by Ilan Gattegno
A cyberattack can
cripple an entire nation; that much, we already know. The practice of
e-government makes the state more vulnerable to cyberattacks; downing a
bank's website can interfere with the financial market and infecting a
popular news website with a Trojan horse can affect all of its readers'
computers, mirror passwords and conduct industrial espionage.
It is hard to gauge the
scope of the cyberattack planned for April 7, but we already know that
dozens, if not hundreds of hackers will take part in the coordinated
assault, orchestrated by Anonymous. Those hackers will undoubtedly
employ tens of thousands of computerized robots that will try
simultaneously to disrupt Israel's Internet.
This problem has to be
addressed, and not by putting up more and more firewalls. Gearing for a
cyberattack does little to prevent one, and taking computerized systems
offline implies helplessness.
We also have to be able
to tell cyberattacks apart from information security threats, since
each requires different protection. In a country like Israel, where the
Internet is a highly sensitive nerve, this threat has to be properly
assessed, analyzed and thwarted. Cyber protection has to be
comprehensive on every level and risk assessment should be conducted for
every source code, domain and application, to ensure they meet the
various security challenges they face. There is no shame in admitting
when we are wrong.
Unfortunately, the
Israel National Cyber Bureau has been virtually silent on the matter so
far, and has yet to assume a significant role in better educating the
public on the nature of cyber threats.
We know that the
National Cyber Bureau exists and we know that it employs an elite force
that oversees operations whose details best remain under wraps. We can
probably rely on them, but there is no such thing as total security.
Ilan Gattegno
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=3881
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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