Ransomware Doesn’t Scare Me; Listeria Does
Some companies with similar threat concerns are hospital data (for example, Vaden portal), Google photos (theft of private images, passwords, and information leading to breach of privacy and mental health issues), medicine manufacturers, meal kit companies, and caterers.
Vaden portal needs to have several access points, such as labs, doctors, patients, nurses, and others. It is important to regulate these logins and authorizations to handle data correctly, and important data or patient history is not lost. For example, Vaden has a two-step login and a SuID check before access to information. If such systems were compromised, there will be patient privacy breaches, and misuse of sensitive data. One of the major such accidents in healthcare was the hacking of Anthem, where the Social Security numbers, addresses, and medical information of over 78 million members were stolen.
Google photos should be protected by two-step logins as well. Further security protocols should be followed for abstraction of user data within the company, and to avoid data theft attacks. Many users resort to Google photos to store their valuable or private memories, and user trust is the foundation of such applications. Leakage of such data could lead to blackmailing, scams, and potential mental or monetary harassment cases.
Meal kit delivery systems should monitor storage facilities, hygiene issues, and regulate delivery timings so that fresh food is delivered. Recently, HelloFresh meal kits were reported to cause food poisoning due to improper monitoring of meal kits. Such cases lead to ill health, hospitalization, or even permanent damage to customers, and overall degradation of the company’s image.
Who Invited Her?
It was commendable that Sara Wilund spoke up in such a tense board meeting. Had she stayed quiet, everyone would have missed out on her fresh take on the matter at hand. In the age of cloud storage, the board members were adamant about storing everything online to improve efficiency. However, this discounted the safety of their trade secret because it was made available to adversaries. All the other members either did not think in this direction or were too afraid to put forth this view; after all, Chadwick heralded the era of digitization of the company. Moreover, it was unorthodox to suggest more money input into human consulting because the company had suffered monetary and intellectual property losses.
Her statements challenged all three avenues – technical, hierarchical, and gender. Firstly, the technical lead was disregarding her statements, which might have been anticipated by Sara. After putting so many resources into security systems, it would be anti-climatic if the secrets were handed over for human handling, and that possibly offended the tech lead, even though Sara’s views were reasonable. Secondly, speaking up as a deputy of the COO in a meeting of board members is daunting- especially given that the COO himself did not back her views in the meeting. Thirdly, all the other members mentioned in the scene are males, which is the case for most companies. Speaking up from an underrepresented minority is challenging the norms, and when coupled with the other two factors, is a very impressive deed.
This case study serves as a motivation to speak up for a good purpose. Suppose I am working as a designer during a rotation, but I have suggestions on how the PM could be more helpful to the team; I should convey constructive comments. This is for the improvement of the whole team and developing better products.
