“May the Fourth be with you” is a phrase that echoed all over the geek world yesterday as we celebrated George Lucas’ masterpiece movie saga Star Wars. Now when it comes to data loss and specifically, data protection, there are actually quite a few things we can learn from this epic.
A long time ago in a galaxy far far away…
Data loss led to a catastrophic corporate mishap. I’m talking about the Death Star. Thanks to a breach in The Empire’s computer system, the Rebel Alliance was able to identify a critical weakness in the first Death Star’s design, ultimately destroying everything The Empire worked so hard to build. Sure we were all happy about it in the movie, but if this happened to you at your company you’d be feeling worse than Luke Skywalker at the end of Empire Strikes Back.
Technology was being used as a weapon. Remember in Empire Strikes Back when the Rebels were tucked away in Hoth feeling safe and sound from The Empire? It was technology that helped The Empire locate them with those weird looking sensor robots they sent all over the galaxy in search for the Rebel’s new home.
It’s not so different from the Heartbleed security bug that was discovered a few weeks ago. Those who are motivated to do harm to your company’s data are never going to stop - much like The Empire. Learn from the Rebels so that your data is always secure and you don’t end up being the least popular person in your office (like Lando Calrissian, for example).
Unauthorized access to data systems was common place. Time and time again, our favorite little droid, R2D2 gained unauthorized access and ultimately did quick work of the Empire’s computer systems … stopping the trash compactor in A New Hope… disabling the security of the shield generator outpost on Endor in Return of the Jedi… the list goes on.
It’s not like we rooted for Luke, Han, Chewie and Leia to fail, but it’s hard to look past the fact that The Empire did not have a comprehensive strategy to keep skilled hackers away from their data systems. Don’t rely on your Midi-chlorian count to keep your cloud data safe, build a proper strategy to manage access and perform checks along the way so you don’t end up like The Empire.
