DailyPost 1012
CYBER SECURITY WHITE PAPER
’’A white paper is an authoritative report or guide that informs readers concisely about a complex issue and presents the issuing body’s philosophy on the matter.’ Starting with the latter, the world’s most important threat evokes no urgency of response, full mouth lip service when incidents happen, there are no uniform global standards, there is no collaborative mechanism leave aside a regulatory body or bodies to enforce, biggest breaches can go unpunished and perpetrator declares himself the platform. While all have enjoyed the flowing dollars yet nobody is ready to safeguard its own backyard, while it goes on getting infested with snakes.
The world talks of its urgency from the rooftops, Tim Cook joined the bandwagon with the Stanford Commencement Lecture but nothing happens on the ground. It is a make believe world, while the Digital World is here to stay, a democracy, an intelligence agency, a business company, a service provider, government services, society or an individual can be be completely degraded by cyber attacks. Nonetheless, the business propers, of IT behemoths, of Cyber Security companies, of consultants, of tools, of professionals as scare means business and for sure of the hackers who create the scare.
IT Security professionals are certified by (ISC)2, researchers are doing their best, Symantecs, Kasperskys and Checkpoints do their bit, the cyber awareness campaigns are in full swing, GDPR and concomitant compliance have been believed to have happened, Julian Assange faces extradition, Edward Snowden is cooling of his heels in Russia, Silk Road was busted but yet Russian GRU exploits happen, SWIFT can be compromised, WannaCry rips apart National Health Service, UK, Lazarus commits financial hacks at will and ransomware is running amok all across the globe.
Many a US city municipality websites / services have been hit by ransomware, the recovery costing millions of dollars, besides the unimaginable inconvenience to public at large. This is not what the world has bargained for, nor what the IT behemoths promised. It’s time we put our heads together, face this demon head on and find a robust and a sustainable solution.
A WHITE PAPER ON CYBER SECURITY CAN BE THE BEGINNING OF A BOLD NEW CYBER WORLD.
Sanjay Sahay