Old Books & JuJu: ~Cyber-Security~

Technology in today's world is advancing, the hard part is that we are not talking about advancing in years anymore. No, today we have new developments and updates coming monthly, weekly, sometimes daily. We are all more interconnected than ever before.

I am a Computer Programmer in school, possibly looking into a career someday in Cyber-Security, perhaps in the NSA, maybe in a private company. I find the topic itself to be fascinating.

In case some of you are wondering:

Cybersecurity is the protection of all things Internet -- from the networks themselves to the information stored in computer databases and other applications. The concept grew out of necessity as businesses and agencies sent more data and processes online, and it's even more crucial now with the emergence of Web 2.0 technologies, which foster online collaboration and information sharing.

What I like most about the it in general I believe, is that those who are the best at preventing cyber attacks, are the ones who can perform them

Tulsa World
April 26, 2011

NSA Director: Defense Not Enough In Cyber Security

By Robert Evatt, World Staff Writer

Gen. Keith B. Alexander, commander of the U.S. Cyber Command, director of the National Security Agency and chief of the Central Security Service, says at least 5,000 new bits of malicious code show up on the Internet every day.

Alexander, who spoke Monday at the University of Tulsa, said these constant new threats mean that simply throwing up a computer firewall and fixing things when they break isn't good enough.

"We can no longer depend on a static defense," he said.

And it's not just individual computers or companies that could be vulnerable. Alexander noted that as utilities such as electricity and water systems grow increasingly computerized and interconnected, they too could be brought down by a cyber attack.

Already some utilities have experienced outages because of computerization. Alexander pointed out that the electric grid in the Northeast went down in 2003 because of software anomalies, and the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric dam in Russia suffered a catastrophic turbine failure in 2009 that killed 75 people because its stability software was down.

Alexander said protecting U.S. infrastructure is a priority, though the fragmented nature of the various technologies used by different utility companies make the effort challenging.

"If we only protect the military networks and not the infrastructure, then we'll have a great network that won't be able to talk to anyone," he said.

Worries about civil liberties often come up in discussions about computer security, and Alexander said he and his team are concerned about it, too. He added that the NSA "doesn't go through people's emails."

"We're not asking for one over the other; we should have both civil liberties and protection," he said. "As Americans, we should demand it."

Alexander said his agency's cyber activities are both defensive and offensive in nature, though he said he could not elaborate on particular offensive operations. He did note that the rules of computerized warfare are still being determined, such as what happens when an attack is routed through a hostile nation, a neutral country or the United States itself.

"These are issues we have to work our way through, because the laws and boundaries aren't clear," he said.

Some of those working in computerized defense under Alexander are graduates of TU, which he called a leader in the cyber security field.

"When I talk to people at the NSA, they have great things to say about the University of Tulsa," Alexander said.

In any case, just wanted to share this article with everyone and hopefully open a few eyes. A standard firewall is child's play for any driven cracker.

If some of you are wondering why I used the term "cracker", it is due to a very big difference in the online culture. Hacker has been passed around the media to now be seen as a derogatory term for an online criminal. These persons who commit crimes and break through the privacy of others are not hackers, but CRACKERS. HACKERS are those who when doing secruity assurance or vulnerability testing, do so only to reinforce new standards and security measures.

Simply, Hackers are good, Crackers are bad. Hackers wish to (this is generally) respect others by showing them their weaknesses and encouraging them to learn the ways of cyberlife on their own, crackers are the ones who commit crimes and purposes are to disrupt daily life of individuals and companies. They hide behind messages of "Freedom", but Crackers are nothing in reality but wasted talent.