IT Horror Stories

• Last Out

  When COVID lockdowns loom in early 2020, it’s up to Matthews team to prepare hundreds of laptops for an employee base that’s about to start working from home.Matthew Schuster, Information Security Analyst at a major sports team, describes the inevitability of IT problems, and the importance of learning how to solve them. His stance is that no questions or problems should be left unresolved.Matthew Schuster has spent six years navigating the world of IT operations and information security within the fast-paced professional sports industry, steadily rising from an intern to various technician and analyst roles along the way. In addition to all things ITOps and security, he’s passionate about cars, motorcycles, baking, and 3D printing!---------Key Quotes:“ During that time period where everyone was working from home, that gave us time to kind of think about and sit back of like, hey, we got through it.  If we had to do this again, which hopefully we don't, how can we make things better? Not only just adapting like that emergency plan. But also just improving  our day to day kind of stuff. And so, the changes that we made to that plan transitioned to our actual laptop refresh and desktop refresh strategy.”“ We have a saying in the information security world of, you know, it's not if you get hacked, it's when you get hacked. So you got to be prepared for things and be proactive, but also learn how to fail and learn how to fail  quickly is the most important thing and learn from those mistakes.”“A very, very common theme in IT is that at the end of the day, problems exist, and you gotta learn how to solve them. And, me personally, I don't like leaving a question or a problem unsolved. “---------Time stamps:00:59 - Matthew’s role03:50 - Oh, the horror09:29 - IT in a stadium10:21 - Breaking down the tasks15:57 - Don’t be in the sequel21:05 - Matthew’s survival kit---------Links:Find Matthew on LinkedInFind Jonathan on LinkedInLearn more about NinjaOne

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• No Longer a Drill

  In this episode, Mike Anderson, CIO & CDO at Netskope, joins Jonathan to discuss several IT horror stories that have stuck with him throughout his career – including a fire suppression test gone wrong, how he helped his organization quickly recover from a ransomware attack in his first tenure as CIO, and now as a more seasoned CIO, how he thinks about taking calculated risks, investing in people, and depositing in relationship accounts to drive business forward.---------Key Quotes:“ Security is everyone's responsibility in an organization. It's not just the CIO. It's not the CISO. It’s everyone in the organization, including the board of directors. And it's your job to make sure you're bringing forward the risks and having conversations about your risk appetite and how much you're willing to invest around the various controls you need to have and why certain controls are more important than others, depending on the business you're in and the risk if those business operations are disrupted.”“ Things are going to happen. Things are going to go wrong. It's how you respond to it and how you recover. It's the resilience of your team.”“ We have to make sure we're making calculated risks, but we also have to make sure we're creating a culture where people can experiment because that's how we're going to drive real innovation inside of our organizations.”---------Time stamps:01:08 - Meet Mike02:58 - The shutdown disaster05:38 - Managing risk06:06 - First CIO cyber incident15:17 - What we’ve learned29:23 - The fiber catastrophe---------Links:Find Mike on LinkedInFind Jonathan on LinkedInLearn more about NinjaOne

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  33:55
• Dead in the Water

  When a corrupted virus definition file was distributed by a centralized management server, it was up to Jay Abbott to find a fix for the company-wide blue screen of death. Jay describes how the emergency escalated, how he mobilized an all-hands-on-deck response, and how he diagnosed the issue.Tune in for a masterclass in incident response and disaster recovery as Jay, Director of Corporate IT at NinjaOne, tells his story to our host, Jonathan Crowe. ---------Key Quotes:“It highlighted that nobody plans for this scale of a problem.”“We tried to make it as fun as it could be. You have to be able to laugh at it.”“Communicate with users. They're a lot nicer than you want to give them credit for as long as they understand what the solution is.”“Don't let inaction paralyze you.”---------Time stamps:00:34 - About Jay04:04 - The incident12:24 - Finding a solution13:30 - Nailing prioritization20:24 - Keeping morale up in a crisis27:40 - Lessons learned30:16 - Jay’s survival kit32:45 - Advice for future leaders---------Links:Find Jay on LinkedInFind Jonathan on LinkedInLearn more about NinjaOne

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  32:57
• Hurricanes and Diesel Fuel

  Nick Colisto, CIO of Avery-Dennison, describes the IT disaster he faced during Hurricane Sandy. When the storm caused a major power outage and a fuel shortage, his company’s primary data center had to rely on generator power. Tune in to hear how Nick prepared, adapted, and fought through the emergency.Avery-Dennison is a global materials science and digital identification solutions company with locations in over 50 countries. They provide a wide range of branding and information solutions that optimize labor and supply chain efficiency, reduce waste, advance sustainability, circularity and transparency, and better connect brands and consumers.---------Key Quotes:"Cloud based systems can reduce dependencies, of course, on physical data centers.”“The event taught us that IT  resilience isn't just about technology, it's about people, about process, and it's also about partnerships and relationships that you had. You know, if we hadn't treated that fuel company well or We didn't have preparation for having our secondary site in place.”“Solve problems that you  probably didn't anticipate, you're always going to learn something new from these events.”---------Time stamps:01:03 - About Nick02:21 - Setting the scene03:46 - Nick’s career18:25 - IT horror story survival pack22:34 - Nick’s advice---------Links:Find Nick on LinkedInFind Jonathan on LinkedInLearn more about NinjaOneSubscribe on Apple PodcastsSubscribe on Spotify

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  24:43
• Trailer

  IT problems are a nightmare. And you’re not alone in losing sleep over them.If you’ve worked in IT, you’ve probably got a few ghost stories. This show is dedicated to those stories and the IT heroes who survived to tell the tale. Join your host Jonathan Crowe, and some of the world’s top IT leaders, as they recount the most harrowing experiences of their careers. They’ll share how they found themselves in hot water, managed to escape disaster, and their best advice for making sure you don’t end up in the sequel. This is IT Horror Stories, where the call is coming from inside the office. Brought to you by NinjaOne, the leader in automated endpoint management.

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