“What technology in the past has presented both opportunities and threats that we’ve managed to come to terms with that can provide us with lessons of learning to better meet the challenges of cyber security?”.
When Sun Tzu wrote "The Complete Art of War" he emphasised the need to "know your enemy". It's fair to then take the position of the more knowledge I have on my adversary the greater my chances of successfully defeating them or certainly resisting their attacks. That knowledge needs to be based upon information, experiential learnings of myself and other kindred spirits and this leads to intelligence - intelligence upon which I can make either evidence based business decisions or quality decisions based upon that intelligence. Fundamentally, the better the intelligence the greater is the likelihood of better decisions.
As organisations tackle the daily grind and challenges that exist in a world where the only constant is change, and the main influencing dynamic is speed I have seen repeatedly over the years the failure to have a principal foundation in place upon which to build, respond and strategise.
The WannaCry attack has grabbed the attention of the world for all the wrong reasons, but perhaps for the correct ones as well. For the apathy, denial, ignorance and deliberate "blind eye" to which has been turned too long towards the cyber security discussion has had the global “wake-up call”.