Losing the Hacking War in the US

Guest Post By:

Elizabeth A. Roque is a contributing writer for Franklin Debt Relief

You may think, since we don't hear about it very often, that the US is winning the war against hackers. This, unfortunately, doesn't seem to be the case.

According to The Wall Street Journal:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation's top cyber cop offered a grim appraisal of the nation's efforts to keep computer hackers from plundering corporate data networks: "We're not winning," he said.

Shawn Henry, who is preparing to leave the FBI after more than two decades with the bureau, said in an interview that the current public and private approach to fending off hackers is "unsustainable.'' Computer criminals are simply too talented and defensive measures too weak to stop them, he said.

Unsustainable?

Are people that, most of the time, have no education or training, really beating the snot out of top employees that have been dealing with hackers for years upon years?

Yes, actually, this is the fact. Many people heard about the hacking of Sony's PlayStation Network last year, which compromised thousands upon thousands of people's valuable information – and it didn't happen just once, it happened three times, and the network went down every time it did. Nasdaq reported similar attacks last year, which sabotaged 100 million accounts, and the cybersecurity firm – yes, that's a company that specializes in anti-hacking measures – was a victim to a hook that stole thousands of e-mails that were internally exchanged within the company.

Why is this happening?

How could this be happening?

Technology is simply advancing too fast for regular people to come up with. A better approach may be, ultimately, to hire the hackers themselves to defend the systems that they are trying to attack – and rumor has it, the next hits are going to be important, vital systems in the US, such as our nuclear reactor systems and ultimately, our bombing systems.

Some people are combating this fact, such as James A. Lewis, a senior fellow on the cybersecurity at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He says that that Shawn Henry, who is retiring this year from the FBI and moving to a different company, is being overly gloomy. "There's a kind of willful desire not to admit how bad things are, both in government and certainly in the private sector, so I could see how [Mr. Henry] would be frustrated.”

It's hard to believe that Mr. Henry is the only one worried about the overwhelming hacking attacks going on as of current, especially since so much of the time, companies don't even know their data was stolen and it's stumbled upon accidentally. In fact, a new study shows that 55% of hacking attacks are only found on accident, and only 13% are caught by anti-hacking software. If over half of the hacking attempts are found on accident, then how many aren't found at all?

This isn't going anywhere slow – the hacking is only going to continue to get worse, and we're not going to be able to do anything out it until we step up our game and stop acting like hackers are no big deal. Hopefully, this happens soon, as attacks are just getting worse: in 2010, a group of Chinese hackers attacked and destroyed a computer's defenses, which isn't a huge deal – except that that computer was in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The hacking group gained access to everything stored on its systems, which include information on millions of people – addresses, names, and credit card information.

We need to do more than just react, too, and as Mr. Henry says:

Companies need to do more than just react to intrusions. "In many cases, the skills of the adversaries are so substantial that they just leap right over the fence, and you don't ever hear an alarm go off,'' he said. Companies "need to be hunting inside the perimeter of their network," he added.

We need our leadership to come up with a strategy and start organizing against cyber attacks before it's too late to stop them.





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My name is Kevin, and that's what I think. What do you think? Agree? Disagree?

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