Page 5 - Cyber Warnings

Cyber/InfoSec Unification: Time for a Change

Charles Parker, II

Cyber/InfoSec is relatively new in comparison to other scientific fields, e.g. physics, chemistry,
circuit design, and others. Although InfoSec has been in existence well over a decade, this topic
has been receiving a significant amount of attention in the last few years, due to the email
provider breaches with instances of multiple compromises with single providers, utility
company’s equipment being compromised, utilities being shut down for limited periods of time,
and fast food restaurants. The breaches and compromises have caused a mass amount of
issues for all involved. This attentiveness has manifested its form with the increase in
publications, articles, and even the president noting this is pertinent. As this is a newer discipline
as related to others, this has not been through the intense, rigorous, and robust scrutiny placed
on it that others have. This form of discipline would place a more mature framework on InfoSec.
This is shown with other, more mature departments and areas of science such as physics,
chemistry, and others.

InfoSec
The InfoSec field and community have held onto a different application of this, which has tended
to be vastly unique in comparison to others. There may be a number of reasons, both known
and unknown, leading the discipline to this end. This current state may simply be a function of
InfoSec and its sub-fields not being as mature or seasoned as the others. There is a lack of a
coherent standard across the InfoSec industry, which would provide guidance, structure, and
ease of use for the pertinent, involved parties. Instead of implementing a simple set of standards
applicable to each form of action, each sub-field continues to complicate the issue to our
detriment with their own standards.

Autonomous Vehicles
Of areas of research and study within InfoSec, this is the most current and timely as the self-
driving vehicles are predicted to be fully operational within the next five years. Ford, BMW, and
other entities involved with this endeavor have clearly sted their goal is to have a fully
autonomous vehicle operating by 2020-2021. With this goal set in place, the manufacturers and
related entities are actively engaging their many architects and engineers to complete the task
of engineering and manufacturing the fully autonomous vehicle. The companies involved with
these project in various aspects including Google, Apple, Nvidia (Forrest, 2016), Tesla,
Mobileye, Delphi (Reese, 2016), Ford (Reese, 2016; Raven, 2016), GM, and others.

Each may have their own idea of the architecture implementing communication protocols, and
the other security and communication aspects that need to be addressed in order to be fully
prepared. Each has their own budget, staff, and resources being applied to this long-term
project. These entities may have wanted to work together at some junction, however this was
not a viable option due to fear of losing their intellectual property (IP) or their lead in advanced
technology in comparison to others.

5 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – April 2017 Edition
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