🧵
Steve Morgan continues his unashamed touting of absurd guesstimates (see below).

So, let's chart his multi-trillion annual "global cost of cybercrime" as the individual cost to every man, woman, and child on Earth:

cc: @sawaba @KimZetter @shanvav @JMBooyah @nicoleperlroth Image
Steve Morgan's guesstimates stretch from 2015 to the end of 2025. This chart shows how, in less than two years, everyone on Earth will be on the hook for $8,441 of his "global cost of cybercrime."

And that's just by 2025! It gets WAY worse as you project a few years forward... Image
"$10.5 trillion" exceeds $1,000 annually for only 8+ billion people on Earth. It's simple math.

When we project the 20th year of Steve Morgan's absurd guesstimates, we see the "global cost of cybercrime" per capita in 2034 will reach $19,507 for every man, woman, and child: Image
If we REALLY want to get absurd, we can use Steve Morgan's "$10.5 trillion" as a static value and chart it against the U.N.'s population estimates through the end of this century.

Every human on Earth born in 2015 who lives to see the year 2100 will be on the hook for $87,715: Image
In all this, I'm the only one who cites sources. Steve Morgan has not revealed where his data comes from--

--and he's known to commit elementary math errors in something as simple as a percentage calculation:
Now, at some point I'll get yelled at for HELPING Steve Morgan.

Yes: "helping."

He's learning from my research efforts against him.

For example, it appears he didn't compare his values as a % of the global GDP before I did -- and he STILL got it WRONG:
So, I fully expect Steve Morgan will start wailing how "the global cost of cybercrime" will exceed $1,000 per year per capita NEXT YEAR.

Because he must, now that I've covered it.

He's adamant that cybercrime costs now rise 15% annually. And we only have 8+ billion people... Image
Now, full disclosure: I don't calculate Morgan's values as a 15% annual rise. Rather, I calculate it as a linear daily increase based on his specific numeric #guesstimates for 2015, 2021, and 2025.

I log some extra math just to make sure I hit every target year out to 2100: Image
And there's the rub:

Steve Morgan doesn't cite sources for his alleged data, and he refuses to correct even the most obvious elementary math errors.

Oh, and he'll be spouting all his bullshit at the upcoming RSA shindig:

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Okay, now for the fun part:

I inserted an elementary math error in one of my tweets. Can you find it?

Or did you just take me blindly at face value like so many people in our industry take Steve Morgan at face value?
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More from @vmyths

Mar 3
I agree 💯 with @mikko here.

BUT--

--he might be missing the Pentagon's perspective. So, let me fill y'all in.

Tanks, missiles, etc. are #classic: they deploy everywhere to strike anything. Need to put a hole in something? Tank. Obliterate? Missile. Crater? Bomb…
…but a cyber weapon is #unique as @mikko said. It deploys against a particular version(s) of Windows, or Linux, or even #antivirus software.

At this point you'd be totally correct to say "Rob, you can't drop a 30lb incendiary bomb to take out an underground bunker!" But the… Image
…issue here is "classic."

In WWII, we dropped 30lb incendiary bombs across Germany to demoralize and kill their civilian populations.

Now, in #cyber, you can issue an update, change a setting, even retreat from the Internet. In the real world, though…
ImageImage
Read 5 tweets
Mar 3
🧵
"#Antivirus software is a future Trojan horse."

There. I said it.

"But Rob! You were defending Kaspersky just a few days ago!"

NO.

I've fought a crude #UrbanLegend in our industry that's simmered since the FBI threw a shit-fit over something they've never proven.
Worse, our own global community has never proved it -- and we've got every good reason to prove it if true.

But hey, our industry turned the tables on Kaspersky the day his dictator launched a genocide campaign.

Because we're just like that. We've always been like that.
That's why our industry's #ThoughtLeaders can dance on a pinhead: because IT'S EASY!

The logic in the back of their minds is simple: "Kaspersky is a Russian billionaire who craves genocide in Ukraine and does anything Putin asks. I must destroy Kaspersky with all my willpower."
Read 10 tweets
Feb 24
🧵
Today marks the first anniversary of the Russia-Ukraine #cyberwar that killed <checks Microsoft's & Mandiant's reports> no one.

Let's go over last year's mass cyberwar #panic. We'll begin with one of the earliest calls to #boycott @Kaspersky:
There was an immediate feeling that everyone must cancel all Kaspersky subscriptions, as if customers -- especially corporate clients -- had a competitor's product waiting in the wings to replace it in some trivial fashion:
Likewise, there was an immediate plea to [translated] "remove Kaspersky from your PC. Now. Immediately." Again, as if customers -- especially corporate clients -- could do it trivially and without serious consequences:
Read 36 tweets
Jan 5
"in which I address some criticisms (some fair, others not)" ⤵️🤨

Let's talk cybersecurity.

Historically, those who were critiqued felt victimized. These victims often lumped non-critique #heckling with legit #criticism to shield their egos.

The use of #comedy tools in…
…legitimate criticism led many (perhaps most) victims in #cybersecurity to cry out that humor negates legitimacy: "the stakes are too high for <THIS|ME>to be taken so lightly!"

Yet these same victims adore e.g. Jon Oliver for his brutal use of #comedy in legitimate criticism.
And here we arrive at the crux of the matter:

The victims, not the #elements of legitimate #criticism, decide what is "fair" in cybersecurity.

This way, anything that is not ✌️criticism✌️ may be labeled as such so victims can associate legit critics to their SCUM counterparts.
Read 10 tweets
Dec 19, 2022
553 days ago, Steve Morgan's astronomically large yet unexplained #guesstimate for "the cost of cybercrime" exceeded the entire U.S. national debt.

Morgan has bragged that his wild-ass guess is already larger "than the global drug trade":
1/🧵
"Staggering" is ✌️right✌️ — it amazes me how often Steve Morgan's absurdities #dupe cyber experts like @dralissajay, @WaleMicaiah, @lhmphaphuli, @KenBeattyJr, @eSentire, @LilyLopate, etc.

So, let's chart him against the GLOBAL GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT
2/🧵
This chart plots Steve Morgan's asinine #guesstimates against WorldBank.org's figures for the 2015-2021 Global Gross Domestic Product with projections up to 2024. For 2025 onward, these charts show a 2.5% increase from an acceptable 2-3% for a healthy global GDP.
Read 10 tweets
Dec 16, 2022
Yes: John McAfee.

What we call "the cybersecurity industry" [d]evolved from the #antivirus industry that formed in 1988 when John proposed "NCSA" as a media con game. It later split in two (think "Good/Evil Kirk"), and the good stuff became what we know today as ICSA Labs.
John's antics appealed to reporters infatuated with the newfangled idea of a computer virus. Some vendors (e.g. Solomon's) shunned it but others (e.g. Panda) couldn't help but play along.

Still, the allure of media exposure tainted nearly everything it touched. There was no…
…ethical foundation in these early days. SANS formed to fill this hole but it struggled at first to make inroads. The late @howardas formed an ethics team inside the White House that ultimately vetted SANS, and he pushed it with every fiber of his being.
Read 5 tweets

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