Is it time to show love to the Robot?
It's late in the evening and I am at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport waiting on a flight.
As I look down at the throngs of people still milling around the airport, I notice that no one is paying attention to, or even noticing the giant robot, standing all alone in the terminal!
It’s about ten feet tall and four feet wide and part of a promotion by the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.
Almost all those travelling at this time of the day are adults.
Then I see what was probably the only child in the airport, come running up to the robot and started engaging with it. He was about seven or eight years of age and he seemed to be having a lot of fun until his parents arrived on the scene and dragged him away from his fun.
All the adults seemed to be plugged into their phones or immensely distracted by whatever was going on in their world, while the child was curious as to what this amazingly shinny thing was and how he could play with it.
Perhaps it is because children are accustomed to seeing robots and interacting with them, as robotics and automation are part of their DNA, as they are growing up in a world that is vastly different from any previous generation.
In a world where in the not too distant future, robots will become part of our families, like our pets in our homes today!
Maybe it’s because children are also more naturally curious than adults and gradually over time we lose that curiosity.
According to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago our worldwide levels of curiosity are at an all-time low and our attention spans are shrinking.
Robots are increasingly becoming more prominent in our society and used in many different areas.
For example, they are being used to teach students in the classroom for a number of subjects across science, math and language. But according to a recent study, while students enjoy learning with robots, teachers are slightly reluctant to use them in the classroom.
It appears that the teachers were very skeptical of using robots, stating that they did not have confidence in their technical capabilities. There was also trust issues as the teachers were concerned that robots may eventually replace them (how many of us feel this way?).
Regardless of the concerns, we need to recognize that robotics is not intended to replace teachers but to enhance the experience in the classroom, to be used as learning aids.
By the way, I recently returned to the airport and that robot is still there, hopefully it has had a lot of love and attention in the meantime!
Is it time to start loving our robots?
John McGlinchey
John McGlinchey is the Executive Vice President of Global Certification for CompTIA
Scammed in Nigeria
I always thought of myself as a seasoned traveler and quite capable of avoiding any major incidents and disasters when on the road. That is, until recently, when I was trying to get on a plane from Lagos, Nigeria to Rwanda!
In the space of 90 minutes I potentially had my two corporate cards, my own personal card and my phone compromised. I could see all of the risks unfolding in front me and even having a good understanding of cyber security and how vulnerable we all are, I still fell into a big trap.
I was so desperate to get an airline ticket, I disregarded all common sense and good cyber practices.
Our African leg of the trip took us to Nigeria, Rwanda and South Africa. Prior to the trip we got the appropriate visas for Nigeria and Rwanda. However, due to the timing of the trip, my Rwandan visa expired the day before I was due to travel there. My travel companions, being from the US and UK had no issues as they could buy a visa on arrival. Being an Irish citizen, I could not.
Never one to be deterred from a challenge, I thought that I could use my charm, my years of sales experience and talk my way onto the plane. My optimism was soon dashed as the chap on the desk referred to a very large manual which listed all the countries that could buy visas on arrival in Rwanda. Ireland was not on the list and he was not going to allow me onto that flight.
So, I waved goodbye to my colleagues and agreed to meet them in Johannesburg a few days later. There was a flight nine hours later, all I needed to do was buy a ticket - that should be easy I thought.
As I was standing trying to find the right airline desk, a knight in shining armor appeared behind me, like he was dispatched by my guardian angel. As it turned out, he wasn’t so much of a knight in shining armor!
As the flight was over 9 hours until departure, the airline desk was not open. But my new-found friend took me to a kiosk at the end of the terminal where I could buy a ticket. The girl behind the desk confirmed the flight and there were seats available.
Excellent news I thought as I handed over my card to her. For some reason, the card was declined on her machine so she tried her other card reader. It also was declined. She tried it several times on each machine but to no avail.
I then gave her my other corporate credit card and got the same result, declined.
I phoned both banks and they confirmed that there was ample credit on the cards and no transactions had come through on their side. As you can imagine, I was starting to get worried at this point. I tried to use my phone to book the ticket but the 3G connectivity in Nigeria is very poor.
At this point my new-found friend is still by my side and trying to help me and he has another fantastic idea...let’s get some cash and he can get me connected to his Wifi hot spot in the airport.
As I was starting to get desperate, I went along with his idea and went to the ATM. I tried both of my corporate cards and they were declined. Nigeria is notorious for credit card fraud but feeling really under pressure to get a flight, I used my personal card and got enough cash to pay him for a password for his Wifi.
Unfortunately, his Wifi hotspot was not working and he somehow disappeared, nowhere to be found. As I looked around at the others in the hotspot I realized that I may have been the victim of a scam. Were these other people logged into my phone? It only takes two minutes to access a mobile device, if you have the skills. I quickly disabled the Wi-Fi on my phone.
For a brief moment, I felt like the Tom Hanks character Viktor Navorski in the movie Terminal - Was I going to be in this airport for a very very long time?
Never one to admit defeat or perhaps in sheer desperation, I went to try and find somewhere to get a better signal on my phone. I eventually did and phoned our HQ in Chicago where one of my colleagues booked the flight for me.
To date, one of my cards has been compromised. I am not sure if that is a result of my experience at the airport or from somewhere else.
Some very good lessons learned and a lot of schoolboy errors that were made in a state of panic by this pro!
Always be CyberAware...
John McGlinchey
John McGlinchey is the Executive Vice President of Global Certification for CompTIA
Should we all go back to pen and paper?
You will be surprised to hear that I was playing golf at the weekend. As always over the duration of a round, we discussed all manner of things.
On Sunday, one of my playing partners brought up cyber security and how insecure he felt about his personal information and bank details.
He suggested going back to pen and paper and taking all his banking offline, because it's more secure.
We all agreed that this was a silly idea but in truth its not that silly unless we personally get very serious about our online security and staying up to date and ahead of the game.
In relation to our cyber security, we are all feeling insecure at the moment. But I'd like you to think about a time in your lives when you felt most secure. Go ahead and close your eyes for a moment.
Where are you? Are you a child? Are you with a parent or a trusted friend?
Remember how it felt to feel safe and content at that moment in time.
For me it was growing up in Donegal, in the northwest of Ireland. It’s also, by the way, the area National Geographic recently named as "the coolest place on the planet” (I'm so proud of Donegal - You must visit!!)
For me this was a great time, it was a safe time and it was a time when I felt secure.
And now - like when I remember seeing a storm roll in from the Atlantic Ocean back in my childhood home - we live in a time that can feel a lot less secure, don't we?
Consider the U.S. Elections and the alleged meddling by Russia and the hackers reportedly breaking into computer networks of companies operating the United States nuclear power stations, energy facilities and manufacturing plants, according to a new report by The New York Times.
It’s not just companies and organizations that are vulnerable - every person, place and every online device in the world is potentially vulnerable.
I don’t know about you, but back in the 90’s, whenever I used to hear about hackers and viruses, I tuned out.
But now, in the news, it seems we are hearing this happening on a daily basis - we're getting bombarded about the cyber-crime reality that we live in. It can make you feel anything other than secure.
An article in Chief Security Officer Magazine, predicted that damages from cyber-crime will cost the world six trillion dollars a year. The threat of cyber-crime will more than triple the number of unfilled cyber security jobs, which is predicted to reach 3.5 million by 2021.
So that's exactly why we need to become more dedicated to getting not just IT workers, but every worker, involved with protecting and defending apps, data, devices, infrastructure and people.
Cyber-crime is a very real and very scary threat, but I also see this as an opportunity if we embrace it - to help us all feel more secure, to be committed in helping everyone with their cyber responsibilities - to become good cyber citizens and have superior processes in place before a cyber breach is threatened.
We are all imperfectly human and hackers are very skillful at tracking human beings, not computers, and taking advantage of our vulnerability, our weaknesses.
Human error is still the most likely reason for a hack.
Going back to pen and paper is definitely not an option but becoming more aware of our cyber responsibilities is.
John McGlinchey
John McGlinchey is the Executive Vice President of Global Certification for CompTIA
Lessons I learned from my first job!
I love this time of the year and one of the things that I really like about it is coming across so many young people who are clearly working in their very first summer jobs.
I love their youth, their energy and their enthusiasm (hopefully!) and I wonder about the valuable part that this first job will play in their professional lives.
It makes me reflect on my first job, many moons ago.
Growing up in the north west of Ireland had many advantages, especially during the summer months. We had long days, with lots of tourists milling about and as I remember through my rose tinted glasses, the sun was always shining in Donegal!
Although we always had a lot of fun, we were no strangers to hard work either. That work ethic gave me a real respect for the value of earning a wage.
My parents returned to Ireland from London in the late fifties and opened a small corner shop at the bottom of the main street in a small village called Glenties (this name is derived from the word 'The Glens' as it is situated where two glens meet, west of the Bluestack Mountains).
Initially the store sold basic supplies, the necessities, like bread, milk, butter and newspapers.
If you consider their typical customer at that time, it was quite an ambitious plan. Glenties was a very rural town (a population of under 1,000 ) where most of the community baked their own bread, grew their own vegetables and used their cows for milk and butter. People were very self-sufficient.
However, the family business grew and thrived.
Both my parents were very innovative and committed to providing excellent customer service. They introduced new product lines, like frozen foods, or what was considered rare fruits back then, such as pears and tangerines. They built a reputation for having really great ice cream and the business grew and from the initial small room to other parts of the house.
During those exciting years with the business growing, my brothers and I chipped in and helped in the shop, after school and in the evening, at weekends and during holiday times.
Being part of the family meant sharing the work load.
This is where we really learned the valuable lesson of working to earn pocket money. We weren’t just given money, we had to earn it. If we spent all our money and wanted to go to the cinema or if we wanted to buy the new Thin Lizzy album and didn’t have any money left, my dad found a job for us in the shop. And there were many of those jobs to choose from!
Back then, eggs came in a large box and had to be packed into smaller, dozen and half dozen cartons. Potatoes came in four and eight stone bags and needed to be packed into smaller size bags.
None of us liked filling out the potatoes. The fear of that foul-smelling potato hidden somewhere in the sack and the horrible sensation when your fingers slid inside that rotten potato...yeuch!
And then there were the customers - as we know only too well these can come in all sorts and sizes and like each of us they all have their own quirks and strange habits.
Each of us served behind the counter and we all had the responsibility of looking after the customers - in a small village we were dependant on a small number of people and it was up to us to make sure that they were happy and kept returning.
While it was tough and every one of us was expected to do their part to look after the family business, these were special, simple days that will warmly stay with me forever.
Learning the value of hard work and the importance of customer service are valuable lessons that have stood to me throughout my career - these apply in my parents little grocery store just the same as they do in a global organisation such as CompTIA.
Thank you mum and dad!
What did you learn from your first job?
John McGlinchey
John McGlinchey is the Executive Vice President of Global Certification for CompTIA
7th March - Life before and after
On my way home from work I drive by our local cancer hospital. From the outside, it is just a normal building and there doesn’t seem to be much going on inside.
That is, until March 7th.
This time I was inside that very hospital looking out at all the cars driving by, who like me a few days earlier, were oblivious to the battles, challenges, illness and sadness that engulf those inside.
It is almost full to capacity every day with each treatment cubicle, sadly occupied. The nurses and doctors inside that hospital do an amazing job looking after those patients with their expertise, care and professionalism.
My wife Fiona had been feeling unwell for a few weeks. The first diagnosis we had was that she had an infection, but after several weeks the bleeding wouldn’t stop and she was scheduled for a biopsy. We both knew that it was something serious and could possibly be cancer.
I had a business trip planned to the Middle East and my departure date was the day before the biopsy. Both Fiona and I agreed that the trip should go ahead. I landed in Abu Dhabi and Fiona called me to tell me the news. The biopsy results confirmed our worse fears, it was cervical cancer.
I felt so regretful that she had to take that call alone, the fear she must have felt hearing those words and the horrible uncertainty of what was to come.
I returned to Chicago in time to accompany her to the various scans that had been scheduled.
Three days later we had our meeting with the Oncologist to get a better understanding of the course of treatment for cervical cancer.
That’s when we had an even bigger blow hit us.
It turns out that Fiona has Small Cell Cervical Cancer with five secondary tumors around her body. Her liver, lungs and lymph nodes were all infected. Small Cell is the rarest type of cervical cancer and it accounts for less than 1% of all cervical cancers diagnosed. We were told that we had a battle ahead.
Thankfully, we had caught the cancer in its early stages but the diagnosis was still devastating to us.
Without treatment, Fiona would have 6 months to live and probably 18 months with treatment. We were shocked and overwhelmed that this could happen to someone so young and fit. Prior to the illness Fiona was running 7-minutemiles and squatting with 60lb dumbbells. She was forty-three years of age when we got the diagnosis. She is also such a positive and optimistic person, living life as it should, with a warm smile on her face.
The doctor commented that nothing we could have done would have prevented this from happening. It’s just like being struck by lightning.
Like most challenges life throws at you, it’s how you react and behave that makes the difference. We have learned a lot about each other and how vital it is to make the most of every day.
Fiona has completed three cycles of chemo and had a further assessment and scans. The results were very promising and positive with the tumors shrinking in size and activity. Her attitude and fitness levels certainly contributed to the positive results. Needless to say we were thrilled.
We may have won a battle; however, the war is not yet won.
She is on her fifth cycle of chemotherapy with further scans after the sixth cycle. Even at the best-case scenario, she will have to complete another three cycles. Never at any point throughout this ordeal has she ever felt any illness from the cancer but it’s the many cycles of chemo that have hit her the hardest, taking its toll both mentally and physically.
One of the many lessons we have learned from this experience is to be more aware of the feelings and emotions of others. It has taught us to be more tolerant as you just never know what's happening in someone’s life.
More importantly, when life gives you lemons, you most definitely should make lemonade.
John McGlinchey
John McGlinchey is the Executive Vice President of Global Certification for CompTIA
Your Personal Brand and your Coat of Arms
There is a lot of talk these days about the importance of your 'personal brand'; how you always need to be aware of it, how you should project it and how you should protect it.
It is talked about in marketing circles as if it is a new thing and that it is borrowed from the world of products and companies, which all have their own branding that we can easily relate to.
The comparison to products, services and companies can be a little disturbing at first - surely we are human beings and not products (many may disagree!)? After all we have feelings, thoughts, opinions, beliefs, passions, we want to be appreciated and valued and we definitely don't want to be treated as commodities.
If we forget about the comparison to products and companies it gets easier and we can start to appreciate what our personal brand really means. Our personal brand is our story, it is what we represent, it is what we believe in, it is what motivates us, it is who we are.
If you deal with me this is what you get.
The challenge is to properly project our story so that others get what we are all about.
In ancient times the personal brand for our family was captured in our family crest or our coat of arms.
A coat of arms is described as a unique heraldic (a visual way of signifying rank) design on a shield or surcoat. A surcoat, and subsequently a coat of arms was used by medieval knights to cover, protect, and identify the wearer. The coat of arms symbolises the heraldic achievement which consists of a shield with a crest and motto.
These coats of arms came into general use by feudal lords and knights in battle in the 12th Century. By the 13th Century their use had spread beyond the battlefield to become a kind of flag or logo for families in the higher social classes of Europe, inherited from one generation to the next.
Your coat of arms or crest was effectively a way of telling a story about your family and what they represent.
Each of the colours and symbols on your Coat of Arms is significant and they explain important characteristics and values about you and your family.
In the case of my family coat of arms:
- the white or silver background denotes Peace and Sincerity.
- the green signifies Hope, Joy and sometimes Loyalty in Love.
- and finally the lion represents Deathless Courage!
So for those that know me well - do I match up to my family crest?
While my Coat of Arms captures and projects a 'story' and a set of values and beliefs for my family in many ways it also sets a standard and creates an expectation about our behaviour - something that we all need to live up to.
Ironically the use of the coat of arms evolved over time and started to be used by commercial companies, which are effectively the origins of the modern logo.
Telling your story today
Today we don't carry around a shield (just a business card..) and we don't wear a suit of armour so communicating our story can be a little bit more challenging.
The face to face personal experience has always been the most important part of our story. How we look, how we dress, how we speak, how we behave and what we do are powerful ways of telling this story. Those who interact with us get to experience our 'personal brand' up close and hopefully they will carry with them a positive version of our story.
For those at a distance our modern day coat of arms is our blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media accounts. This is where we get a chance to show our photo, detail who we are, what we have learnt, what we have done, what we believe in and then bring all of this to life through our regular conversations and interactions.
On LinkedIn the most common activity of users of the platform is looking at other people's profiles. I wonder why..
How is your coat of arms looking?
John McGlinchey
John McGlinchey is the Executive Vice President of Global Certification for CompTIA
Teamwork, the Great Wall and the love of a dog!
This was my fourth Christmas living in the US and more remarkably, it was the first time in thirty years I haven’t returned to Ireland for Christmas. Having traveled a lot over 2016, I decided that I would spend it at home and enjoy the festive period, American style. This last week has given me time to reflect on what was an incredible year for me personally and for CompTIA.
As always, the year started out with a little anxiety over the challenges ahead, will we achieve our goals? How would our new A+ launch affect our business?
There were many hurdles ahead of us but we needn’t have worried. 2016 turned out to be one of the best years ever at CompTIA and probably one of my proudest career periods of time.
There have been many new initiatives launched in 2016, which will give us a tremendous platform for the future.
If I could rewind the clock and give myself some advice at the start of 2016, I would say, be comfortable being me, do the basics well, stay in the moment, remain focused on the bigger picture and our strategy. And most importantly...Always, always have fun and enjoy it!
The success I enjoy at CompTIA has everything to do with my team. They are an incredible bunch, the best Sales, Product Management and Sales Ops people in the certification and education business.
We get together as a full team twice a year, usually at our HQ just outside Chicago. This year we decided to mix it up a bit and took our summer meeting "international" to London. This gave us a great opportunity to get away as a (very large!) group, away from our normal environment and push ourselves beyond our comfort zones.
It was a tremendous success, giving us time to bond tighter as a team. As always we learned a lot from each other and came away with some great initiatives and strategies for the remainder of the year.
I travelled around the world twice in 2016 and enjoyed some very funny moments and some spectacular experiences. Our team cruise on the Thames, climbing the Great Wall, seeing The Acropolis in Athens, going to Tokyo Disneyland and visiting the Akshardham temple Ahmedabad were all places I was privileged to experience because of the fantastic role I have at CompTIA.
One of the nicest surprises in 2016 came while we were waiting to board a flight from Shanghai to Beijing. The fog had come down around the airport and all flights had either very long delays or were cancelled. After a busy week and a long day, it’s not the news you like to hear. However, all that changed when our flight was the only flight to leave the airport that evening and on time.
We believed this good fortune was because Dennis Kwok was on board. Dennis is our VP for APAC and spends most of his life in airports or on a plane and is well known across Asia. However, it transpired that there was a very high profile Chinese politician on the same flight and there was no chance his flight was going to be delayed. Nice to have friends in high places although we still like to think Dennis was the reason!
Having played golf for over 10 years, 2016 was the first time I actually won a golf tournament. My team won the “Fall Member” tournament at my club, Cress Creek and I was particularly proud as I had selected the players. Although some did not know each other, we connected as a group and come out on top over the two days.
My wife, Fiona, Josie (our dog) and I moved into our new home on Cress Creek golf course, which was one of the highlights of the year for sure. Although the views across the course change depending on the time of the year, it is never anything other than peaceful, calming and revitalizing.
Josie is our first dog and having never owned a dog before, I was a little apprehensive. We adopted her from a shelter just over a year ago and I can say that she has had a massive impact on our lives. She is the most relaxed, funny and calming dog. She has added so much to our lives and only asks for love in return.
2016..thank you and a big thank you to all of the readers of my blog.
John McGlinchey
John McGlinchey is the Senior Vice President of Global Business Development & Products for CompTIA
My Christmas Wish for Jobseekers
A big thank you to Teresa Varela-Lauper, another one of my valued colleagues at CompTIA for being my guest blogger this week.
John McGlinchey
My 19 year old son Nicholas dropped out of college last year.
He tried it, didn’t like it and didn’t know what to do next. I know many people who have succeeded in life without college…. however, for the most part the odds are stacked against him.
Unemployment rates triple for high school graduates compared to those with a 4 year college degree. Couple this with an income disparity when you think of the pool of jobs available without a college degree and it’s not a pretty picture. (Bureau of Labor Statistics and Pew Research)
What are we doing to encourage our young people to get into IT?
And, how do we show our kids there are solid careers out there without requiring a 4 year degree?
How do we encourage change among businesses to hire and invest in these kids?
A career in technology will be a lifesaver for many….there is low unemployment, high demand for skilled workers and a mass of free training to encourage folks to start their careers here.
It’s my Christmas wish that our new U.S. administration will look at apprenticeship programs to help at risk employees learn new skills.
The UK has done an amazing job with this. Instead of talking about saving coal jobs, the better question is how can we re-skill these workers? How can we encourage businesses to take on that challenge and pay employees as they learn? Let’s look over the pond at a model that is working.
As for Nicholas, I’m happy to share he recently started an IT helpdesk program at Hunter Business School here on Long Island. This is a 15 month computer technician program where he will learn PC repair/installation, planning and maintenance and also earn his CompTIA A+ certification.
Let’s change the narrative for our future workers and ring in 2017 with technology apprenticeships.
Teresa Varela-Lauper is Director of Business Development. She works with SMB and Fortune 1000 clients in the US who are looking to attract and retain good IT talent as well as promote a culture of innovation and productivity. She lives in the Greater New York City Area.
Cyber Threat or Cyber Opportunity?
News of the most recent high profile cyber breach, that the concession stands in Madison Square Garden were compromised, has just been released.
But it’s not the fact that they were compromised that’s concerning but that the breach was in place for over a year before they even knew about it. This is a trend we are seeing more often this year.
It started me thinking about how organizations look at cyber security - it’s almost always in a negative way. The fear of the hack, the stigma associated, how will my business recover and most importantly my customer’s information will be widely available on the internet.
Behind all this fear and distress there is a genuine opportunity for businesses to move beyond this “roll the dice” conundrum.
Business owners, CEO’s, CIO’s should be considering how they can be the ‘first in class’ with their cyber security and to make that a selling point, a unique selling proposition, a reason why you should trust them and do business with them.
A business who views Cyber Security as the “Gold Standard” will probably have superior customer service, better products and respect your business a lot more. A business that can demonstrate and validate that their systems are impenetrable, could use this standard/benchmark to win contracts, a real way for their business to differentiate themselves from the competition.
As we enter the most intensive shopping periods of the year, either online or in store the pressure among traders and the anxiety among customers will increase. Almost every time I use my card, I think about whether the retailer has sufficient cyber security measures in place and do they have adequately trained and certified cyber technicians to protect my data?
As I have explained in previous posts, this is as much a people issue as it is technology, so are they promoting good cyber citizenship among their employees?
To achieve this “Gold Standard” is not impossible, but consider the peace of mind and the opportunity for the businesses that implemented and achieved that state of nirvana. They would have, the perfect infrastructure, all technicians trained and certified, proper risk management and governance in place, all staff would be aware of their cyber responsibilities and be good cyber citizens and have superior processes in place when a breach is suspected.
We need to come to terms with the reality of our situation, embrace the perspective the situation provides and re-frame it in our mind.
Out of adversity and challenges, opportunities are abound for those with the right cyber security mindset.
Carpe Diem !
John McGlinchey
John McGlinchey is the Senior Vice President of Global Business Development & Products for CompTIA
The long term cost of data breaches
I am just back from a whirl wind tour of India, China and Japan and one topic seemed to dominate every conversation - Cyber Security!
If I was to summarise the points that were raised by all of our colleagues. partners and clients in our many conversations:
- Security breaches are a wake-up call for many organizations
- Usually they do not update their cyber security infrastructure and keep rolling the dice waiting to be hit
- Instead of waiting, organizations must initiate a mechanism of threat sharing
- Cyber threats must be immediately shared so that appropriate security measures can be taken in time
- The stigma of being attacked must be removed
- Government must step up and set best practices for cyber security
- We can’t solve this problem with technology alone
- Essentially it’s a human problem.
- Almost all of the attacks we see are a result of human error
- We all need to become better cyber citizens
When I returned from this exhausting but exhilarating trip I was reading the data from the 11th annual Cost of Data Breach Study (sponsored by IBM), which is recognised as being the industry’s gold-standard benchmark research, independently conducted by Ponemon Institute.
In 2016 alone we have seen breaches with Centene Corporation, the FBI, Seagate, Verizon, the IRS, and LinkedIn to name a few.
This year’s study found that the average consolidated total cost of a data breach grew from $3.8 million to $4 million.
Over a 10-month period, Ponemon Institute researchers interviewed IT, compliance and information security practitioners representing 383 organizations in 12 countries: United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, France, Brazil, Japan, Italy, India, the Arabian region (a consolidation of organizations in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia), Canada and for the first time, South Africa.
While the amounts of money mentioned are staggering and could easily wipe out most businesses there is another cost that many people may not take into account.
When a company suffers a data breach besides losing money they will also suffer huge reputational damage - unfortunately when a company is breached customers and stakeholders see this as a big weakness. Was the company careless, were they not operating proper controls, are they to be trusted?
Often people don't blame the hackers (the thieves) for the breach but they will point a big accusing finger at the organization for being so "careless" - it's your fault!!
This long term damage could turn out to be much more detrimental that the initial financial loss.
Based on the feedback from my "tour" it looks like in too many cases the cyber penny has yet to drop!
John McGlinchey
John McGlinchey is the Senior Vice President of Global Business Development & Products for CompTIA