A former U.S. cyber security official and experts claimed a couple of days ago that U.S.' networks are extremely vulnerable to cyber invasions and that the government should prevent war with foreign nation at any cost. Their assessment confirmed the U.S.' lag in cyber security. Even though we know about multiple cyber attacks from China and Russia as I mentioned in my previous post, there is nothing we can really do about it. A lot of people definitely want to retaliate to these hacks or at least make clear that the U.S. will not tolerate such espionage because other wise these cyber invasions will just continue and the U.S. will keep losing valuable economic information. The problem is that we are not protected if we want to make clear retaliations. In the Associated Press article "Cyber Weaknesses should Deter US From Waging War" by Lolita Baldor, she claims that the US "might be able to blow up a nuclear plant somewhere, or a terrorist training center somewhere, but a number of countries could strike back with a cyberattack and 'the entire us economic system could be crashed in retaliation ... because we can't defend it today.'" This is extremely disheartening to hear about a country that has in past been feared by many other countries. Now, we have to be afraid of countries such as China, North Korea, Iran and Russia from destroying infrastructure, systems etc. These experts are encouraging the government to step in to increase research into finding bugs and malware and create effective defenses. Obviously, the private sector isn't doing a good enough job at protecting their networks and information. Nevertheless, government involvement is controversial. But if the government is forced to deter waging war, shouldn't it do everything in its power to fix such deficiencies?
Lolita Baldor, "Cyber Weaknesses should Deter US From Waging War," Associated Press. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j4_DOFqydEloIgIjsjVNUrMWhp7Q?docId=7ed0e8c366e84d4cb693a883122da1a1
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ReplyDeleteFor obvious reasons, I find the US' vulnerability to cyber-attack deeply, deeply troubling. In an age in which internet and computer usage are ubiquitous and colossal amounts of sensitive data are stored online, the prospect that our cyber-defenses are not capable of standing up to attack by hackers and viruses is positively terrifying. Adding to the unpleasantness of the situation is the chagrin that comes from the US, the country where the internet originated, no longer being the most up to date on net safety. In a politically troubled world in which there are still antidemocratic madmen in power and terrorists are increasingly tech-savvy, it is of the essence that the US invest serious effort in patching up the holes in its online defenses.
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