Conventional wisdom is telling us that “assumption of breach” is the new normal. Some well-respected names in computer security would have you believe that the appropriate response to such conditions is to increase the cost to the attackers. If you’re too expensive to breach – so the logic goes – the bad guys will go looking for someone else. Maybe someday, when everyone makes hacking too expensive, it will stop.

For all the benefits IT in general and the Internet specifically have given us, it has also introduced significant risks to our well-being and way of life. Yet cybersecurity is still not a priority for a majority of people and organizations. No amount of warnings about the risks associated with poor cybersecurity have helped drive significant change. Neither have real-world incidents that get worse and worse every year.

This post is based on an interview with Andy Lustig at Cooley. It is part of our series of interviews of OODA Network members. Our objective with these interviews is to provide actionable information of interest to the community, including insights that can help with your own career progression.

There are places on this planet where good, civilized people simply do not voluntarily go, or willingly stay. What elected governments do in safer and more developed parts of the world are carried out in these areas by despots and militias, often at terrible cost to those who have nowhere else to go and no means to go if they did.

There is something you really need to know about the State of California. They have optimized around a key function that they do very very well. They know how to collect money from corporations. They know how to collect taxes, and know how to levy large fines and collect on them. The business that owes California money will pay, and the State will likely do everything in their power to make sure they pay as much as the law allows. Keep this in mind as you read our guidance on the CCPA.