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Views: Two Grim Milestones

Let us begin with a word of gratitude.  Thanks to the frontline healthcare workers who are doing everything they can to help those in need — the doctors, the nurses, and the staff who demonstrate courage and grit on a daily basis and are an inspiration to us all.

The U.S. reached two grim milestones this week — 50,000 dead from the coronavirus and 26 million unemployed. Not very cheery news for a Friday.

The reality… the daily growth rate for cases has come down substantially, but until we get the public health crisis under control, it is difficult to reopen the economy, as much as we all would like to see it happen.  Expect reopenings to happen in fits and starts, with experimentation and pullback, as new cases of COVID-19 start to mount again.

This tension was on full display this week when Georgia Governor Brian Kemp announced that he would be opening up salons, movie theaters and bowling alleys.  But instead of receiving praise for his efforts, Governor Kemp was slapped down by President Trump who said “He wasn’t happy.”

Still, the economic distress is massive, and job losses will continue to rise.  So far, leaders in Washington haven’t fully come to grips with the carnage.  And the work that has been done — such as the troubled PPP small business program — has been met with mixed success. It is not a great look for Shake Shack and Ruth’s Chris to be the poster children for companies taking advantage of the situation.

That’s why we believe that there will be a robust Phase IV relief bill, and it will end up larger than expected.  There will likely need to be additional cash support for workers and the unemployed, funding for states and local governments on the brink, and some will push efforts to support infrastructure funding, but as of now it is doubtful that that type of spending will be included.

Cyber Corner

Courtesy of Josh Zecher

Some Good Cyber News (SGCN) 

With a hat tip to John Krasinski, we wanted to bring you Some Good Cyber News. Enter what some are calling the Cybersecurity Justice League.

Hackers and cybersecurity experts are joining together to fight the evil forces of scammers, phishers and criminals who have viewed COVID-19 as an opportunity to attack healthcare organizations.

Mega kudos to Marc Rogers (security operations lead for DEF CON), Nate Warfield and Chris Mills of Microsoft and Ohad Zaidenburg of Clearsky Cyber Security for forming the COVID-19 Cyber Threat Intelligence League (CTI League).

For the past month, the invitation-only group has grown to 1,400 members across 76 countries, taking down more than 2,800 criminal assets on the internet.

Not all heroes wear capes, but maybe we should get some for the CTI League.

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