With the war in Iraq winding down and the war in Afghanistan heating up, many of us are unaware of the cyber-war raging on our own home turf. If this is old news to you, stay with me.
According to a Congressional committee, attacks on the Department of Defense computer systems jumped 60 percent in 2009.
Russia, China and North Korea have all launched sustained attacks on U.S. government agencies including the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of the Treasury.
Analysts believe that security standards like the ones created by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), should be implemented immediately. According to the experts, NIST could get us 90 percent closer to where we need to be.
In Congressional testimony earlier this year, former National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell said that we could be on the brink of an all-out cyberwar. McConnell’s view has been repudiated by the current Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
If Moore’s law is true, (every 24 months a dollar buys twice the amount of computing power that it did before) our enemies may be able to buy, beg, borrow or hack twice as much of our data as they can today for the same effort.
Computer scientist Daniel Geer Jr. aptly reveals what is at stake:
” We have spent centuries learning about securing the physical world, plus a few years learning about securing the digital world. What we know to be common to both is this: That which cannot be tolerated must be prevented.”
America’s most valued, electronically stored data is being targeted. Government agencies, private think tanks and university data warehouses are all vulnerable. The enemy operates from a distance with virtually no risk of personal danger.
What defense mechanisms can we construct to prevent our data from being stolen at the speed of light?
