates security vulnerability information from leading vendors, providing you with one-stop shopping for the latest news about security bugs and the software patches available to fix them. The site has an active community of IT security folks who can help you fix operating systems and applications before you get attacked. Secunia made our list of 20 useful IT security Web sites in 2008.

5. Green Grid
With the economy in shambles and energy prices plummeting, you’re likely to hear a lot less about global climate change and carbon neutral business operations than you did six months ago. Nonetheless, green IT can still be a huge advantage for IT departments because it will save you money. Plain and simple: Green IT saves greenbacks. So get to know the Green Grid’s Web site and make sure that whatever you buy in 2009 for your datacenters is in line with their advice and metrics. Here’s more information about the Green Grid along with three other organizations that offer advice about lowering datacenter power consumption.

6. Twitter
At first glance, Twitter seems like a colossal waste of time. But the fact is this real-time messaging service is taking off in IT circles. And if you don’t jump on the bandwagon soon, you might be too late. Twitter provides an easy way to keep your staff and coworkers informed about where you are and what you’re doing. You can also sign up for the latest technology headlines from Wired, Slashdot, and others. It doesn’t take long to sign up for Twitter – give it a whirl so that you’ll know what your Generation Y employees are talking about. See 20 must-follow Twitter feeds here.

7. Yammer
If Twitter seems too frivolous to you, try Yammer. It’s essentially Twitter for the office. The benefit of Yammer is that it’s a private communications channel for coworkers to share quick messages about what they’re working on, get questions answered, or blast out news. Xerox and Cisco are among the 200-plus companies enjoying improved collaboration thanks to Yammer. One benefit of Yammer over Twitter: It seems to have a sustainable business model. 

8. Ruby on Rails
Ruby on Rails is one of the best open source tools to appear in recent years. This Web development framework lets you create working applications in a matter of hours. Advocates of this development platform include the New York Times, Yellowpages.com, Twitter, and Hulu. See 15 amazing Web applications built with Ruby on Rails here. Version 2.2 of Ruby on Rails came out in November, so you don’t have to worry about being on the bleeding edge.

9. Enterprise Mobility Matters
Like it or not, the latest smartphones – the BlackBerry Storms and Apple 3G iPhones (slideshow: Smartphone showdown: iPhone vs. BlackBerry Storm ) – are headed toward your corporate network. So you better get ready to protect sensitive corporate information from the risks that these consumer devices open up. If you don’t want to encrypt them, make sure you have centralized control over them so that you can wipe data from lost or stolen cell phones. We like the Enterprise Mobility Matters Web site from market research firm Strategy Analytics because it offers a comprehensive look at enterprise mobility issues.

Network World is an InfoWorld affiliate.

The security industry is fueled largely by FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt.) So it's not unusual for most forecasts in the industry to be full of grim prognostications of imminent chaos and calamities.

By that measure, the predictions contained in several recent security forecasts for 2009 will probably be somewhat of a relief for security managers.

[ Learn how to secure your systems with Roger Grimes' Security Adviser blog and newsletter, both from InfoWorld. ]

Most of the security vendors' forecasts predict dramatic spikes in volumes of spam, phishing, botnet activity, and malware targeted at companies. The reports also highlight sharp increases in attacks directed against Web and mobile applications. But the concerns largely deal with issues that security managers are already familiar with, and there are few, if any, really nasty new threats in store around the corner, according to the forecasts.

Like with years past, forecasts are colored by the vendor's specific view of their places in the market. For example, VeriSign, a provider of Internet infrastructure services, predicted increased attacks against critical targets including SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition ) systems, which deliver power. Desktop security software vendor Sophos, meanwhile, warned about dramatic increases in malicious e-mail attachments, and huge spikes in spam volume. And Web application security product vendors predicted an increase in Web attacks.

Together the forecasts paint a picture of a threat environment, while not pretty, looks largely like the one this year — except that it will have more of everything. Among the forecasts were the following:

– In 2009, more than 80 percent of all malicious content will be hosted on sites with "good" reputations, according to Web app security vendor Websense. Continuing a new trend, attackers will also move to a distributed model for controlling botnets and for hosting malicious code. Such "fast flux" networks allow malicious Web sites to be moved around quickly to make it harder, if not impossible, to locate and shut them down.

– Phishing attacks against users of social networking sites will become more sophisticated, predicted MessageLabs, which is owned by Symantec. The goal of phishing attacks is to collect as much personal information as possible to allow the sending of highly targeted and sophisticated spam messages. Expect also to see an increase in attacks targeting smartphones, MessageLabs said. Attacks, delivered via free application downloads and games, surfaced this year and will become more malicious.

– Next year, expect a sharp increase in SQL injection attacks on Web sites and an increase in scareware products, which are designed to scare people into buying largely useless products, says Sophos. Expect also to see a continuation in the increase of malicious e-mail attachments and spam both of which saw huge spikes in volume this year, Sophos said.

– Online criminals looking to improve their odds of success will increasingly start using blended approaches that combine e-mail, Web-based attacks and system intrusions, says Cisco Systems. Botnets will become more versatile and criminals will use them to send spam, host malware or use them in direct attacks against specific targets. With an increase in remote workers and the related use of Web-based tools, mobile devices and virtualization technologies are also bound to cause more security worries for corporations, Cisco noted.

– Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks will continue to grow in magnitude, said Arbor Networks. The largest bandwidth flood attacks this year generated peaks of about 40 gigabits of traffic. Next year, expect to see that number approach 100 gigabits, making it much harder for ISPs to rapidly mitigate such attacks, Arbor said.

– There will be an increase in attacks on SCADA systems, which control critical infrastructures such as electrical power transmission, VeriSign predicted. The global financial crisis and resulting institutional mergers, consolidations and collapses will provide "unprecedented opportunities" for cybercrooks to seek to exploit in 2009, the company warned.

– Among the newer threats in the collection of predictions for next year are those targeted against so-called rich Internet application and cloud computing environment according to Websense. As the popularity of RIA grows, there will be a growth in attacks that take advantage of vulnerabilities found with core RIA components and within user-created components to take remote control of end-user systems. Similarly, cloud computing environments will be increasingly used for sending spam or hosting malicious code, Websense noted.

Meanwhile IT managers themselves appeared to have a slightly different take on what the future holds on the security front.

A poll of 825 IT managers conducted by the Ponemon Institute think-tank, conducted on behalf of patch management vendor Lumension Security, showed about half saying that outsourcing was their biggest security concern.

Much of the concern appeared to be driven by the anticipation that companies will be increasing outsourcing of functions involving sensitive and confidential data to third parties, according to the study. Other threats mentioned by the group involved the threat from cybercriminals and security issues stemming from the growing use of mobile devices to store and access sensitive data.

Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.

The security industry is fueled largely by FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt.) So it's not unusual for most forecasts in the industry to be full of grim prognostications of imminent chaos and calamities.

By that measure, the predictions contained in several recent security forecasts for 2009 will probably be somewhat of a relief for security managers.

[ Learn how to secure your systems with Roger Grimes' Security Adviser blog and newsletter, both from InfoWorld. ]

Most of the security vendors' forecasts predict dramatic spikes in volumes of spam, phishing, botnet activity, and malware targeted at companies. The reports also highlight sharp increases in attacks directed against Web and mobile applications. But the concerns largely deal with issues that security managers are already familiar with, and there are few, if any, really nasty new threats in store around the corner, according to the forecasts.

Like with years past, forecasts are colored by the vendor's specific view of their places in the market. For example, VeriSign, a provider of Internet infrastructure services, predicted increased attacks against critical targets including SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition ) systems, which deliver power. Desktop security software vendor Sophos, meanwhile, warned about dramatic increases in malicious e-mail attachments, and huge spikes in spam volume. And Web application security product vendors predicted an increase in Web attacks.

Together the forecasts paint a picture of a threat environment, while not pretty, looks largely like the one this year — except that it will have more of everything. Among the forecasts were the following:

– In 2009, more than 80 percent of all malicious content will be hosted on sites with "good" reputations, according to Web app security vendor Websense. Continuing a new trend, attackers will also move to a distributed model for controlling botnets and for hosting malicious code. Such "fast flux" networks allow malicious Web sites to be moved around quickly to make it harder, if not impossible, to locate and shut them down.

– Phishing attacks against users of social networking sites will become more sophisticated, predicted MessageLabs, which is owned by Symantec. The goal of phishing attacks is to collect as much personal information as possible to allow the sending of highly targeted and sophisticated spam messages. Expect also to see an increase in attacks targeting smartphones, MessageLabs said. Attacks, delivered via free application downloads and games, surfaced this year and will become more malicious.

– Next year, expect a sharp increase in SQL injection attacks on Web sites and an increase in scareware products, which are designed to scare people into buying largely useless products, says Sophos. Expect also to see a continuation in the increase of malicious e-mail attachments and spam both of which saw huge spikes in volume this year, Sophos said.

– Online criminals looking to improve their odds of success will increasingly start using blended approaches that combine e-mail, Web-based attacks and system intrusions, says Cisco Systems. Botnets will become more versatile and criminals will use them to send spam, host malware or use them in direct attacks against specific targets. With an increase in remote workers and the related use of Web-based tools, mobile devices and virtualization technologies are also bound to cause more security worries for corporations, Cisco noted.

– Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks will continue to grow in magnitude, said Arbor Networks. The largest bandwidth flood attacks this year generated peaks of about 40 gigabits of traffic. Next year, expect to see that number approach 100 gigabits, making it much harder for ISPs to rapidly mitigate such attacks, Arbor said.

– There will be an increase in attacks on SCADA systems, which control critical infrastructures such as electrical power transmission, VeriSign predicted. The global financial crisis and resulting institutional mergers, consolidations and collapses will provide "unprecedented opportunities" for cybercrooks to seek to exploit in 2009, the company warned.

– Among the newer threats in the collection of predictions for next year are those targeted against so-called rich Internet application and cloud computing environment according to Websense. As the popularity of RIA grows, there will be a growth in attacks that take advantage of vulnerabilities found with core RIA components and within user-created components to take remote control of end-user systems. Similarly, cloud computing environments will be increasingly used for sending spam or hosting malicious code, Websense noted.

Meanwhile IT managers themselves appeared to have a slightly different take on what the future holds on the security front.

A poll of 825 IT managers conducted by the Ponemon Institute think-tank, conducted on behalf of patch management vendor Lumension Security, showed about half saying that outsourcing was their biggest security concern.

Much of the concern appeared to be driven by the anticipation that companies will be increasing outsourcing of functions involving sensitive and confidential data to third parties, according to the study. Other threats mentioned by the group involved the threat from cybercriminals and security issues stemming from the growing use of mobile devices to store and access sensitive data.

Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.