Why We Can't Wait For A Digital Enron To Do Something About Cyber Crime
from the or-a-digital-SarbOx dept
When discussing security, people tend to focus on big events, like viruses that cause havoc very quickly, or the laptop thefts at the VA. But as we mentioned recently, the real danger is in quiet,
slow-moving attacks that can go undetected for a long period of time. It's for this reason that hackers who are in it for money are putting their effort into malware of this variety. And it's also the reason that an increasing number of attackers are
quietly attacking small businesses, with a fewer number of potential victims. Swiping mountains of data from a major corporation is likely to raise alarms bells much quicker. Furthermore, small businesses are less likely to have advanced security in place. Some have said that nothing will happen to really fight identity theft until there's a
"digital Enron", an event so calamitous that the government and corporations are moved to act. But the reality is just the opposite; there are more and more mini-disasters, and fewer of the type of attacks that might be compared to Enron.
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The only thing...
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Re: The only thing...
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You'd be surprised (or perhaps not) just how many large corporations have dreadful security in place! In a lot of cases the smaller the company the more switched on to this type of threat.
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Not gonna happen this generation
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Nothing like a war to enhance enlightenment
Cyber-war will be a prominent feature of the next conflict between major powers. Not to mention death and extinction... but that's besides the point.
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it is time
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Hacking the Tail
This post brings it all home: there is nothing new about hackers quietly taking over small, under-secured systems. Consumers have been plagued by viruses since the dawn of "sneakernet".
You will need an Enron-sized digital cataclysm to effect change, not because of the fact that the threat tolerance for malfeasance is set too high (which it is), but because of the self-healing nature of the Internet. With so many redundancies in the infrastructure, whole nodes can be isolated and traffic can be rerouted, and most of us won't be aware of any changes.
In addition to redundancies, you have an army of skilled troubleshooters that has, thus far, risen to every challenge thrown at it. Unless I am mistaken, there is not one single festering boil that has repelled all eradication efforts.
Wait, Internet Explorer is still around.
That is the ultimate virus.
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