So I was at the SANS security training at Disney in Orlando, and the hotel’s conference room lights (which are IP-controlled) started randomly blinking and surging at odd intervals.
The thinking is that some jackass has hacked the system and was trying to disrupt the training.
It backfired.
Everybody tuned out the flashing lights in about five minutes. But the need for this training, and for the implementation of better security everywhere, couldn’t have been illustrated better.
The next day, the script kiddies turned on the emergency warning in the room. Backfire again! We were in a long session due to an upcoming extended, vendor sponsored lunch, and the five-minute break gave us a much-needed chance to stretch our legs and refocus.
What this second event also gave us was some actual, real-world evidence to take back to our management to show them that the threat is real, we’ve seen it, and we need to step up our efforts to protect against it.