The Cybersecurity Playbook

CHAPTER 8Mr./Ms. Cellophane (Reprise)

A very big problem for any company is that fact that their users, the business people, can just go buy stuff. They have no idea of what they’re doing, nor do they really care. They look at a software package and say, “Oh, I want that. That will help me with my job.” They don’t care—they don’t even think about the security aspects of that. And in many cases, they can load it and use it. And that is a huge risk, from a cybersecurity standpoint. And yet, stopping them is impossible.

CTO, Manufacturing Company

Lucky Amos. He may have married a cheating murderess but at least she got her just deserts, rotting the rest of her life away in prison. And as for Amos? He happily remarried. They have a beautiful family together. He found happiness and fulfillment in his career. Although he still encountered life’s typical challenges along the way, he managed to emerge stronger and smarter after each one. Surer of his value. More secure in his identity. And no longer satisfied to allow society to look right through him, walk right by him, and never know he was there.

* * *

For my fellow fans of the musical Chicago, you know that I made up that storybook ending for Amos. In the musical, the best he can hope for is a fleeting moment of acknowledgment by his wife’s seedy lawyer before exiting the stage—and story.

But he doesn’t have to exit my imagination. In my ending for Amos, I’m rewriting his future. Why shouldn’t he have a great life? In my mind’s ...