Our Blogs – For CIOs by CIOs

By Scott S. Smith
Security Practice Lead

The recent data breach at Equifax is just one of the latest in a long string of high-profile cybersecurity failures. In this particular case, the Social Security numbers and other sensitive information of up to 143 million Americans were exposed. In another case, the NotPetya attack very quickly spread to, then severely hobbled operations in, corporations around the world, including the giant shipping company Maersk.

These and other recent cybersecurity failures in the news have resulted in intellectual property loss, disclosure of embarrassing communications, loss of business, massive public relations nightmares, and more. And that’s just for the high-profile cases!

By Stephen McGrady
Principal

If Hurricane Harvey and the magnitude 8.1 earthquake off the coast of Mexico didn’t get you thinking about whether your business is prepared to withstand a major disaster, chances are Hurricane Irma or Maria did.

Like most professionals who work in the Business Continuity Planning (BCP) field, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the implications of having three major natural disasters strike in North America within a 1-1/2 week span. It’s become clear to me that even if you have what you thought was a solid plan in place to keep your business operating after a disaster, your plan might not be good enough. After all, most organizations put plans in place that address how they’ll recover from one disaster. Very few ever consider the possibility that the situation may be even worse than that.

By Stephen McGrady
Principal

Those responsible for Business Continuity Planning (BCP)—i.e. having plans in place to keep a business running after disaster strikes—understand that the world really can be a dangerous place. Although hacking, malware and ransomware aren’t really “new” threats per se, they have certainly grown in frequency and impact.

As some recent high-profile situations have shown, terrible things can and do happen to organizations everywhere. Case in point: Disney was recently hit with a ransom demand by hackers who claimed to have stolen the latest “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie. A few weeks before that, hackers stole the latest season of “Orange is the New Black” from Netflix, and leaked episodes when the firm refused to meet their ransom demands. And then there’s the widely-publicized “WannaCry” ransomware attack, which affected over 200,000 computers in 150 countries in May.

By Stephen McGrady
Principal

As I discussed in my article on the difference between Business Continuity Planning (BCP) and Disaster Recovery (DR) planning, Business Continuity Planning is about the operations side of disaster preparedness. How will you keep the business running after disaster strikes?

When helping organizations address their Business Continuity Planning needs, CIO Professional Services uses a four-step approach: conduct a Business Impact Assessment, get Governance mechanisms defined and approved, prepare the team to handle Crisis Management, and create the Emergency Operating Plans (EOPs) for highly-impacted departments. Here’s an overview of how this works…

By Stephen McGrady
Principal

There’s nothing like the unthinkable happening to make businesses realize that the unthinkable really can and does happen. This was the case with the 9/11 attacks, which not only collapsed two towers, but also left a significant part of lower Manhattan closed for business for quite some time. By 9/12 the necessity of preparing for disasters was at the forefront of every executive’s mind.

That said, disaster preparation is a multi-faceted endeavor. The two biggest aspects are known as Disaster Recovery (DR) planning and Business Continuity Planning (BCP). The following is a high-level introduction to both…

By Scott Smith
Security Practice Lead

Whether talking to people at large companies or small companies, when we bring up the topic of Identity and Access Management (IAM) we often hear a lot of the same comments…

• “I am concerned that we have employees who have been here 10 years, and have access to everything, but I don’t know how to control that risk.”

• “Of course we have password policies…but I’m not sure they’re being enforced.”

• “I recently discovered an account for someone who left the company 14 months ago.”

• “Half the people in our IT department have global permissions—they can access anything.”

By Scott Smith
Security Practice Lead

Four years ago Target suffered a data breach that caught the attention of consumers and executives everywhere. By starting with a stolen dormant login from an HVAC contractor who was no longer working with Target, attackers were able to gain root access directly into Target’s data center. Once in, they found a web application vulnerability and managed to use this to steal the PII (personally identifiable information) for over 70,000 people, and seize the data for over 40 million credit and debit cards from a Point of Sale system that was not directly connected to the internet.

By Jeff Richards
Managing Partner

Your company is growing. You know your organization needs to move fast, but in focusing on the business you may have underinvested in IT. Now IT has become such a constraint that you’re not sure your systems can keep up with the growth. On top of that, you’re concerned that IT and the lines of business may not even be on the same page.

Or perhaps the CIO thinks that IT is doing fine, but the rest of the management team doesn’t understand what they’re getting for their IT investment. There’s even a concern that IT is too expensive. To make matters worse, you’re in a situation where the CEO can’t “speak IT,” and the CIO can’t “speak business”...and a complete disconnect has ensued.

To get on track you need to quickly get your bearings and determine if you’re doing the right things, in the right order, and doing them well. An excellent way to do so is through an IT Effectiveness Assessment.

By Jeff Richards
Managing Partner

Considering hiring one of the big systems integrators (SIs) to help you with a large-scale project? This could be an excellent move. After all, the big systems integrators are known for their expertise in identifying, designing and deploying complex IT solutions for the enterprise.

Unfortunately, hiring a big systems integrator usually means big teams and big bills. It can also be a financial train wreck, as many of these organizations are renowned for bidding one thing and then by accident or design presenting change orders and scope creep that leads to much higher costs and longer schedules.

By Jeff Richards
Managing Partner

There comes a point in many company’s growth when it becomes obvious that the investments made in IT haven’t kept pace with the business and this shortfall has now become a constraint. Your technology capabilities just aren’t good enough, but for reasons of either capacity or skill sets, your current in-house IT team is not able to rectify the situation. You realize that your organization could really benefit from the expertise of an experienced CIO (Chief Information Officer) to chart the way forward—but you either do not need or cannot afford to bring someone in on a full-time basis. This is where the fractional CIO comes in.