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After-effects of a Cyber-security Breach

Day in the life series: 7 a.m. to 8 a.m.

By Dennis Jones


The hour before the big meeting was always the most nerve-wracking for the Executive Assistant, even one as seasoned as Krempe’s. But anticipating the upcoming meeting was engendering the same level of stress, doubly so because the EA didn’t actually know where her CEO would be during the meeting.

The CEO had only just sent out a cryptic email asking the EA to book the 9 a.m. meeting with the Engagement team in “the same room.” The EA had had to piece together who the engagement team was and what 9 a.m. the CEO was referring to. Luckily, the CFO, who was also on the thread, confirmed that 9 a.m. was indeed local time and that the Engagement team was the very same team that had met almost 24 hours ago. I guess things were moving quickly after all.

The EA was particularly on edge this morning, after having spent a harrowing afternoon and night with the IT admin, while he triaged her infected mobile device, as it suffered under the after-effects of a cyber-security breach. It turns out that by checking a rogue email, on free Wi-Fi no less, she had walked right into one of the big cyberhacks that was currently dominating the news cycle.  Her device had been seriously compromised, but the IT admin had managed to contain the hack before it had infected Krempe’s entire system. Just barely.

Even still, she’d been sans smartphone for the better part of eight hours, frantic over the scads of potential texts and phone calls she was missing from her boss. Her device had gotten a more or less clean bill of health some time around midnight. And she’d only managed a few hours of rest before waking up to her CEO’s email and another fire drill…

See what happened next.