Computers do not make mistakes, people do. We are the virus in each environment we hit. Just take a look at our own planet, we are cutting down massive forests and we are still using energy sources which can be depleted. This same behavior can be found in the business environments.
We all want more for less. This results in bad decisions or decisions which are made for short periods of time. I have learned that it is important to make a decision and stick to that decision, this decision could be the selection of a specific product or requirement.
In the IT business, it seems to be an habit to change from software and hardware suppliers after certain time periods. The reason often depends on the new IT manager or the cheaper product which can provide the same services. These types of choices are often made in personal interests and believe and are not made with future plans in mind.
If you have been eating at the same restaurant for years without any problems, why would you pick another restaurant which provides exactly the same?!
For example we could take the antivirus software which is run at your business environment. Some companies will simply choose to install a free antivirus package like the Microsoft Essential Security package, some other companies will install Symantec. The companies often select these type of antivirus packages because they have heard of them before. They do not take in mind to take a look at the methods which are used by the AV packages. For example, the F-Secure antivirus solution is able to provide a central management environment and it uses multiple scanning engines, which allows it to run on older systems. I am not saying that F-Secure is better, but what I am saying is that some research on the AV package is not a bad decision. The research will allow you to gain insight on the requirements which your business environment needs!
We are like Kryptonite when it comes to computers and processes.
Humans will always be the weakest link in business. The reasons are very straight forward.
Humans can be:
Deceived
Large amounts of money can be offered to perform a specific task in a business environment. This could be installing a Remote Access Trojan on the business network.
Black mailed
Humans can be forced to do things they do not want to do. Like the saying goes; EVERYONE has a price. Remember that the price does not explicitly has to be money. For example; unwanted pictures are often used to black mail victims.
Humans, we, will make mistakes! Hackers and cybercriminals are aware of these types of mistakes and they will try to create environment which increase the chance of such type of mistakes. A simple example is the infection of the CEO laptop, the CEO laptop could be infected by “accident”, the child of the CEO was playing on the laptop and accidently downloaded a remote access trojan.