Sun Tzu was a Chinese military strategist and general best known as the author of the immortal work, The Art of War, which is still studied and quoted to this day. Sun Tzu was a believer in preparedness prior to battle and believed that battles are often won prior to being fought. One of his…

In March 1831, James Honeyman and William J. Murray used forged keys to enter the City Bank of New York, emptying the vault of more than $245,000 in bank money. Boy, how times have changed! In the digital age, criminals don’t need to risk their safety by physically entering a bank. Why would they when…

Extortion is about leverage. The more leverage you can attain, the greater the chance that an extortion attempt will prove successful. A ransomware attack is a classic example of an extortion maneuver. A ransomware gang encrypts the systems and data repositories that an organization’s business operations depend on. At that point, everything grinds to a…

Let’s say you’re going on vacation next week to a foreign country. You need to know the weather so you can pack appropriately. You open a weather app, enter your destination, and see that it will be warm, but there’s a slight chance of rain, so you throw an umbrella into your bag. Behind the…

Today, digitization has become the norm across industries. Businesses of all sizes are adopting new technologies and processes to stay competitive, operate more efficiently, and deliver the best possible services and experiences to customers. While the shift to a digital-first approach has come with a wealth of benefits, the neck-breaking speed of digitization has made…

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act enacted in 2010 required the U.S. Federal Reserve to conduct annual stress tests for banks with a minimum amount of assets. C-suite leadership of these banks take these stress audits very seriously and devote ample resources and efforts to prepare for these reviews. This includes their…