The Tri Town Times: 7/27/20

Posted on 30 July 2020
By Antonio Gonzalez
Posted in the tri town times
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Nearly every triathlon race in 2020 has been cancelled; Computer giant Garmin was hit with a ransomware attack.

Weekend Race Report:

The 2020 Ironman World Championships, originally rescheduled to February 6th, 2021, has officially been cancelled. This is the first time in the sports 43 year history that the event has not taken place.
The 2020 70.3 World Champs, originally scheduled for November 28th in Taupo, New Zealand, has been officially cancelled as well.

Industry News:

On Thursday Garmin was hit with a ransomware attack. The hackers are apparently asking $10 million to free Garmin's system from the attack. Brian Weissinger, a friend and regular at Tri Town, works as an IT manager and information systems security professional at Idaho Power. I asked him to help me understand what happened, and how it could happen to a company as prevalent as Garmin. Here is his reply:

If what happened to Garmin was truly a ransomware attack, that is one of the worst things that can happen to a company, here's why/how it works.

A malicious entity/hacker somehow gets into your technology systems, obtains both enough Intel on where your important data is, and elevated privileges so that it can execute a ransomware attack. For a skilled hacker, this isnt hard to do. An ordinary person clicking a malicious link in their email is all they need to get started.

At that point, with these elevated privileges, they encrypt your important and private data, and send you a "ransom" note, stating they will either expose the data you have collected to the public, or render it useless by not giving you the decryption key.

Why do they do this? Typically for money - ransoms are usually paid in bitcoin, so the transaction is untraceable. Perpetrators typically know how much they can ask for and try to make the decision to pay them easy, thus ~7 of 10 companies pay the ransom.

What should you do? People tend to reuse passwords..so if you use Garmin devices, determine what password you used for them, and ensure you are not using that same password for your email, banking, or other online services that are important to you.

Quote that Struck a Chord:

Two quotes on persistence and discipline:

"The pro mindset is a discipline that we use to overcome Resistance. To defeat the self-sabotaging habits of procrastination, self-doubt, susceptibility to distraction, perfectionism, and shallowness, we enlist the self-strengthening habits of order, regularity, discipline, and a constant striving after excellence." Steven Pressfield.

"Even if I lack the talent, I will not abandon the effort on that account.... we do not abandon any discipline for despair or even for being the best at it." Epictetus.

If You Have A Moment To Spare:

Tim Ferris recently shared this short, apocryphal story. As a coach it really hit home:

There is a story of a woman in India who was upset that her son was eating too much sugar. No matter how much she chided him, he continued to satisfy his sweet tooth. Totally frustrated, she decided to take her son to see his great hero, Mahatma Gandhi.

She approached the great leader respectfully and said,

“Sir, my son eats too much sugar. It is not good for his health. Would you please advise him to stop eating it?”

Gandhi listened to the woman carefully, turned, and spoke to her son,

“Go home and come back in two weeks.”

The woman was perplexed. She took the boy by the hand and went home.

Two weeks later, she returned, boy in hand. Gandhi motioned for them to come forward. He looked directly at the boy and said,

“Boy, you should stop eating sugar. It is not good for your health.”

The boy nodded and promised he would not continue this habit any longer.

The boy’s mother turned to Gandhi and asked,

“Why didn’t you tell him that two weeks ago when I brought him here to see you?”

Gandhi smiled and said,

“Mother, two weeks ago, I was still eating sugar myself.”

Have a great week!

Antonio Gonzalez

Tri Town

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