"The Wave of Change" Episode 023

"The Wave of Change" Episode 023 "How Ice Climbing is like Cybersecurity" In this episode Helen Yu shares her Iceland ice climbing experience, the lessons learned and how that experience applies to Cybersecurity. Below is an abstract of Helen's keynote speech in Zurich, Switzerland. “Crampons make it easy to climb the ice without slipping,” says a guide to scaling Vatnajökull, Iceland’s largest glacier. Really? counters cybersecurity keynoter Helen Yu, who nearly lost her life ascending that majestic ice cap when one of her crampons suddenly popped off her boot. (Thank goodness for carabiners!) Which brings us to cybersecurity. Lesson one, says Ms. Yu: Assume nothing. “Expecting employees to stay cyber-vigilant is like expecting crampons to stay in place while scaling a glacier’s jagged contours,” she says. “Because both are naïve assumptions, you must prepare for the worst.” Lesson two: Be brutally realistic when assessing risk, and for good reason: New vulnerabilities surface daily. As more employees acquire more mobile devices, the risks to enterprise networks mount exponentially.

Much like climbers must see the “bite” in Vatnajökull’s mesmeric beauty, CISOs must see the threats in otherwise impressive landscapes of workforces that are always on, always connected. MIT certified in cybersecurity management, Ms. Yu will share strategies for enhancing cyber-risk assessment and strengthening cyber-awareness training at a time when 90% of all attacks result from human error.

Helen Yu believes real growth thrives at the crossroads of #tech and #humanity. There, she contends, is where customer loyalty and love thrive. Described as “a rare combination of intellect, work ethic, and compassion often not found in C-level executives,” Ms. Yu has led multibillion-dollar revenue growth and profitability for pre-IPOs and Fortune 500 enterprises, including Oracle, Adobe and Marketo. After watching many start-up technology founders rise and fail, Ms. Yu launched Tigon Advisory in 2017 as a growth accelerator. No stranger to tech, she has been named a Top 10 Global Influencer in Digital Transformation by IBM, Top 50 Women in Tech by Awards Magazine, Global Top 30 Women in Finance by Onalytica, and Top 10 Cybersecurity and AI Thought Leader by Thinkers360. When not scaling Mount Everest or ice climbing glaciers, you can find Ms. Yu on Twitter @YuHelenYu.