Steve MacLaughlin

Driving Change Every Day | Previously @Blackbaud + @Columbia faculty | Bestselling author of #DataDrivenNonprofits | Indiana University alum

[Steve MacLaughlin @SMacLaughlin]

Wow! #1 Best Seller in Nonprofit Organizations & Charities on Amazon #DataDrivenNonprofits https://t.co/z8SlaBB08o

[Steve MacLaughlin @SMacLaughlin]

+3 at home. @CelticFC

[Celtic Football Club @CelticFC]

Three points at Paradise! ✊

Job done, Celts ✅

#CELKIL | #CelticFC🍀

[Steve MacLaughlin @SMacLaughlin]

“What matters is consistency across teams, and across a whole company, and that is the human part of a Design System.”

[UX Collective @uxdesigncc]

What AI has changed in Design Systems, and what is still up to us https://t.co/4pPYSGM9vJ

[Steve MacLaughlin @SMacLaughlin]

Super Subs for @CelticFC

[Celtic Football Club @CelticFC]

+3️⃣!

#CelticBeşiktaş | #UEL | #CelticFC🍀

[Steve MacLaughlin @SMacLaughlin]

20th Big Ten Title!!! @IUHoosiers

[Indiana Men's Soccer @IndianaMSOC]

YOUR BIG TEN CHAMPIONS! 🏆

[Steve MacLaughlin @SMacLaughlin]

“But no matter how robust a design system is, it can't take into account all the potential combinations of layout and functionality a software application needs to work.” — @LukeW

[Luke Wroblewski @LukeW]

no plan survives contact with the battlefield and no design system survives contact with the product.
new article on how AI agents can fill the gap between design systems & product UI: https://t.co/sHgF2bSkZr

[Steve MacLaughlin @SMacLaughlin]

Grande Kimi! @MercedesAMGF1

[Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team @MercedesAMGF1]

12 F1 titles in this picture 🏆😮‍💨

[Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team @MercedesAMGF1]

ANDREA. KIMI. ANTONELLI. CHAMPION OF THE WORLD 🏆 🇮🇹

[Steve MacLaughlin @SMacLaughlin]

Home win. #HereWeGo

[Pittsburgh Steelers @steelers]

Happy HalloWIN‼️

@PALottery | #HereWeGo

[Steve MacLaughlin @SMacLaughlin]

Homecoming Hoosier Hero! @IUHoosiers

[Indiana Football @IndianaFootball]

CHARLIE B.

#IUFB 23, UMN 22 | OT

[Steve MacLaughlin @SMacLaughlin]

Bravo! @LewisHamilton @ScuderiaFerrari

[Scuderia Ferrari HP @ScuderiaFerrari]

A FIRST POLE POSITION IN RED FOR LEWIS HAMILTON!! 🔴 🔥

[Steve MacLaughlin @SMacLaughlin]

“How you do something is how you do everything.” — @CCignettiIU

[Mike Schumann @ The Daily Hoosier @daily_hoosier]

Curt Cignetti talking about why he values academics when evaluating prospects. Good stuff here for anyone who wants to play college sports. Via IU Athletics. #iufb

[Steve MacLaughlin @SMacLaughlin]

Process is a tax. Not all taxes are worth it.

[Des Traynor @destraynor]

This is solid wisdom
(The slack screenshot is the key bit)

[Steve MacLaughlin @SMacLaughlin]

Don’t build a bigger moat. Build something that can survive the invention of the canon.

[Steve MacLaughlin @SMacLaughlin]

Victory in Paris! #HereWeGo

[Pittsburgh Steelers @steelers]

Au revoir 👋

@PALottery | #HereWeGo

[Steve MacLaughlin @SMacLaughlin]

Winning in the capital. #COYBIG @CelticFC

[Celtic Football Club @CelticFC]

FULL-TIME ⏱️

🔒 Three points secured at Easter Road!

#HIBCEL | #CelticFC🍀

[Steve MacLaughlin @SMacLaughlin]

The Curse is Broken! @IUHoosiers

[Indiana Football @IndianaFootball]

Win secured.

[Steve MacLaughlin @SMacLaughlin]

“The internet isn't held together with code.

It's held together with servers everyone is afraid to turn off.”

[Derek Devicemanager @IT_unhinged]

Security called me at 6:12 AM today.

"Patch every PHP server immediately."

I asked what happened.

"Two critical vulnerabilities. Remote code execution. No authentication required."

Cool.

How many PHP servers do we have?

According to inventory: 12

According to reality:

Nobody knows.

We found one running WordPress.

Three running old internal tools.

One under someone's desk.

Two inside vendor appliances.

A forgotten employee directory from 2016.

And a server named:

PHP-OLD-DO-NOT-TOUCH

Naturally, that one runs payroll exports.

Then we found a PHP 5.6 box.

I asked who owned it.

The documentation said:

BRIAN.

Brian left in 2019.

We called Brian.

He said:

"Oh wow, that's still running?"

Excellent.

By 8 AM, leadership joined the incident call.

CEO:

"Can hackers actually get in?"

Security:

"Potentially yes."

CEO:

"Without a password?"

Security:

"Yes."

CEO:

"Then why do WE need passwords?"

Not the lesson.

Finance asked if we could wait until the weekend to patch because downtime affects revenue.

Security explained that the alternative was letting strangers execute code on our servers.

Finance asked for a cost comparison.

At 9:17, someone suggested temporarily taking the vulnerable websites offline.

Marketing refused.

"Our campaign is live."

So for the next hour, the company officially decided maintaining a landing page for 20% off webinar registration was more important than preventing remote server takeover.

We finally patched everything we could find.

Then our scanner discovered another PHP server.

Hostname:

TEMP-PHP-2014

Uptime:

4,512 days.

Nobody knows what it does.

Nobody owns it.

Nobody can shut it down.

But every time we block network access, the warehouse stops printing shipping labels.

Security has classified it as critical infrastructure.

It is running PHP 5.4.

The vulnerability has existed longer than half our employees.

The emergency patch took four hours.

Finding out what PHP actually runs took eleven.

The internet isn't held together with code.

It's held together with servers everyone is afraid to turn off.

[Steve MacLaughlin @SMacLaughlin]

Successful business trip. #HereWeGo

[Pittsburgh Steelers @steelers]

The Buc stops here‼️

@PALottery | #HereWeGo

[Steve MacLaughlin @SMacLaughlin]

The Magnificent 7 at Celtic Park!

[Celtic Football Club @CelticFC]

Beautiful Sunday ☀️

#CELHEA | #CelticFC🍀

[Steve MacLaughlin @SMacLaughlin]

#herewego

[Pittsburgh Steelers @steelers]

Hold your horses

@PALottery | #HereWeGo