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One response to “A Patch in Time Saves Nine”

1. 

   LarrytheG

   July 6, 2017

   such fertile ground for comment!

   First – comparing and contrasting the competency and efficiency of government versus the private sector! Much of the government – not all of it – takes cyber security seriously – and yes – it does take money to hire and keep real professionals to maintain IT systems as opposed to many businesses practices of letting someone “on staff” look after the machines.

   and yes – you DO KNOW which IP addresses – which represent specific devices are in use… if you have those tools installed and in use and a professional actually with that responsibility to monitor, maintain and regularly patch!

   Companies – large and small – who do not deal with this issue – forthrightly are not only irresponsible – they are actually guilty of creating unfunded liabilities – substantial enough to inflict grievous financial losses not only on themselves but their clients and customers!

   So next time we want to talk about just how incompetent and inefficient government might be – think about how the private sector has dealt with this issue – to date. Too many of them have no idea of the risks involved and too ignorant to know they need employ competent professionals either on staff or as on-call consultants.

   Second – if one ever wondered.. and whined about the dearth of employment opportunities – they have not noticed this “knowledge-based” industry and that includes our schools… both K-12 and higher ed.

   Kids are woefully under-educated in 21st century knowledge these days and this is an example … how many get enough core education – language, math, technology – to actually be able to pursue studies in this field?

   Many people who manage organizations are mostly clueless about their electronic systems and rely on employees who they think are “good with computers” but often, in fact, don’t know themselves the basics on how to determine the status of a computer much less the network it is on much less configure it to not have the vulnerabilities that are common and expose things like utility grids to serious threats.

   I consider the failure for private sector companies to deal with these issues as proof – that the Govt has plenty of company when it comes to incompetence, inefficiency and unfunded liabilities in the most literal sense.

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