Hiding behind the Cloud
Neil Fisher, vice president of global security solutions at Unisys warns that a cyber weapon of mass disruption in the Cloud could have a hugely catastrophic effect on any company or country. It's time to beat the enemy at their own game. They think they can hide behind the Cloud. They can't but we can
Internet hackers are not limited by country borders and businesses in any region could be vulnerable to attack. Companies which see security as a cost centre and no more important than the corporate coffee budget are most at risk. By cutting long-term investments for short-term gain they are leaving themselves exposed and vulnerable to attack. Businesses that see security as a driver for revenue on the other hand, take security far more seriously and reap the benefit as a result.
The front line of any attack is also the average consumer, going about their everyday lives, largely unaware of how their personal information can be used against them. According to the Unisys Security Index, a bi-annual survey into consumer concerns, 87 per cent of UK consumers are worried about falling victim to ID theft. The widespread nature of this threat is difficult to comprehend and is constantly underestimated.
In this hyper-connected world, cyber conflict has the capability to exert an enormous and debilitating influence on our national leadership's decision making powers. As nearly all our decision making is dependent upon an automated information infrastructure, (facilitated by the Internet), we are finding ourselves increasingly vulnerable to the consequences of cyber attack.
Anyone who doesn't take the threat of cyber attack seriously and has failed to fully grasp what their dependences are, is at greatest threat. Yet understanding dependencies is a priority that often gets overlooked. Whenever a new information device is produced our dependencies change, often in subtle, asymmetric, ways; be that a main frame, a new form of communication fibre, a new edge device such as an iPhone or iPad.
We're currently in a position of system design stalemate. We have an information architecture based on a shared and constant set of standards. The bad guys have adjusted to these standards so if we make an improvement in our armoury by throwing another firewall at a problem, for example, it will only be a matter of time before our enemies find a way around this defence. This has very real similarities to the Cold War where conflict was avoided only by the threat of mutual assured destruction. Now we could be in the situation where a cyber weapon of mass disruption could have a hugely catastrophic effect yet our adversary does not have the same dependency as we do. We need to take radical action to counter these threats and this situation.
How do we gain the upper hand? We toss the rule book out of the window and make ourselves invisible. With Unisys Stealth computing you can actually affect the architecture of information systems so they can't be detected, let alone broken into. Stealth is a disruptive technology. It is ground-breaking stuff which will fundamentally change the way information systems are designed.
It's time to beat the enemy at their own game. They think they can hide behind the Cloud. They can't but we can.
Neil Fisher, vice president of global security solutions, Unisys
