Security: A researcher unveils at Black Hat a hole in Cisco’s PIX firewall appliances through which hackers could sneak into corporate networks. “It’s really easy to do,” the researcher explains. Test center review: Testing a pair of Blue Coat’s SG800 WAN accelerator appliances, Keith Schultz found that the 1U appliances are comparable to rivals. “Performance is right up there with the other top accelerator players, and [Blue Coat] raises the ante by adding support for SSL encrypted traffic … Even though its maximum throughput was only around 30Mbps, the SG800 does improve poorly performing links at roughly half the price of competing products,” Schultz writes. Read the full review. Best of the blogs: IT workers are seeing fatter paychecks but fewer bonuses, according to a Foote Partners study. More important, perhaps, companies are doing a better job of compensating IT pros based on specific skills, senior editor Ted Samson reports in this TechWatch post. The news beat: AOL says it will layoff as many as 5,000 employees as part of a restructuring that aims to increase revenue. The team planning a Wi-Fi network in Silicon Valley is getting closer to picking a vendor. And the DOJ tries again to block AT&T wiretapping suit. Security