This would be like kneeling to run down clock time rather than running the ball. If your firm houses SSNs but never uses them, discard this information and stop taking it during client intake. Preparedness and knowledge of conditions in the field are absolutely vital to your success. We perform vulnerability management and training for tons of law firms but we can’t actually do the bookkeeper’s job, hence this introduces the possibility of the employee opening a spam email. No cybersecurity firm can fully prepare you for what’s out there, just as no coach can actually play for his or her players. Per the diagram, we can say with some degree of precision that in a hypothetical contest between Seattle and Houston, Seattle has already won². Hence, preventing them helps teams establish a certainty of victory and an imperviousness to the vicissitudes of the moment or game. In the NFL, “We can conclude that 44% of the variation in a team’s winning percentage can be explained by their turnover differential.”¹Īs the diagram makes plain, teams with the highest turnover rates tend to consistently lose.

Let’s continue with our sports analogies. “…making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated.” Almost invariably, good managers recognize that their team lost because they did not put themselves in a position to close out the game victoriously (i.e., turnovers, unforced errors, bad penalties, unsportsmanlike conduct, etc.). In this case, almost none of the league’s top managers will give credit to the fluke play. Take, for example, a sporting event in which the clearly better team loses on a fluke play or a bad call. They took time to understand the needs of their time and place, and then delivered. Preparation for these factors is how the good fighters of old put themselves beyond defeat. “The good fighters of old put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.”Ĭertainty of victory is established by a multiplicity of factors: a well formed army, sufficient training, excellent leadership, superior decision making, and so on. We have written on this topic before, see: “…if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” Sun Tzu said, “…He wins battles by making no mistakes…making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory.” Lessonīeyond defeat. By understanding fundamentals of security and military theory, firms will be in a better position to respond to these threats.

Over the coming weeks, Accellis will adapt many of these timeless lessons to the modern cybersecurity theater. The Art of War by Sun Tzu is among the most famous works on military strategy.

Art of war 2