Monday 4 February 2019

CEOs are the weakest link

Or they risk being the weakest link, anyway. 'Who says, boss?' The Bunker says, Voice. 'Oh, not him again.' Ha! He's all right, man.

A new report from The Bunker, the UK's most secure cloud, managed services and data centre provider, has highlighted that senior executives are still often the weakest link in the corporate cybersecurity chain and that cybercriminals target this vulnerability to commit serious data breaches.

Yes, dear reader(s), it's a PR email, from ... The Bunker. Don't judge him. We all have our peccadilloes. / Now, I suppose a lot of CEOs are arrogant and they think the normal rules of cybersecurity don't apply to them. It's the BIG I AM syndrome. 'Do you actually know any CEOs, boss? Or is this just some nonsense you're making up?' Er, I've had emails from hedge fund CEOs before. I've never actually met them, like. 'And were they arrogant?' It's hard to tell over an email. They seemed quite nice. Maybe a bit confused. 'Eh?' This was years ago. I think they're used to my writing style now. 'Ha! They don't believe everything they read these days, about the blood and fire and that.' Ha, ha! Well, they should! They should, Voice. The blood and fire are real. You go out into the astral desert one of these hellish nights with the ghosts of the dead financiers dancing all around you ... and then you come back and tell me the blood and the fire aren't real, son. You do that! 'Calm down, boss! Calm down! I know they're real.' Thank you.

Actually, I haven't written about hedge funds for a while. In the old days there were always hedge funds opening and closing. Does that still go on? 'You've taken your eye off the ball.' Don't be silly. You can't write about the same thing all the time. 'You write about Elon Musk all the time.' Ah, that's because Elon and I are cosmic soul twins ... or whatever. 'Triplets.' Pardon? 'Cosmic soul triplets, boss. Don't forget Julius Caesar.' How could I forget him? Yes, triplets. We're cosmic soul triplets. But let's move on!

Many senior executives ignore the threat from hackers and cybercriminals and often feel that security policies in their respective organizations do not apply to their unique position. However, in reality, their often privileged access to company information make their personal accounts extremely valuable to exploit and heightens the need for extra care.

Okay, okay. It sounds serious. I think we better hear from Phil. 'Phil? Phil who?' Phil Bindley. He looks after The Bunker. He manages his affairs, and makes sure that he's fed properly, and washed and dressed. All that domestic stuff, you know. 'Yes. It's important to look after The Bunker.' Well, he can't look after himself, can he? Not in his state. / Come on, Phil!

Phil Bindley, Managing Director, The Bunker said: "In tackling and mitigating the security threat, a critical issue is a failure to securely back up email data. Many businesses assume that a cloud-hosted service, such as Office 365, comes with automatic back-up and security provisions. Unfortunately, it does not. Unless stated and agreed, vendors do not guarantee complete system security or data backup as standard, so organizations need to be careful and have a full understanding of the SLAs in place. We advise people to replace the word 'cloud' with 'someone else's computer', to get a better perspective of the risks that need to be mitigated when deploying a cloud-based service".

Thanks, Phil! / I might try that trick, replacing words with other words. Like, uh ... replace "computer" with ... "the wild eyes of panthers in the skins of men". It could be a lot of fun.

...

Anything else? I'll be writing a conceptual later, No. 680, for my sins. I gotta keep getting a-ROUND, you dig?

Music? I don't do updates no more, kook(s). 'Go on, Mikey!' Well, I tried recording at the weekend. I'm making progress, man, but didn't get any versions that I like. So, uh ...

Later(s), crocodile(s)!