OK fine, my near-weekly encouragement to see your employees as human beings first, and look out for them as human beings haven’t convinced you that burnout is a problem for your business. How about the fact that tired, burned-out employees eventually just check out and create a security nightmare?
I’m making an example of the Times because they like to consider themselves America’s “Paper of Record”, and even they are now using fear and outrage to gain attention, no better than a Twitter or Facebook troll, but it’s happening everywhere. It’s also no surprise that it’s becoming popular among all media outlets because it works. If we’ve learned anything from fake news sites, biased cable channels, YouTube “experts” and social media influencers it’s that you will never lose an audience by making people afraid. You will get their attention, you will stimulate a fear-based response that causes their brain to kick into survival mode and become hyperalert to dangers, which you are happy to continue to feed them.
I know I’ve read elsewhere over the years that this was actually popular with teens, to have a “public” Instagram and then one just for friends. Even an old out-of-touch guy like me has had two Instagram accounts for years. One to just be me and have fun with, and one to focus on mental health stuff.
It seems to me like Instagram is just catching up with what we’ve been doing, and trying to juice up some numbers among the folks who hadn’t already considered doing this, right?
It makes sense, for the reasons Jim points out. Your ability to collect ransom payments is diminished if the organization has backups they can simply rebuild with. So, if you can find a way to lock not just the live data, but also the backups, you stand to make more money.
What I wonder is if this will cause organizations to look at that old-school offline backup option? Keep a copy of your data physically away from your network, locked in a drawer or closet, etc.
But, is that even feasible any longer?
There is an obvious question here, right?
Why do you still have this database sitting around?
Seriously, why? Either you’re telling the truth and you have a vulnerable system sitting out there that you’ve never even used, or you have been using it and you’re lying to save face now that data has been breached. Neither one makes you look particularly good, does it?
You know, when I hear companies tout the performance level of their employees, I do have to wonder what sort of expectations they are setting. There isn’t a company out there, including the one I work for, that doesn’t brag about having A+ performers. So what happens when someone makes a mistake or has a C day?