EMA Blog: Business Intelligence and IT Management

To celebrate Star Wars Day, I thought I would share a few ways in which the Empire did not adhere to information security best practices, and that enabled the Rebels to win.

To be clear: I do not support the Empire, the Sith Lords, or any other types of scum and villainy. Nor am I trying to portray the Rebel Alliance as a weird, Force-wielding, Galactic hacker consortium or something. But had the Empire not been so lax in their security controls, Emperor Palpatine and his buddies might have been able to bring their “order and peace” to the galaxy.

On Friday, the FBI released an alert warning of increased scams related to the Coronavirus outbreak. From the FBI announcement:

Few people like the process of completing their taxes every year. But no one wants to be scammed out of the monies owed to them by the government. Be especially careful about those that contact you regarding your taxes, and confirm the sources of those emails and calls whenever possible.

I see a significant gap in not only how the need for Security Awareness training is perceived as needed but also in the general quality of the programs and training delivered vs other types of training.  In many cases small companies avoid security awareness training due to ignorance, cost fears, or fears it will stifle their culture of creativity.  This research project is structured to give CIO’s, CISO’s, and other security and IT managers the data to motivate them to provide in security awareness training programs thereby bringing about change in their organizations.