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Cyber War Mass Hysteria Is Hindering Security

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the hysteria-is-hawesome dept.

jhernik writes "International cyber threat initiatives are in danger of becoming overblown, the US government's security chief told the RSA Conference in San Francisco. 'Cyber war is a terrible metaphor,' said the US government's cybersecurity czar Howard Schmidt. 'Don't make it something it's not.' Internet attacks from hackers, spies and terrorist groups deserves serious attention, he said, but this should not be 'to the extent of mass hysteria.'"

12 of 75 comments (clear)

  1. Hes right but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How is this any different from The War on Drugs, The War on ChildPorn, The War on Terror??

    One way...

    American businesses lose money if there is mass hysteria & people use the internet less.
    There was no downside to the mass hysteria on The Wars on Things except for the truth
    being lost in the FUD.

    1. Re:Hes right but... by Anne_Nonymous · · Score: 5, Funny

      What we need right about now is a War on War, man!

      [flashes a peace sign, rolls a doobie, doesn't trim pubic hair]

    2. Re:Hes right but... by HeckRuler · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There was no downside to the mass hysteria on The Wars on Things

      Buuwha!? I'm sorry, have you been under a rock or something?
      The mass hysteria over the war on drugs made the USA have one of the highest incarcerations per captia in the world.
      The mass hysteria over the war on childporn has given oppressive assholes the shoehorn to wantonly take over 85,000 websites. By accident.
      The mass hysteria over the war on terror has made flying a sexually abusive experience, and let Bush invade two nations, and arguably lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths.

      But oh hey, CORPUSA didn't lose their profit margins, so it must not be all that bad.

  2. Don't you mean... by BlackLungPop · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Cyberhysteria"?

  3. cyber cyber everywhere by Ancantus · · Score: 5, Funny

    Quote from TFA

    ” Cyber war is a terrible metaphor,” said the US government’s cybersecurity czar Howard Schmidt.

    It seems like 'Cyber War' is a terrible metaphor, but 'cybersecurity czar' is perfectly acceptable for eWeek

    --
    Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. -- Isaac Asimov
    1. Re:cyber cyber everywhere by decipher_saint · · Score: 3, Funny

      Watson's Gentleman's Dispute

      The only defense is a clone army of Alex Trebeks armed with one word answers.

      I shall hide in the American city of Toronto!

      --
      crazy dynamite monkey
  4. Cyberwar tends to be a misnomer by mlts · · Score: 3, Informative

    An intrusion attempt is an intrusion attempt, be it by a dedicated tiger team doing a pen test, some guy living in Elbonia testing his skillz, an enemy country with their intel arm probing for weaknesses, a criminal organization looking for organizations with their fly open to use as staging points for botnet C&C servers.

    An attack is an attack, and an exploit check is an exploit check. Who is doing it matters less than handling it, be it someone checking if the ssh daemon is buggy, or someone calling the front desk pretending to be the CEO and demanding a password.

    Ideally, people need to not focus on *who* is doing the attacks as the primary concern, but the attacks themselves.

    Since there is no good definition of a cyberwar, if one defines it as a country's military or intel forces attacking another site to find a way in, it can be said that there are plenty of cyberwars going on around the globe with almost every country going against everyone else.

  5. Schneier and McConnell yesterday by adenied · · Score: 4, Funny

    I was there for the Schneier / McConnell / Chertoff panel yesterday, mostly for the lulz and got some. Perhaps the best part was when Mike McConnell (former Director NSA and Director of National Intelligence) told Bruce Schneier that he was as big a supporter of privacy as anyone else, even him. The look on Schneier's face was priceless.

  6. Think of the chiiiiiiiildren! by Drakkenmensch · · Score: 3, Insightful

    But but but... without mass hysteria, how are we going to divert economic assistance to the poor into funding government initiative aimed at revoking civil liberties?!?

  7. Re:Sheez man, get with the plot. by camperdave · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Mass hysteria doesn't work in cyberspace. Mass hysteria only works on unwashed masses, not on a hacker culture with a long history of circumventing barriers, especially artificially imposed barriers. In cyberspace, everyone can hear you scream, so you have to be subtle. A deep packet inspection here, a closed port there. If you go off darking fiber willy-nilly, you'll awaken the wrath of the hackers on their home turf. You won't know what hit you.

    --
    When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  8. Mod parent up. It's about the money. by khasim · · Score: 3, Interesting

    First off, this "war" has yet to result in a single death of an otherwise healthy adult at home. So calling it a "war" is incorrect.

    Secondly, from TFA:

    Lynn claimed that spy agencies have gained accessed to weapons system designs and other military plans, source codes and intellectual property from businesses and universities.

    Exactly as spies have done for the last 2,000+ years.

    Schneierâ(TM)s fear is that we are on the verge of an IT arms race. âoeWe havenâ(TM)t seen offensive cyber weapons companies, but they are coming,â he said. âoeBig defence contractors are working on this â" you know they would be dumb not to.â

    I'm going to disagree with Bruce on this one. At least until he further defines "offensive cyber weapons". Again, not a single, healthy adult has been killed at home because of any "cyber attack" by someone using a "cyber weapon".

    The real problem is that so few organizations pay attention to basic security practices. Just look at HBGary.

     

  9. That's easy. by khasim · · Score: 3, Informative

    Protection requires 10% of ISP's to adopt a routing policy change. Let me know when that's done, ok?

    It would be done within 24 hours of such an attack actually succeeding. More likely within an hour.

    That's the core problem with all of these "disaster" scenarios.

    They depend 100% on all-of-the-interested-parties doing nothing at all to resolve or mitigate the problem(s) during / after an attack.

    There are lots of idiots out there who would not be able to fix their systems. But there are also a lot of smart people who know how to fix the problem but just haven't gotten management to buy off on it yet. That will change when there is a real problem.