I hope you saw the men’s 1500-metre Olympic final last night.
In the run-up to the race, the media focused on whether a Norwegian athlete (Ingebrigtsen) could stay ahead of a Scottish runner (Kerr). Dressed in black and always wearing mirrored sunglasses, Kerr has looked dangerous all the way through these Games.
So, from the start, the race between the Norwegian and the Scottish athletes was everyone’s focus.
But with 100 metres to go, it became obvious that we all had a blind spot as we watched an American athlete (Hocker) take advantage of a small error by the Norwegian, and cross to the line to take the gold medal.
In the end, despite leading the race from the start, the Norwegian came fourth and missed out on a medal.
So what has this got to do with cyber security?
I’m glad you asked!
Most businesses focus their security efforts on staying ahead of the bad guy who is always on their shoulder looking for vulnerabilities in their technology.
And it is important to do this.
However, for most organisations, the bigger threat is a human being fooled by a cyber attacker.
What’s my point?
Don’t let the headlines about the latest software security vulnerabilities distract you
from the important job of building and reinforcing your human defences,
because a human being fooled is still the most likely reason
why you may finish without a medal.