24 The Community Banker mibonline.org Know Thy Enemy By First Call Computer Solutions GUEST ARTICLE When I started my IT career over 20 years ago, the threat landscape wasn't quite threatening. The world experienced a handful of viruses a year. They had pleasant names like "I LOVE YOU," "HAPPY 99," and even "ANNA KOURNIKOVA." They were inviting. Don't get me wrong. These attacks weren't benign; they did damage. Some even drove up costs estimated into the billions of dollars in lost time and productivity worldwide. Back then, it seemed so distant. We knew what to do, had time to do it, and could get it done for those of us managing the risk – some antivirus here, some patches there, a firewall, a file backup system. Today, when I am engaging leaders of organizations, both technical and non, I get the sense that they haven't fully grasped the enemy's current state. Who are these people? How do they work? Why would they attack us? How would they attack us? What do they do? Why do they do it? I don't think these questions, or their answers, were all that important 20 years ago. Today I think they are critical, and not just for us in banking. These critical questions are being overlooked in large part because we, like bankers, are focused on our controls, our cyber security framework, alignment, and readiness.
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