I ran into a friend yesterday who works for a small company here in town. They’re doing well, and are awaiting a capital infusion (in the vicinity of $100M) from the PE or VC world (they weren’t sure which). And, it turns out that they were recently hacked with a TON of personal data exposed across hundreds of their clients. As the story was related to me, leadership of the company knowingly avoided taking all the proper cybersecurity measures in advance of the breach, and since the breach has been detected, they’ve not contacted attorney, insurance carrier, incident response team, or anybody else. Talk about checking all the boxes for not doing things the right way…
I explained to my friend that Ohio offers ‘affirmative defense’ when it comes to cyber crimes and lawsuits. If an entity can prove that they took every reasonable measure to protect their network and data, then they will not be held liable for a breach. In this case, it seems pretty clear to me that said organization failed to do so, and worse, they’ve seemingly done nothing to mitigate the issue. If the lawsuits don’t put them out of business, maybe the sudden 180 from their (former) investors will. Regardless, this is another good reminder of the importance of properly securing your data/networks, and also making sure that your vendors and partners are doing the same. Once you’ve asked the right questions to confirm your security, scroll down to read about Jaws, juice jacking, password changes, and more. Enjoy!
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Urgent Password Alert
According to Forbes magazine, 16 billion passwords have just been leaked for platforms like Google, Apple, Facebook, and more. That’s two passwords for every person on the planet, if every person on the planet were using online solutions. So, it’s safe to assume that you have a password (or many of them) which are part of this leak. Change your passwords, don’t use the same password for multiple accounts, and don’t click on anything, even if it seems completely legit. It’s incidents like this that hackers live for.
Legos
Even before Covid, companies big and small spent money to improve employee well-being… Onsite fitness centers, catered meals, and plenty more. When Covid hit and attitudes changed, a lot of companies upped the ante, especially for work at home people- Peloton bikes and memberships, iPads, and more. Even here at Ashton, we’re provided two sessions a week with a personal trainer, in addition to other perks. But I haven’t seen a program like the one offered by Consulting firm Deloitte. They offer employees $1,000 annual allowances to be used for things like gym memberships, which isn’t all that different from its peers…. but now, Legos are also available on that $1,000 credit. Maybe I should see if we could work out a similar deal so I could build another Land Rover like the one above.
Interview Questions
Travis has had some real doozies in the door for job interviews recently. Like the one guy who was 10 minutes late, couldn’t figure out why that was an issue, and then said to Travis “well, if you’re worried about me being late, that’s on you, not me.” Suffice it to say that was the shortest interview in Ashton’s history.
A second candidate was offended that we asked about his prior experience in our industry (which he had) and then couldn’t understand why we’d ask how he was different from the rest of the candidates.
And finally, there was the guy who was presented a job offer on Thursday and told it needed to be returned by 5P on Friday. The following week he got back to Travis and asked for the document link again as it had expired three days earlier. Sorry pal- time’s up. If you can’t get your own job offer back to us, how will you work with a client in need???
Anyhow, found this piece about four questions to ask during the interview process…
Juice Jacking
Pretty sure I’ve posted about juice jacking in the past, but TSA just released a new statement reminding people not to use USB ports at airports.
Hockey Fights
Hockey season is over and my team lost in the finals for the second year in a row. I’m getting sick of warm weather teams winning the Cup, and it needs to go back to Canada at some point, whether it’s Edmonton, Toronto, or elsewhere. And since we’re on the topic of hockey, I came across the new “sport” of hockey fighting (without the hockey). It’ll be interesting to see if this one goes anywhere, and personally, I’d rather see it on real ice than the synthetic stuff.
Deleting Data
I saw this one about deleting data from your personal computers earlier this week. I thought I’d include it, but then had plenty of other good topics. Then, just as I was about to hit send, I saw in my inbox that my buddy Kurt from Business Network Team suggested I share this. The funny thing is, while it’s worthwhile info, I was going to include it more for the story.
Back when I was coaching hockey, we had a dad on the team who may or may not have been involved in some shady dealings (I never confirmed anything, but he always reminded me of Good Fellas). Nancy kept reminding me to not get too friendly with him, as she was sure the feds were going to break down his door one day. Anyhow, we were in Ann Arbor for a hockey tournament and he asked me about destroying a hard drive. I suggested erasing all the data, but he took the idea literally and explained that he’d taken it into his yard, took a sledge hammer too it, followed by an axe, and then a blow torch. I guess he wanted to make sure…That was back in 2009, and I haven’t seen him since that season ended. Wonder what he’s up to.
Jaws
One of my all-time favorite movies turns 50 this year, and I’ve already seen numerous pieces about Jaws and how it changed the movie industry. NBC is airing the movie tonight, and the WSJ had an interesting piece about Jaws earlier this week.
Cleveland
This is usually the section where I compile all the random things that Nancy has sent me throughout the course of the week. In this case, however, I got one item from her (the fact that it will be 56 years on Sunday since the most famous instance of the Cuyahoga River catching fire), one from Travis (who knew that yesterday was National Martini Day? I’d think that would always fall on a Friday, but I did celebrate after Travis mentioned it to me), and one I turned up mentioning that it was nine years ago yesterday that the Cavs won the NBA championship. I’d take a World Series or Super Bowl (Stanley Cup, too) over an NBA championship any day of the week, but I have to admit it sure was exciting to finally have a championship team here in town.
That’s all for today. Tonight we’re headed to the annual Summer Solstice event benefiting Hopewell. They’ve been an Ashton client for many years and do some pretty cool things for their residents. It’s always a great event for a great cause, and Nancy is the auction chair this year, so hopefully lots of money will be raised. Otherwise, I’m set for golf on Sunday morning… hopefully before we’re in the 90s and sweating our way through the course. Hoping you have a good weekend and that you find a little air conditioning… if it’s not a downpour, it’s a sweatbox!
Abbey