CYBER LESSONS FROM SANDY

Whether in the 'real' world or the Cyber world there are real threats and dangers and there are perceived threats and dangers.   Sandy has just taught us about the reality of the force of nature when an extreme event occurs.    Destruction has been wrought on an unprecedented scale.  While we know that physical harm can be effected through  cyber-terrorism/war such as Stuxnet – the reality is that the hype about Cyber war is just that – hype.   These events, like Sandy, are rare.  

I contend that the sources of much of the scare-mongering  (about the ‘threat’ of Cyberwar )  are more often than not , entities/organizations/newspapers / journals that have a vested interest in the proliferation of FUD about the weakness of our Cyber defences.    Don’t get me wrong – I am just as concerned as the next guy about cyber security – all I am saying is – lets get some perspective on the matter.  

The defences that were put up against Sandy were found wanting – not because they were not in and of themselves suitable – it is just that we had a 100 year storm.  It is not economical to build appropriate defences for events that occur so rarely.    

I posit that we run a far bigger risk from the common garden cybercriminal who wants to steal identities,  steal your money or your IP.   We should concern ourselves far less about the big events – because they are so rare – and be really worried about our day to day activities on the Web.   Logging in to social media sites,  online commerce, online banking and remote working ( Corporate VPN’s) are much more dangerous because of the sheer volume of these activities and the large part of our overall economic activity they represent.  

We need to be skeptical about the Cyber -war mongers and more mindful of the dangers of our daily web activities.   You should demand better security of your online bank,  your ecommerce sites,  your social media sites and your corporations.   That is where the real dangers lie.