Comprehensive Review of the Crowdstrike incident, How to Set the Right Margin for your Partners and more | Cybersecurity & Business | 8th. Edition

Hello everybody,

if you are like me, you will always remember what you were doing on July 19th, when the Blue Screen of Death started to appear all around you, online and offline. I was enjoying my well-deserved vacations, next to a swimming pool, somewhere in Greece.

After the initial confusion was cleared out, we knew that the cause was a faulty update from one of the Cybersecurity market leaders, and the speculation started. I don’t remember LinkedIn being so ‘usefully’ active in a while.

As the repercussions of the incident still are continuing - with rumours that Delta airlines is considering their options to seek compensation from both Microsoft and Crowdstrike - I wrote a comprehensive overview of everything that happened since.

Besides that, I also prepared an article on a completely different topic. A simple tool that can be used for defining and setting the right margins for channel partners, a key element of any value-based partnerships strategy.

What else you can find on this edition? When it comes to Cybersecurity, we will be reviewing how hundreds of domain names are sitting ducks waiting to be exploited, how the number of victims from security breaches have increased drastically during this year, cybersecurity spending trends, and the threats to watch in this year.

Moreover, in the Business Corner, you are going to find articles about how to drive employee engagement to generate results, the impact that private equity is having on the financial system, the reasons behind the era of the solopreneur and the mistakes to avoid when setting a pricing strategy.

A unique person to follow, an innovative European startup, and your Moment of Zen wait for you at the end of this edition.

I hope the only blue you see during the rest of the summer is on the sky and the sea!

Enjoy!

Ignacio

If you enjoy this newsletter, please share it with friends, colleagues and anyone else that you think would find it interesting. I'd highly appreciate it!

Featured Articles

“Reflecting on the Crowdstrike faulty update that stopped the world”. This article covers everything that happened in the first week since the Blue Screens of Death started to appear all over the world, and what might happen as a consequence. I promise you: you will find things covered here that you haven’t see anywhere else yet.

“How to Determine the Right Margin to Share with your Partners”. Partners compensation and rewards are a key attribute of any alliance, one that requires appropriate thinking but not necessarily needs complex tools. This article shares a simple approach to find the right margin that a vendor can set for their channel as part of their partner program.

You can find this and more of my articles on my Substack, where I go into more depth on topics related to Cybersecurity & Business.

A glimpse into the Cybersecurity news, reports and thoughts you might have missed

“Don't let your domain name become a ‘Sitting Duck’”. This article by Brian Krebs exposes a not-so-known issue with the ever-growing number of registered domain names and the poor security and authentication measures to protect them.

“US Data Breach Victim Numbers Increase by 1000 %, Literally”. Dark Reading reviews the reasons behind the incredible rise in the number of victims, that not necessarily correlates with the trend in the amount of breaches.

“Companies spend more in cybersecurity but struggle to track expenses”. We hear a lot about the need to increase cybersecurity budget, but according to this article from Help Net Security , the effectivity of the investment is far from clear.

“Growing Cyber Threats to Industry in 2024”. Chuck Brooks shares a very comprehensive list of the topics that need to be considered when it comes to Cybersecurity this year.

The Business Corner

"Psychological Safety as the Driver of Employee Engagement and Experience (and the Impact on Culture, Performance and Productivity)”. Can a more psychologically safe work environment drive business more successfully? This article by Hacking HR delves into this topic, with guidance on how to create such place.

“How private equity tangled banks in a web of debt”. This visual story by the Financial Times delves into how private equity firms - like Blackstone, Apollo Global Management and Carlyle Group - have quadrupled their assets since 2012 through debt, posing a risk to the wider financial system.

“Why we’re entering the era of the Solopreneur?”. Caroline Castrillón , in Forbes , explores the reasons behind the rise in the amount of people that chooses to work by themselves for themselves instead of a regular job.

“The Price of Bad Pricing”. Emilia Korczynska reviews and shares with her readers the 5 pricing mistakes that SaaS companies make.

Leadership

According to Andy Brown Coach , CEOs work an average of 62.5 hours a week, 79 % of them work on weekends. He also evaluates the costs and drivers behind this phenomenon. Not only that, his article includes strategies on how to achieve a 40-hour week without losing effectivity.

Read more about this in this piece from Fast Company : https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/how-leaders-can-stop-working-weekends-fast-company-ea8te/

Someone you should follow

Viktória Ivanová is a former colleague, currently Vicepresident for Consumer and IoT at ESET. During this year, she started a newsletter on Linkedin where she openly discusses very relevant topics, in first person, that are not commonly shared in such a candid way: her struggles and satisfactions in becoming a leader in a global cybersecurity company, psychological safety, burnout, and more. When most of those that post and share on Linkedin do it with the “I am a high-achiever and expert” filter on, her approach is as fresh as it is insightful.

European Cyber Startup on the Spotlight

Labyrinth Security Solutions is a cyber deception platform designed to outsmart even the most cunning hackers. Proudly developed in Europe and a member of the European Cyber Security Organisation (ECSO), Labyrinth offers an innovative and efficient solution for early threat detection within corporate networks.

Unlike conventional security measures, Labyrinth creates an illusion of vulnerabilities, luring attackers into a controlled environment where their actions can be meticulously monitored and analysed. This proactive approach ensures that threats are identified and neutralised before they can cause significant harm.

What sets Labyrinth apart is its ease of deployment and integration. The platform requires no changes to existing network infrastructure, making installation straightforward and hassle-free. This simplicity does not come at the cost of effectiveness.

Labyrinth boasts a remarkably low rate of false positives, ensuring that security teams can focus on genuine threats without unnecessary distractions. By mimicking high-value targets and monitoring attacker behaviour, Labyrinth provides unparalleled visibility into malicious activities, significantly reducing dwell time and preventing lateral movement within the network.

Your Moment of Zen by Marketoonist

Let me know what did you think of this newsletter! See you next month!

If you want to hear from me more often, follow me on Linkedin or subscribe to my Substack.