August 2024 – CrowdStrike Outage, KnowBe4 Hires a Hacker, Leading ‘Inside Out’
Happy August, everyone!
This is truly one of my favourite times of the year. The Olympics have just wrapped up while outdoor concerts and festivals are in full swing. Summers are short here and I hope that you’re getting the most out of yours.
I trust that this once-monthly Email is continuing to bring value to you in your role as a business leader. If at any time you would like to be removed from this mailing, just reply with a ‘not for me’.
Here are some article and events that caught my eye recently. If you have anything you’d like to share – something that’s happening in your business, an event or announcement, let me know.
Thanks for continuing to make Winnipeg a vibrant, exciting place to work and to grow a business. Wishing you a successful month ahead. If you’d like to connect with me on LinkedIn, you can do so here .
One last thing – if you know a local business leader who might find value in this email, I’d appreciate if you’d forward it along. Thanks for reading.
Michael
Cybersecurity / Technology
There’s no bigger cybersecurity news this month than the largest ever global IT outage caused by a bad CrowdStrike Falcon update. The update caused Windows machines running CrowdStrike’s endpoint security solution to go into a ‘Blue Screen of Death’ (BSOD) loop. The impact was widespread and significant, taking down over 8 million PCs and grounding tens of thousands of flights. You don’t need to be an IT or cybersecurity expert to take away lessons from this outage. As more and more companies move to large SaaS platforms for productivity (M365) and security, these kinds of outages will only become more common.
Key items to consider in light of this event:
- What does your company’s security supply chain look like?
- What impacts would your company face from an incident / disruption along this supply chain?
- Does your cyber liability insurance provide any coverage for a ‘system failure event’? (Good info from AON here )
- How are software updates pushed out and tested?
- The BSOD also caused many machines with bitlocker in place to request the bitlocker key. Companies without proper key management in place effectively experienced a self-inflicted ransomware attack.
Here’s the best article I’ve found summarizing lessons from this event:
Business Resilience: Lessons from the CrowdStrike Outages
Oops! In a particularly embarrassing situation, a leading provider of cybersecurity awareness training, KnowBe4, discovered that the new, remote software developer they hired was actually a North Korean hacker. YIKES. The hacker was detected by their Security Operations Centre when they attempted to load malware on their company-provided laptop. KnowBe4 has been very transparent and forthcoming about how this happened (spoiler: AI was used here to mask their identity on four video interviews). Their full incident report provides good lessons for any company hiring remote employees.
How a North Korean Fake IT Worker Tried to Infiltrate Us
Leadership and Personal Growth
Pixar’s ‘Inside Out 2’ has been a smash hit this summer, moving into the top 10 all-time for box office revenues. The sequel sees Riley navigating 4 new emotions – Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment, and Ennui.
As leaders, we can often ignore the importance of connecting with our internal emotions and aspirations. However, new work by McInsey and Company has found that this is a key ability and may be the distinguishing skill to drive success in our teams. Their new book, ‘The Inside Out Leadership Journey’ makes the case for a human-centric approach to leadership that starts with CEOs connecting with themselves first.
The ‘Inside Out’ leadership journey: How personal growth creates the path to success
Upcoming Events
August is pretty light on ‘business’ events, but there’s still lots going on in Winnipeg. Some of my favourites this month are:
Assiniboine Park Summer Entertainment Series
Mary Poppins at Rainbow Stage August 15-September 11
Until next month!
