Who or what makes the big difference as to success or failure on a tech project? Is it the project manager?
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Is it the business analyst? The tech lead? The customer? The budget? The timeline? Luck? The skill set of the project team? 3rd party vendors? Unknowns? Issues? Risks? Requirements? Good or bad communication?...

Anything and everything can be hacked. You, me, your top competition, your favorite customers. Everyone. And even if you employ one individual running your security, an entire certified staff of cybercrime experts or a 3rd party outside vendor securing your important data and IT processed, don't let any of them convince you that you are 100% safe. You aren't now and you never will be. The best you can probably hope for is about 90% but those percentages mean nothing when hackers find their way into that small 10% opening that you couldn't cover. Trust me – and you can read this anywhere – the hackers are always one step ahead of us all. Everyone is in reactive mode vs. hackers. You can be in what you believe is proactive mode, but you're still covering ground they've already covered. The best you can hope for is that they won't find you to be an easy target and they'll move on to the next company. Just like our house is well lit and always has at least 2 vehicles sitting in front of it or beside it so we would certainly never be a crime of opportunity...anyone just trying to break in to a house would move on to the next one.

I recently checked back in with most of my current and past project clients. What I found surprised me a bit. Nearly one in four - almost 25% - had experienced some sort of hack, data breach or security violation in the past 12 months. Almost 25%. The nice thing is a few are asking for my help in making sure 2018 is safer than 2017...but I have to admit that it was not necessarily the way I wanted new consulting business. However, I will not turn down that kind of experience, research and revenue. At the same time, I wonder what is going to be hit next? What will black hats target next that we haven't even thought of? And what about white hats out there who work hard to expose security flaws and backend openings to prove to governments and software or equipment vendors that they have issues that they aren't aware of but need to patch quickly? Those individuals could be targeted next by cybercriminals...just as was the case on the season (and probably, unfortunately, series) finale of CSI Cyber this past week. This knowledge and software code is worth an inconceivable amount of money in the wrong hands. And it puts lives in danger at the same time.

Back to the issue with the 1 in 4 companies experiencing a security breach and what that could or should mean to you. Nothing or everything...it's your choice. At the very least, I highly recommend the following...

Make cybersecurity a top priority in your risk planning. I know we all think it can't happen to us. And it may not. But if it does, just one cybercrime could cost you countless customers, high costs of identify theft of employee information, or worse....though I'm not sure what that might be. Your risk depends more upon the types of clients you have, the types of projects you run, the industry you operate in, the type of data you handle and the size and complexity of the projects you manage. But any size business can be and is at risk. To omit it from your risk planning is crazy in 2016. I am usually working with small to medium sized businesses though I am periodically running projects as a consultant for very large Fortune 500 organizations and government entities like the Department of Defense and others. And yes, sometimes it does involve sensitive information. Risk planning needs to be part of every project and cybercrime and cybersecurity needs to be considered during every risk planning session.

Hire one staff, a department or a consultant. You can hire one staff, you can create a department, or you can just hire a consultant. But it is imperative, I believe, that you do something to prepare your organization for a cybercrime incident in 2016. It may not happen this year, but it is likely to happen soon and the sooner you bring in staff or designate an individual the sooner you can have that person or group ready and productive. You don't really need a large group of certified individuals. You can operate with just one interested tech lead moving into this role and learning as they go. The information and technology for them to research is everywhere...they can get up to speed fast. Just don't put it off any longer.

Attend Black Hat. Seriously. I've been to Black Hat USA in Las Vegas five years running and it is amazing – both in terms of fascination and in terms of understanding the breadth of the security risks we all face. They call it Black Hat, but it is really much more about White Hat work identifying and reporting on security flaws and what cybercriminals are capable of and what these incredibly skilled hackers have discovered over the past year. If cybersecurity is a concern to you – and it needs to be – then this conference is well worth your time and money. If it makes you plan for and mitigate or avoid one breach because you added it to your risk planning process then it will pay for itself 20 times over.

Summary / call for input

Everyone can be hacked. Do I need to repeat that? Everyone can be hacked. And it will likely get worse – not better. I will not be surprised if I conduct a similar client survey in a couple of years and see that number rise to nearly 50%.

What about our readers? Has your organization experienced a data breach or be the victim of a cybercrime...no matter how small? If so, what was your response? How has it changed your risk planning process. Please share your experiences and discuss.

Yes, it was time to bring someone else in to write on even more interesting topics than Project Management, Business Strategy and Cybersecurity.  What could be more interesting you say?  Well, gaming for one.  Online gaming is huge and Anna Egeland is immersed in it.  Trust me.  

Anna Egeland is a self-professed tech girl and enthusiastic gaming follower, writer, and co-host of a podcast. Along with attending college classes in pursuit of receiving a Bachelor's Degree in marketing, she attends professional eSports competitions and gaming conferences, allowing her to write with first hand experience from a female perspective about the Las Vegas gaming scene + venues.  In doing so, she is putting that experience hand-in-hand with connecting with the online gaming community around the world. She's open to interviewing all positions and products in the gaming/technology industry, and reviewing and writing about all genres of games (both old and new). Have an article idea or wish to suggest a topic or need your product reviewed?  Contact her right now...

More is better right? Especially if you can afford the luxury of having more and paying for more.

Two pizzas are always better than one. More cake - or any dessert for that matter. More lobster, more steak, more money, more cars, more speed, more knowledge...

In many cases - at least on the surface and in general - more is better. Unless your a crazy cat lady. One more cat might be the one that gets you locked up or evicted. But I don't like cats much anyway...

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Whether you like it or not, the answer is undoubtedly YES.  Have you looked in your cyber mirror lately? We see reports and information about cybersecurity and cybercrime in the news and on social media repeatedly, but are we doing anything about it back home?

We should, but we don’t always do it and even when we do we probably don’t spend as much time on risk planning as we should. I should know! I speak from 20+ years of experience leading IT projects and initiatives, and while I’ve thankfully been pretty successful and learned lessons along the way, I’m no angel.

It's happening all around us...
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There have been quite a few incidents of data breaches, large-scale credit card info thefts from big box change stores and even breaches in government databases over the past few months. These have all received great press, but that doesn’t mean they go away.

In fact, I think that it just makes it that much more likely – given the publicity – for these same hackers and other hackers to go the extra distance to find new targets and industries to hack. Sometimes it is done for ransom or to prove a point, and sometimes it is just done for the hacker’s curiosity and enjoyment.

I fully believe that we need to make cybersecurity a major presence on all projects. It needs to be a consideration going forward on all tech projects and on the larger ones a CSO or lead security person should be assigned to each project. Project security will become a full-fledged presence in all high visibility large scale projects and any projects with any degree of data sensitivity...which will include most tech projects judging from the experiences I've had in my work history.

The bottomline...

If we don't plan to avoid or react we will be sorry. Cyber crime is real and your project doesn't even need to be handling sensitive data to be at risk. It could be customer contact information that gets stolen. Anything – any security breach on the project – could stand in the way of customer confidence and customer satisfaction. Planning is our best tool – we must be doing it.

I own a 2003 Acura MDX.  We hoped to get 100-150k miles of cheap reliable driving out of this vehicle, sell it and move on.  What happened has been phenomenal.  This vehicle is now 15 years old, has 285,000 miles on it, and has hardly cost us a dime to maintain.  It still runs great and I am now planning to part with it only because I really don't need it anymore.