I have taken extraordinary steps to secure my mattress from cyber attacks! And, with a generator at the ready, my electricity is hack proof ... until all gas station operations are shut down when their computers are hacked and the pumps stop working. Or, maybe, to my advantage, they are commanded to dispense gasoline for free!
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It's good to see the financial industry getting organized around cyber security. But I'd much rather see the power industry doing this. The risks to our electrical grid are far more severe and the impacts can be long lasting.
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Banks and other institutions will continue to be vulnerable as long as they employ self-important twits who insist on staying in touch with the job while sipping cocktails at a dubious hotel somewhere in a hot unstable country. Or who fail to understand why they can't get their e-mail on their personal laptops in coffee shops.
Mustn't be THAT busy if you have Facebook up and running as depicted in your cover photo!
Not necessarily; many major organizations actively monitor social media. Facebook and Twitter are essentially fire hoses of information - companies often find out about major issues through customers tweeting at them or posting on Facebook. There are plenty of Facebook groups, Twitter hashtags, and forums that security analysts keep a close eye on.
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Nice story, BUT scary. Obviously the usual suspects are involved in all of these attacks, Russia, China, and N Korea.
Then add in the Eastern European free lancers.
The internet is a blessing and a curse.
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An engineer compiled a "heat map" of attacks on his server from different countries. Top performers were the USA, India and Brazil. The usual suspects placed in the middle of the pack.
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Isn't the actual spend to combat this increasingly important issue only about $50 billion per year, where the losses, at present, at 10x or more?
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BLOCKCHAIN Software guarantees a valid trail of corrupted files, preserving the data. I wonder how long it will be until even that system is defeated. What BlockChain software the power is its distributive system, meaning that the data is stored in multiple private computers. Whether that system meets legal requirements for privacy is another question. But the logic is clear: if data is distributed according to a randomizing algorithm, that makes it a lot more complicated for intruders to be able to follow data and to corrupt the system to a point where it shuts down. Or worse, becomes subject to malware that results in ransom or other maneuvers of financial plundering. it is, no doubt, the bane of our digital world that the vulnerabilities are incomprehensible to the lay person and difficult if not impossible for the experts to protect fully. Things may not be at the point where investors are advised to purchase gold and hide under a mattress. But we may well be headed in that direction.
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