Even though fantasy fiction is based on story lines that cannot happen in real life, they can be useful allegories to explain things that are happening in the real world. The zombie apocalypse is one such useful story line as we try to understand the threat of cyber security to today’s businesses and their associated stakeholders.

The Zombie Apocalypse Plotline as an Allegory for the Cybersecurity Threat to your Business

The zombie apocalypse plotline begins with the world falling apart. The survivors are left at a profound disadvantage in the face of the zombie horde. In response they seek a safe place to shelter. In many cases, this pursuit becomes a driver of their journey. This is so common a plot line that it has a genre based name: the Safe Zone Hope Spot. Whether the journey is long or short, the whole movie or just one episode, the outcome is always the same: when they reach the safe place: it wasn’t safe. They find the shelter is overrun, abandoned, and derelict. The zombies always get in!

In Cybersecurity, the Zombies always get in.

The Safe Zone Hope Spot of cybersecurity is the barricade: protection. This hope drives a desire for one tool to solve it all, one lock that will bar the doors. It causes an overemphasis on protection, often to the exclusion of preparation for what to do when the zombies break through or sneak past the barricade.

Common Ways the Zombies of the Cybersecurity Apocalypse Get In

Through the front door using a brute force attack to hammer a known user’s login ID with exponential password guesses until they get it right. The thing is, unlike Leonardo Di Capria fumbling with a key chain in freezing water on the Titanic, today’s threat actors can try all these keys in the lock in a microsecond. Boom, the zombies are in.

The zombies often have helpers inside your system. We call those helpers gremlins. These little mischievous creatures hatch every time something technical gets missed. A security update on a device that wasn’t done. An obsolete piece of kit that represents a rusted-out gate in your perimeter fence. The undeleted, unsecured former user e-mail address that was forgotten. Legacy system protocols from old versions of operating systems that every threat actor on the planet has a skeleton key through which to enter. These maintenance issues represent the unsecured doors and forgotten passages in and around your barricade that let zombies creep through the ceiling and surprise the defenders. Hunting down all these gremlins is hard work.

The characters in the story act really dumb to the audience. They enter dark rooms by visiting websites they shouldn’t. They click on e-mails they shouldn’t. They leave doors open while at Starbucks by signing into public Wi-Fi’s. They leave their keys all over the Internet by reusing passwords at work and home. The zombies always get in, we all need a plan.

Barricades are Important, but They are Not Enough:

Since the zombies always get in, you need a plan to survive when they do. That has three parts:

1. Find the gremlins in your systems with good design and proactive maintenance. Remember, gremlins hatch in issues you miss.
2. Don’t let your sentries get caught napping. Use up to date tools like artificial intelligence to keep the lights on and look in the shadows. Remember, while your first line of defense is to keep the zombies out, the second line is to detect them when they get in.
3. Prepare to survive the fight. While it may be true that no plan survives contact with the enemy, not having a plan means you give the enemy the initiative. You need the ability to shutdown abnormal behavior when detected in your systems, and you need the equivalent of an IT Go Bag to bug out and restore normal operations. These are called Incident Response Plans (IRP).

We Cannot Make You Safe, We Can Only Make You Safer

In the zombie plotline the lead characters are saving their families, in the cybersecurity zombie apocalypse you are saving your business, shareholders, employees, and customers. As an allegory, the stakes are equally high, this is an existential threat for which we must all get ready, because the zombies always get in and we need more than the disappointment of the Safe Zone Hope Spot strategy. We hear of cyber tragedies every day, companies where the Safe Zone Hope Spot didn’t save them.

Being safer is about getting ready. We can help.

Digital Leader: The Champion for Change Management

Next Dimension curates the most practical and useful Digital Leadership tools and strategic IT insights from the web.  This article focuses on Digital Leadership and Change Management.

Continually adapting to shifting priorities is a real threat to the mental well-being of employees. It’s called change fatigue.

Change Fatigue is the back-breaker for employee motivation and drive to a successful digital transformation.  By now you know full well, Digital Transformation starts with PEOPLE, not the technology.  The people need to be the ones who drive the change, who value the change, and who see the most impactful benefits of your transformation.

Enterprise Project offers these three tips to keep your people engaged and motivated in your transformation:

1. Speak openly about the change

2. Align your organization to the right priorities through goal setting

3. Check in with your team

The bottom line?  Communication is Key.  Change fatigue may be unavoidable, so it’s best to be transparent and open about the goals and the progress of your organizations transformation initiatives.

SOURCE: ENTERPRISERS PROJECT

Digital Leadership means embracing technology changes; and digital transformation projects have proven acceptance of change is an ongoing effort.

Digital modernization and transformations have been taking place for the better part of the last ten years.  CMSWire recounts these valuable lessons we’ve learned in the last decade:

1. Desktop automation does not equate to digital transformation

2. AI has created new possibilities for process discovery and data mining

3. Business users play a significant role in digital transformation

4. Data analysis is key to extracting true value from digital transformation

Of all the tips and tricks for successful digital transformation, the most critical, in our opinion, has to be #3.  Users most definitely play a role in the degree of success of your digital transformation!

SOURCE: CMS WIRE

Do you prioritize Change Management during your digital shift?

Digital Commerce 360 claims to have found more than 4,000 book titles on Change Management in Manufacturing.  Change management is a daunting task; you have to manage good change AND bad change.  Each of these are amplified in fine tuned manufacturing organizations.  What makes the task so daunting?  In this sector, it has taken years of small iterative changes to get the organization as efficient as it is today.  One small change can have a major and long lasting impact, which is a major fear for these business leaders.  So why change?  Because doing nothing at all is also a choice.  Industry is evolving at a faster pace than ever.  Customers, suppliers, and employee demands are evolving, and so too must the organization.

The only way to surely fail is to take the ‘Do Nothing’ approach.

Don’t let fear get in the way of your transformation – reduce fear with a strong change management policy.

SOURCE: DIGITAL COMMERCE 360

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Curated Digital Leadership Lists

Next Dimension curates the most practical and useful tools and strategic IT insights from the web.  This week we shared articles across our social media talking about Digital Leadership Lists.

With 2020 in the rearview, here’s 7 key factors to reassess for your digital transformation plans in 2021:

The Enterpriser’s Project was more than likely right when they suggested that “during the pandemic (businesses) may have taken some shortcuts (to transformation”.  How could you not?  It was a state of Transform or Die.  Now, however, it’s time to revisit those shortcuts and ensure the new ways of conducting business are reliable, secure, and scalable.

They list these as the seven key tools to realign your digital transformation strategy:

1. Business Goal Alignment
2. Cultural Readiness for Transformation
3. Employee Experience
4. Your Digital Strategy Story
5. Use Case Approaches
6. Consolidation Prospects
7. User Training

Which of these elements require your immediate attention? Contact Us to help you realign.

SOURCE: ENTERPRISERS PROJECT

Which of these four issues should be the top priority for your Digital Leader?

The many roles in the C-Suite are evolving, and silos will continue to disappear.  CEOs, CFOs, and COOs must adapt to new technologies and encourage a new corporate culture.  Each must consider their department’s impact on not only the customer, but also the supply chain, competitors, and their own workforce.  CIOs, CTOs, CDOs are becoming interchangeable; none of which can make technology decisions without first understand the needs and potential implications across the entire organization.  Every leader should focus on these four factors:

1. Becoming more collaborative digital leaders
2. Designing a digital culture
3. Prioritizing data ethics and data security
4. Re-examining the role of social media

A focused, team-oriented approach from leadership will set the tone for the rest of the organization.

SOURCE: ENTERPRISERS PROJECT

Poor cyber hygiene not only leaves businesses exposed, it also puts cyber insurance claims at risk. 

Cyber attacks on the supply chain are on the rise.  Your organization is at risk just by being a part of someone else’s supply chain.  This means your reputation is also tied to this chain, and is also at risk!  What does this mean for securing future business contracts? Cybersecurity Dive says potential customers and suppliers alike will begin to implement more stringent vetting procedures to protect themselves before entering into any agreement.

Data from Bitdefender shows a 715% rise in cyber incidents during the first half of 2020, compared to just the year before.

Not only are vendors and customers vetting BEFORE they sign contracts, many are writing vetting review schedules into the contracts they’re signing.  What’s more, cyber insurers are continuing to adjust policies, limiting claims by companies that don’t create, adhere to, and adjust their own cyber hygiene guidelines.

Here is a free course to improve your organizations’ Cyber Hygiene – additional free tools available throughout the course.

SOURCE: CYBERSECURITY DIVE

Will “because we’ve always done it this way” be the death of your business?

Policies like the Stay at Home order and the need for Physical Distancing when inside has required every business to shift in some way.  As restrictions ease and shift, organizations will need to determine which new strategies will stay, and which (if any) will go back to the “old way”.  Many critical business roles have already made seismic shifts; but does that leave the business vulnerable to attacks?  Are there reliability gaps now that shortcuts have been added?

Of all the questions above, none can have the answer of “because we’ve always done it this way!”.  If that’s the culture inside your organization – beware!

SOURCE: FORBES

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Digital Leadership through Disruption

Next Dimension curates the most practical and useful tools and strategic IT insights from the web.  This week we shared articles across our social media talking about Digital Leadership.

The Pandemic Effect: which crisis response scenario best describes your organization?

ZDNet succinctly describes four crisis-response scenarios that organizations fell under when dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.  They report that the London School of Economics believes organizations, either knowingly or unknowingly, fall under one of the following categories:

Sweat the Assets

Underpin Today’s Business

Slow the Strategy

Adapt Strategy and Build Resilience

What does this have to do with IT infrastructure?  Well, those classified as “winners” noted Digital Transformation as a key contributing factor.

SOURCE: ZDNET

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW: Forbes says Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast. 

According to Forbes, an Orchestrator is highly recommended for the successful rollout of digital transformation efforts.  The orchestrator can be an outside organization, specifically contracted for deployment.  The orchestrator keeps a watchful eye on the culture, and assist in assessing the integration of new and legacy technologies.

SOURCE: FORBES

With the volatile demand cycles of 2020, how prepared are you for IT/OT convergence?

The demand for IT/OT convergence will continue to grow.  As does the need for control, legacy performance, and security.  The Manufacturer asks key questions to determine your organization’s readiness for optimal convergence.

SOURCE: THE MANUFACTURER

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