Happy Veterans Day! Thank you to those who have served in our armed forces.

In fact you can thank the military for the dawn of the internet.

Amongst many other really amazing modern technological advancements, the military through DARPA helped advance many other exciting cyber security initiatives which we can be very thankful for now more than ever. The thought of doing digital forensic analysis probably would make someone born in the 1800s a little wobbly. But still it doesn’t solve all our problems as Vanderbilt let everyone know on Monday morning.

I could sit here and make a very clear point: update your passwords, and never click on a phishing link… but my hope is you understand by now how dangerous that really is.

Your Data Means Everything

The whole reason the attacker group went after the university is in their own release statement. Social Security Numbers, FERPA data, and many other nuggets of gold for a hacker to hold over peoples heads is enough to make people squeamish. The idea is understanding the weight of your data as a business or institution owner the same way you would view assets and liabilities. Would you just let someone walk into the front door of your bank and ask for all your retained earnings from last year because they have your first and last name and social security number? Then why would you let your firewall open? Why would you not pay the security team that mans the door?

I take for granted the simplicity of these realities when it’s only becoming a more complex world but you and I both have to know it’s only going to increase in proximity and intensity unless we value what we want to protect. Unless you don’t actually care about any of your data that you pay Microsoft/Google/Amazon millions of dollars for etc.

We have been given great gifts and they do cost a lot of money, but is it worth it to go out of business and not be able to pay your employees or do what you love to do? Whether that be making lots of money or providing a really good service, you can’t do it if a hacker group steals your data.

So pay your IT people. Everyone will be happy.

Until next time, change your password!