Author Archives: Emily Holbrook

About Emily Holbrook

Emily Holbrook is a former editor of the Risk Management Monitor and Risk Management magazine. You can read more of her writing at EmilyHolbrook.com.
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“Brogrammers” Giving Silicon Valley a Bad Name?

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According to a recent article, Silicon Valley tech firms are using marketing tactics geared more towards fraternity brothers than programming savants. The problem? Not only is it sexist at times, but it is alienating a large chunk of qualified tech professionals. Here are a few examples:

Of course, this is only a snipet of what’s going on as many of the antics are never publicized. Barbaic events like these may not only cost companies money (several businesses pulled their sponsorship from the Sqoot event), but it alienates those who may be talented programmers, but don’t adhere to the frat boy mentality.

There’s also an audience that feels left out of the joke. Women made up 21% of all programmers in 2010, down from 24% in 2000, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Anything that encourages the perception of tech as being male-dominated is likely to contribute to this decline, says Sara Chipps, founder of Girl Develop It, a series of software development workshops. “This brogramming thing would definitely turn off a lot of women from working” at startups, says Chipps.

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But is this really a serious problem in Silicon Valley or just young men being young men? I’ve heard both sides of the argument. Some companies that have taken this seriously, such as Etsy, have decided to do something about it. The e-commerce website is donating $5,000 to at least 10 women in an attempt to lure female coders to New York’s Hacker School this summer.

Whether this is an epidemic that should cause concern or merely programmers acting their age, one thing is for sure — having a working environment void of diversity is akin to siloed idea generation.

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Silicon Valley should know this.

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DDoS Attacks “Have Never Been Easier to Launch”

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As was heard throughout the speeches, sessions and networking chatter at the recent RIMS 2012 Annual Conference & Exhibition in Philadelphia, the biggest worry to business owners, CEOs and managers is that of cyber threats. And rightly so. It seems like each day we are inundated with reports of a new way hackers can gain control of company information and/or take down systems. Today is no exception.

This morning, Prolexic Technologies released a threat advisory on the use of booter shells, which allow hackers to readily launch DDoS attacks without the need for vast networks of infected zombie computers.

“Increased use of techniques such as booter shells is creating an exponential increase in the dangers posed by DDoS attacks,” said Neal Quinn, chief operating officer at Prolexic. “For hackers, DDoS attacks have never been easier to launch, while for their victims, the power and complexity of attacks is at an all-time high. The threat of a DDoS attack has never been more likely or its potential impact more severe. We’ve entered the age of DDoS-as-a-Service.” The increased use of dynamic web content technologies, and the rapid deployment of insecure web applications, has created new vulnerabilities — and opportunities — for hackers to use infected web servers (instead of client machines) to conduct DDoS attacks. Traditional DDoS attacks make use of workstations infected with malware, typically infected through spam campaigns, worms or browser-based exploits. With these traditional tactics, hackers needed multitudes of infected machines, to mount successful DDoS attacks.

Where boot scripts differ is in the fact that they are standalone files, meaning DDoS attacks can be launched more readily and can cause more damage, with hackers using far fewer machines. Even more alarming, people don’t need as much skill to launch such attacks. A DDoS booter shell script can be easily deployed by anyone who purchases hosted server resources or makes use of simple web application vulnerabilities (i.e., RFI, LFI, SQLi and WebDAV exploits). This, in essence, puts attacks within reach of even novice hackers. Companies should take note, especially financial firms.

According Prolexic’s quarterly global DDoS attack report released a few weeks ago, there was an almost threefold increase in the number of attacks against its financial services clients during Q1 compared to Q4 2011. “This quarter was characterized by extremely high volumes of malicious traffic directed at our financial services clients,” said Neal Quinn, Prolexic’s vice president of Operations. “We expect other verticals beyond financial services, gaming and gambling to be on the receiving end of these massive attack volumes as the year progresses.”

So what should companies do to protect their information and IT infrastructure? Though organizations can never be 100% protected from an attack, they can help by continuously testing proprietary web applications, as well as constantly testing known vulnerabilities in commercial apps.

 

Walter Isaacson Talks Innovation and Creativity

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Walter Isaacson is a man of many stories. He has written biographies of Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein and, most recently, Steve Jobs. His latest is a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and intense personality of Apple’s creative entrepreneur. Isaacson brings a combination of wit, history, drama and humanity to the stories of Jobs, Einstein and Franklin, and their contributions to the world.

When Isaacson was working for Time is when he first met Jobs. “I remember siting with Steve and watching him and thinking about what a passion he has for making great products,” said Issacson to RIMS attendees. “But I also saw the other side of Steve Jobs. He’s impatient, petulant, sometimes can be rude, unkind, pushy. But I came away from that meeting still liking him.”

It was that passion, brains and curiosity that attracted so many to Jobs, regardless of his personality flaws. But how does Steve Jobs relate to risk management?

“For me, the first lesson that Steve can teach in terms of risk management is to pay attention — even to the parts unseen,” said Issacson. “Pay attention even to the things that other people aren’t going to see. And you know that that is the key to making a great product and it also plays out in the world of risk.”

Jobs vehemently believed that paying attention to the parts that no one sees is what  makes products perfect. For risk managers, this is a part of their daily job.

Risk managers also possess an ability to have complete focus on the risks at hand. Jobs mastered this skill with his products. “He had a great ability to focus, to filter out distractions,” said Issacson. “I think it came from his time in India — the zen focus.”

Perhaps most importantly in terms of Apple’s success, Jobs knew what people thought were high-risk products or initiatives, and he knew he could eventually get these people to embrace the risk. “He knew how to bend reality at times,” said Isaacson. “That’s why he had a reputation for driving people crazy. But he could also drive people to do things they thought were impossible. He knew how to know what people thought were high risk, but he knew it could work and got these people to believe and achieve the impossible.”

He would’ve made a great risk manager.

Walter Isaacson signs copies of his recently released Steve Jobs biography at the RIMS 2012 Conference & Exhibition.

Discussing Women’s Leadership in Risk Management and Insurance at RIMS 2012

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RIMS Executive Director, Bermuda Premier Paula Cox and RIMS President Deborah M. Luthi at the RIMS 2012 Annual Conference & Exhibition in Philadelphia.

Women leaders within the risk management and insurance industry have slowly but surely become more and more prevalent and necessary. Working Mother magazine identified risk management as a top career for working mothers, yet women are underrepresented on the insurer side in senior management ranks. So what can the industry do better to support female professionals within the RMI field? And what is the business case for diversity? These and other topics were covered in this morning’s session, which featured:

  • Carol Murphy, managing director for Aon Risk Solutions
  • Chandra Metzler, head of financial lines/executive liability for Chartis
  • Sarah Pacini, moderator for the session and member of the RIMS conference programming committee

The session began with the topic of mentors and sponsors within the industry: how do you get them and what are the benefits? For Murphy, she took the lead in reaching out to people she knew she could learn from, but, in her opinion, it didn’t have to be people she works with directly. “A mentor can also be a customer or someone at another company,” she said. “Reach out to those unconventional sources for mentorship and sponsorship.” Metzler agreed, noting that some of her most influential mentors were found outside of the office, such as her mother. “My mother taught me about work/life balance since she was a working mother herself.”

The panel agreed that diversity in the workplace can only benefit a company. “Having a diverse workforce helps bring out the best in people,” said Metzler. “It’s not only diversity of people, but diversity of thought.” Metzler’s employer, Chartis, uses an executive diversity council to address challenges and promote the issue of diversity. “We want to challenge ourselves about some of our assumptions regarding women in senior leadership,” said Murphy, whose employer, Aon, recently developed a women’s leadership governance board. And though these initiatives are intended to be beneficial, both women agreed that there must be accountability for the programs. “You have to make sure it’s not just a manager waving to you in the hallway,” said Metzler.

But what about the notion of a “sisterhood” among women. Is that fact or fiction? “There’s a lot to be said for the way women treat other women,” said Metzler. Murphy agreed that women do not support each other enough and that there is “an issue with women and the scarcity mentality — women often think there’s only room for one woman,” she said. Though this issue exists, it can be bettered. “I think it’s up to us to change the fact that those situations exist,” said Pacini