As millions watched the State of the Union address on Tuesday night, I know many of us in the cyber industry were interested to see if, and how, cybersecurity would be addressed. The subject has finally hit the mainstream media, movies, magazines and now the national stage! This is a striking departure after long being relegated to server rooms and basements, not board rooms. Now was our time!
Kind of.
Are the bullet points the Obama Administration shared with us during the State of the Union last week enough to combat the attacks by hackers around the world? It seems we’re going to need more teeth in the legislation to really fight back and protect our citizens, our businesses and our privacy from hackers around the world.
Joel Brenner, former senior counsel at the National Security Agency and author of America the vulnerable summed it up best in a post for Politico Magazine:
“Our nation is being turned inside out electronically and we seem helpless to stop it. The Russians have broken into a White House network and JPMorgan Chase. The Chinese have stolen blueprints, manufacturing processes, clinical trial results and other proprietary data from more than 140 companies and have utterly penetrated major media. The Iranians attack our banks, our electric grid is assaulted with frightening frequency and North Korea has brought Sony to its knees. Meanwhile, credit card data from big retailers such as Target and Home Depot are for sale electronically by the boatload. Infrastructure is at risk. Last month, attackers disrupted production at a German steel plant and damaged its blast furnaces, using only cyber methods.”
We agree with Joel and our VP of Product Management, Patrick Murray, recently shared his own opinions on the matter with WiredInsights. Hear from Patrick directly here.
We will continue to follow this topic closely to see if this buzz around Cybersecurity will be a flash in the pan – or a topic that continues to gain attention and more importantly, action, from not just our nation’s leader, but companies and users around the globe. We know this issue is not going away… We just hope this is the beginning of fruitful discussions to help address the fundamental issues surrounding Internet security today.
