Ransomware is unique among cybercrime because in order for the attack to be successful, it requires the victim to become a willing accomplice after the fact

Ransomware is more about manipulating vulnerabilities in human psychology than the adversary's technological sophistication

We’re talking about the fate of our economy and the questionable resiliency of our Nation’s critical infrastructure. Why are experts so polite, patient, and forgiving when talking about cybersecurity and National Security? The drama of each script kiddie botnet attack and Nation State pilfering of our IP has been turned into a soap opera through press releases, sound bites and enforced absurdity of mainstream media. It’s time for a cybersecurity zeitgeist in the West where cyber hygiene is a meme that is aggressively distributed by those who have mastered it and encouraged to be imitated by those who have experienced it.

Real cybersecurity means that your Security Operations team is consistently pen testing your network with the same stealth and sophistication as the Russian nation state, the same desperation as China’s 13th Five Year Plan, the same inexhaustible energy of the Cyber Caliphate and the same greed and ambition for monetary payoff as a seasoned cyber-criminal gang.

Cyber hygiene, patching vulnerabilities, security by design, threat hunting and machine learning based artificial intelligence are mandatory prerequisites for cyber defense against the next generation threat landscape.

Hackers find more success with organizations where employees are under appreciated, over worked and under paid. Why would anyone in an organization like that care enough to think twice before clicking on a phishing email?