Have we moved from “drowning in data” to “Alert Angina“? I fear (pun intended) we are so overwhelmed with alerts, emails, and the ‘noise’ of our cyber lives that we now have anxiety without the fear. No longer do we have the battles of 2000, Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD), but anxiety and complacency to threats around us?

How many times did you hear about “breach” this week or “ransomware”? What about nation-state or war? How many unread messages do you have in your email box right now? Unread text messages on your phone – do you even know? And here’s the kicker, do you even know how many apps are installed on your personal phone device that you use every single day?

I remember when I first coined the term “Vishing”, after witnessing an actor use Voice Over IP (VoIP) (out of Romania) and several other telephony and digital technologies, attacking targets in different countries every day of the week. During this time, nearly two decades ago, the concept of automated calls that came and went in a few hours before law enforcement could even be notified was new and novel. It was not well understood – it was a mystery and it was feared by those that heard of it at the time. Today we get so many robocalls everyone knows about it, talks about this problem, and how to block these calls and has personal strategies on how to counter them. We now have a very different experience compared to when the threat was emergent.

Have we become deadened and complacent with Alert Angina? Do we now need a healthy dose of fear and renewal of our personal risk, or is this just a new reality that I have yet to fully accept? What I do know for sure is that the threatscape continues to change and the people factor is real, where I’m constantly challenging myself to not be part of the problem, but part of the solution. Where do you struggle and are you part of the solution or the problem in today’s challenges?