The Cybersecurity Playbook

CHAPTER 6Luck Favors the Prepared

We have a team process that gets triggered if a cyberattack happens and so we wouldn’t directly go out and let the press know until we figured out certainly what it was and where it came from and what we planned to do about it. We haven’t been that far yet. It all depends on what the data flow is and how severe of a problem it is.

Chief Marketing and Sales Officer, Hospitality Company

A friend of a friend of mine knows a guy who was traveling on business in Las Vegas. He went to a bar one night and had a few drinks with a friendly stranger. The next morning, he awoke to excruciating pain in his lower back, submerged in a bathtub of ice. He noticed a phone next to the tub with a note that said something to the effect of, “Call 911. Your kidney has been surgically removed.” He lived to tell the tale but has one less kidney to show for it. Be careful—there’s an underground market harvesting organs from unsuspecting business travelers and tourists.

I bet you’ve heard a similar story from a friend of a friend. But perhaps the victim in question wasn’t in Las Vegas. He might have been in Europe. Or South America. Who knew the underground market for stolen organs was so vast?

Of course, it isn’t. This urban legend started in the late 1990s and, while we can roll our eyes at its absurdity today, I remember it sending shivers down my spine (right down to my kidneys!) when I first heard of this horror. I wasn’t the only one who fell for it.

On January ...