Hard to believe that it’s already the last day of July. As much as I love winter (especially when it’s cold and snowy), it always seems that the summer months go much more quickly. Before we know it, it’ll be Browns season and we’ll all be back to being miserable. Before we get to the fun stuff, do me a favor (if you’re read this far) and let me know you got this. The spam gods are still mad at me, and our marketing expert suggested I confirm that people are actually receiving this in their inboxes, and not their junk folders (whether you consider it ‘junk’ or not). Now, scroll on down to learn a little bit about incident response plans, AI governance, Big Boy, Jimothy, and more!
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Incident Response Plans
Seventy three percent of businesses are not properly prepared in the event they fall prey to a hacker, even though most have some sort of incident response (IR) plan in place. This isn’t about having proper security measures up front. It’s about what to do in case a hacker does get through. Do you know what to do if you get hit? Call your IT provider. Your attorney. Your PR firm (if you’re big enough). Your insurance agent. It’s a long list.
It’s amazing the number of random statistics that are out there, all of which should probably be taken with a grain of salt. On the other hand, some statistics are hard and true. Like the fact that the Minnesota Twins hit an “ultimate grand slam” yesterday, and it was only the 34th time in MLB history that it’s happened. I’m a huge baseball and baseball stats fan, but I’d never heard the term. An ultimate grand slam is a walkoff grand slam hit when the team at bat is down by three runs. And in this case, it happened with two outs (only the 24th time, ever) and with an 0-2 count on the batter (only the second time since pitch by pitch tracking started in 1986). That’s pretty cool.
Pig Butchering
Sorry, this isn’t a BBQ recipe. Instead, it’s a piece about AI agents being more productive than humans when it comes to convincing people to fall for their scams (pig butchering is a form of online scam that creates a romantic interest with an unsuspecting user, and then convinces that person to invest their hard earned money into fake crypto. One more reason to meet your next love interest in a bar, at a church event, or during a Browns game.
Water Hackers
I had a piece come through the inbox yesterday, regarding hackers who’ve been attacking water and wastewater facilities. And then I saw something about it on the news this morning. It’s probably not something that most consider when thinking about critical infrastructure, but imagine your water being shut down for a couple of days because hackers got into the system. If you want the technical details, you can read this bulletin.
For better or worse, we’re on a well at home. Hackers can do what they want and it won’t effect us. But at the same time, it used to be that when we lost power, we lost water. After a couple of days without showering (and having to run to the grocery to buy water), it was time to go buy a generator!
AI Governance
Most organizations are using AI to some extent. In some cases, people are dipping their toes in, using it on a case by case basis. Others are using it in a consistent fashion across the organization. In many instances, however, there’s no governance, whatsoever. One hand doesn’t know what the other is doing. Nobody has taken into account security or compliance concerns, nor have the considered the financial concerns of multiple people with multiple agents on multiple platforms.
That’s why every AI discussion we enter into with our clients starts with governance.
Sports
If you’ve read this newsletter in the past, you probably know that I love random sports and Tom Hamilton calling an Indians game. Perfect then to find this announcing team on a Gaelic football championship that broke a 75 year winless streak (maybe one of these days Hammy will call a World Series winner), followed by Hammy’s take on the Buck Moon (as imagined by Jakob Berger) during a lull in the game, earlier this week. Still not as great as “Down Goes Anderson“, but pretty damn good!
You might also know that I have a big baseball card collection. Unfortunately, the whole thing combined (including football, hockey, and basketball) isn’t anywhere close to $10M in value. But how ’bout one card for that price?
AI Threat Landscape
We see plenty of organizations that view IT as an expense rather than an investment. And plenty more where leadership or the board of directors figures “we’ve done it this way for all these years… why change now?”. If you’re having trouble convincing your peers or your leadership that AI cyber risks are real, this piece offers some great real world examples from attorneys (risk and compliance issues), PR execs (reputational concerns), and cyber execs. And if you’d like us to have those conversations with you or your team, let us know.
I’ll leave you this week with two submissions and a follow up on last week’s post about Jimothy the Seattle raccoon, who is now being feted at a Mariners game.
Faithful reader and Ashton client Paul suggested I “had” to include an article about the historic locomotive nicknamed “Big Boy”. Lest I lose one of my three readers, I took his suggestion, but only after I fact-checked the line about Big Boy weighing 1.2 million pounds. Turns out that’s the combined weight of the locomotive and its tender combined, but nonetheless, Wow! I’m not a railfan, but my freshman year roommate was. He could tell me what train was rolling through downtown Wooster, OH at 11:45 on a Tuesday night, based solely on the whistle.
And finally, Nancy has been slacking with her weekly nuggets, but she sent one over this week. Seeing that I’m currently reading two books about the history of NYC (one from the Revolutionary War, and one starting with the Dutch arrival in the early 1600s), it made sense to include this piece about a random (and historical) iron spike in Central Park.
Have a great weekend!
Abbey