Speakers
Synopsis
In 2020 ISS World services was the target of a ransomware incident, that impacted the global business and operations. Working across 30 countries with a business of 400,000 employees, it brought the business to a crawl, as we investigated and recovered from the incident.
When this happened, I was front and centre of the incident investigation and recovery, helping to coordinate and direct the different activities and initiatives.
Following the incident, I realised I had relied on my time as a volunteer fire fighter, to remain calm in the situation, and to help work through a crisis on a global scale.
Since then, I have given talks and presentations in Europe, about what I have learned and experienced during my life in Information Security. There will be specifics of the incident I wont be able to go into detail on, but I go into the details of crisis management and how we can weather the storm.
The incident in 2020, should be a once in a lifetime experience, and I will use this experience to help highlight and talk about the importance of crisis management, and how we can prepare ourselves for these once in a life time events. To help us, our people and the business, come through and hopefully survive the worst possible situation in Information Security.
Making connections between my days as a volunteer fire fighter, to how our incident responders should work and operate, so they are prepared and ready for the worst.
For me one of the most important aspects of crisis management is our people, without people, we have no response. It is only through giving people the right tools, training and skills, that we allow them to properly combat what ever comes at them during a crisis. When we are faced with the overwhelming, and catastrophic, if our teams are ill prepare, ill equipped and not supported, they are doomed to fail. Which can result in businesses going under.
You would never send a fire fighter in to fight a fire, without the right equipment and training. For a fire fighter, it is life and death.
Hopefully none of us will ever have to go through something like ISS did in 2020, but with the increasing threat landscape of Information Security; can we really afford to take that gamble.
