You Can’t Keep the Crooks Off Your Network, So Now What?

Due to late nights and early mornings, I’m going to save my wrap-up from Cannes for one more day and point you instead to the new cover story in Fortune, entitled simply, “Hacked.” It’s a package comprising an overview of the state of play for corporations in defending themselves against cybercriminals as well as an intriguing look by Robert Hackett at Google’s (GOOGL) cyber bounty hunting project.

My colleague Jeff John Roberts and I wrote the top-level think piece. It’s a look at how these attacks occur, the startlingly corporate and collaborative nature of the new breed hackers, how companies are fighting back, and, inevitably, the multi-billion-dollar industry that has arisen to thwart the crooks.

By now most of you know that cybercrime has become a board-level priority at big corporations. What these boards have learned, often the hard way, is that crooks typically can’t be kept off a company’s network completely. Instead, the key is to have a cogent plan to safeguard key material once they’re there.

As Jeff and I conclude in the article, this is no normal fight. Wars, after all, end. This battle promises to continue indefinitely.

I hope you enjoy the article, and we welcome your feedback on it, as well as more examples of how you and your companies are joining the fight.

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Bloomberg’s Eric Newcomer is reporting that Benchmark Capital’s Bill Gurley is leaving Uber’s board, to be replaced by his partner Matt Cohler, and that TPG’s David Trujillo will replace the recently departed David Bonderman. The irony here is that Cohler and Trujillo originally sourced the Uber investment for their respective firms, and each was bigfooted on the board seat at Travis Kalanick’s request. Traditionally the investor who finds the deal joins the board, but there were always strong arguments for Gurley and Bonderman, who were more experienced that Cohler and Trujillo. The former didn’t cover themselves in glory in the governance department. Now their colleagues get a turn.