Constant Vigilence
I was at the NY Metro meeting of Infragard, an organization I have been a member of in Boston and NYC for a few years. The speakers are excellent, the vendors who present stay on topic not on their brand, and it is a great place to network, and for me personally a great place to reaffirm that we live in the best country in the world and it deserves to be protected.
The focus of todays presentations could be summed up in the title of this post. We heard about the attacks in Georgia and did not know that there was a cyber attack that came from Russia at the same time mortars were being shot - a proverbial double whammy. The most interesting thing to me was that the folks who coordinated the cyber attack didn't have to recruit a bot army or drones. Russian people gladly volunteered their computing horsepower to fuel the cyber attack.
Another key point was made on how the perimeter is secure and porous and without easily defined and consumed policies - the threat vectors increase, not decrease. With the proliferation of social networking sites that distribute malware that is virtually undetectable by a lay person, the threat vectors have also been on the rise. Cyber crime has also become more profitable than drug trafficking.
Today's presentations reaffirmed my long held belief that the bad guys are far better at sharing information than the good guys and that needs to change. I am happy to play a miniscule role in getting the word out and to remind us all to maintain constant vigilence out there.
Live from New York...
The focus of todays presentations could be summed up in the title of this post. We heard about the attacks in Georgia and did not know that there was a cyber attack that came from Russia at the same time mortars were being shot - a proverbial double whammy. The most interesting thing to me was that the folks who coordinated the cyber attack didn't have to recruit a bot army or drones. Russian people gladly volunteered their computing horsepower to fuel the cyber attack.
Another key point was made on how the perimeter is secure and porous and without easily defined and consumed policies - the threat vectors increase, not decrease. With the proliferation of social networking sites that distribute malware that is virtually undetectable by a lay person, the threat vectors have also been on the rise. Cyber crime has also become more profitable than drug trafficking.
Today's presentations reaffirmed my long held belief that the bad guys are far better at sharing information than the good guys and that needs to change. I am happy to play a miniscule role in getting the word out and to remind us all to maintain constant vigilence out there.
Live from New York...
posted by Mark Mac Auley at 9/23/2008
Get My Identitystuff Newsletter
2 Comments:
Hi Mark,
Glad you found our Security Summit informative and a wonderful open exchange of information. This is InfraGard's communication and education program here in NYC.
We all take away different things from these sessions. For me it reaffirms that while we certainly need more students graduating with technical degree's and engineers to develop both software and hardware a lot of the problems we face today are of a NON technical nature.
So the issue for me is to find creative ways that InfraGard along with many trade and other organizations can help educate the general public about how software functions and to make our fellow citizens more sensitive to these devices that allow us to communicate just about any where in the world.
I think our Hawaii Alliance said it best and kept it simple: "Think Twice, before you click twice". Those words are so true. We need a vehicle to get that out and a microphone loud enough for all to hear.
Please do join us on October 14th as we discuss Utility Critical Infrastructure Protection.
All the best,
Joseph R. Concannon
hi marlk nice to know u
Post a Comment
<< Home