Welcome back to ByteWise! October is right around the corner and it is Cybersecurity Awareness Month. This episode is packed with budget-friendly, creative ideas to boost security awareness in your organization and personal life. The four key themes of this year's Cybersecurity Awareness Month: strong passwords, multi-factor authentication (MFA), recognizing phishing, and updating software.

The hosts discuss why these "usual suspects" are still critical topics. They explore the importance of MFA not just at work but on personal accounts like email and online banking. To make learning engaging, they brainstorm several low-cost activities:

• "Build Your Digital Fortress" Workshop: A hands-on session to walk employees through setting up MFA on their personal accounts.

• The MFA Rollout Race: A friendly competition between departments to see who can get the highest adoption rate, with winners receiving fun, inexpensive prizes like stickers or 3D-printed trinkets.

• "Password Creation Cook-Off": A challenge encouraging employees to create the most creative and strong passphrase, using online tools to "score" their strength.

• The "Set It and Forget It" Campaign: A drive to teach people how to enable automatic software updates on their personal devices to ensure they are always protected.

• "Reverse Phishing" Challenge: An innovative activity where employees are challenged to create their own convincing (but harmless) phishing email to better understand the psychology and tactics used by attackers.

The conversation also touches on the importance of using password managers, following NIST guidelines for password creation, and the critical need for leadership buy-in to make any awareness campaign successful. The key is to make security training engaging, positive, and presented in bite-sized, low-cost pieces to ensure it resonates with everyone.

In a departure from their usual tech-focused topics, Brian, Daniela, and Glen get personal in this Friday afternoon chat. They pull back the curtain on the realities of stress in the high-stakes world of IT and InfoSec. The team shares how stress manifests for them, the challenge of disconnecting in an "always-on" world, and the short-term and long-term strategies they use to decompress—from hobbies and workouts to the simple power of a supportive chat with colleagues. This is a candid conversation about setting boundaries, managing team stress, and remembering not to sweat the small stuff.

• How does stress show up for you? The team discusses the physical and emotional signs, from a short fuse to shoulders up by your ears.

• Short-Term Fixes: The hosts share their go-to methods for immediate stress relief, including workouts, setting down the phone, and finding humor in work memes.

• The "24/7 Briefcase": A discussion on how technology, especially smartphones, has erased the line between work and home life, making it harder than ever to truly disconnect.

• The Vacation Paradox: Can you ever really be "on vacation" when you're always reachable? The team shares stories of feeling anxious while trying to be offline.

• Long-Term Decompression: It's not just about a quick fix. The hosts dive into the hobbies and activities that provide a real escape, like working on antique cars, smoking meat, camping, and hiking.

• The Power of Your People: The importance of having a sounding board and connecting with peers who understand the unique pressures of the industry.

• When Stress Bleeds into the Team: As leaders, how do you manage your own stress without it negatively impacting your team? The group talks about empathy, owning your mistakes, and putting challenges into perspective.

We want to hear from you! How do you decompress and disconnect from the pressures of work? Share your tips and strategies with us on LinkedIn and Facebook.

In this episode of ByteWise, the team welcomes back Mark Carroll, founder of the Enterprise Risk Management master's program at Boston University, to tackle the controversial Business Impact Analysis (BIA). They explore why BIAs are non-negotiable for regulated industries, how to demonstrate their value in other sectors, and what separates a "check-the-box" BIA from a truly effective one. Mark shares real-world examples and practical strategies for navigating disagreements, managing stakeholder expectations, and aligning business needs with IT capabilities to build a resilient organization.

• Mark Carroll: Founder of the Enterprise Risk Management master's program at Boston University. With a rich background in IT, risk management, and business continuity, Mark brings decades of practical experience to the discussion.

Mark begins by defining the Business Impact Analysis (BIA) as a process of understanding business functions, assessing the impact of their loss, and analyzing what is required to restore them. He quickly distinguishes between organizations where a BIA is a choice versus a requirement. For regulated industries like banking or those with ISO requirements, the BIA is non-negotiable "table stakes" for legal operation. For others, it becomes a value-based decision, where the organization must be convinced of its worth as the cornerstone for any effective recovery activity.

The conversation then moves to what separates a good BIA from a poor one. Mark warns against the superficial "Survey Monkey" approach where everyone simply declares their systems critical. A truly effective BIA requires a deep dive to challenge assumptions and differentiate between what is merely important and what is truly mission-critical for survival. This analysis must reconcile discrepancies, such as a department requesting a four-hour recovery time while simultaneously holding a week's worth of inventory.

A significant portion of the discussion is dedicated to the human element of the BIA process. Navigating disagreements and gaining buy-in is crucial. Mark shares a practical strategy: begin the BIA with receptive departments to build momentum and create advocates for the process, leaving more resistant stakeholders for last. He illustrates the challenges with an anecdote about a finance department demanding unnecessary resources, highlighting how a fact-based approach and senior-level escalation are sometimes required to overcome myopic views.

Finally, the team explores the common disconnect between the recovery time objectives (RTOs) desired by the business and the actual recovery capabilities of the IT department and third-party vendors. A BIA forces this critical conversation, pushing for alignment through solutions like increasing inventory, dedicating more IT resources to specific functions, or developing manual workarounds. The reality of vendor contracts often dictates the true RTO, forcing the business to either pay more for faster service or accept the contractual risk.

The key takeaway from the discussion is that a well-executed BIA is essential for making the tough but necessary distinction between what's important and what's critical. As Mark aptly puts it, when a crisis hits, his job isn't to perform his day-to-day risk functions; it's to "carry water" for the people executing the recovery of truly critical operations.