Page 50 - index

Cyber Armageddon

Is The Internet Spiraling Out of Control?

By Calum MacLeod, Director, Behaviosec AB

The doorbell rings and two lovely ladies are waiting for me, asking if I’m concerned about world
events, and if I’m uncertain about the future. They offer me a small leaflet that’s intended to
provide the answers that I need to rest easy, and then they are on their way. No question they
are well meaning, but they’ve been knocking on my door for years, seeking to calm my fears
about the ozone layer, bird flu, climate change, global warming, global terrorism, and today it’s
Ebola.

And in cyber space the same holds true. Daily we have to deal with news about more breaches,
identity theft, APTs, advanced malware, and cyber warfare threats. We are warned that we are
rushing head on to a cataclysmic scenario where society itself may be thrown into chaos due to
imminent attacks on everything from the financial system to the very physical infrastructure our
lives depend on. Scenarios that show the complete breakdown of social order, resulting from
sustained attacks on critical infrastructure which will bring everything from the banking system to
the road haulage infrastructure that ensures our supermarket shelves are filled.

While preparing this article, news has broken of a second major breach at Sony, which
implicates the North Korean government, and a report published by cyber security firm Cylance
says Iranian state-sponsored hackers have hacked critical infrastructure of more than 50
organizations in 16 countries worldwide in a cyber-espionage campaign that could allow them to
eventually cause physical damage.

Living In A Virtual World

The majority of us spend most of our lives in a virtual world. We no longer visit our bank,
because it’s no longer there. Many of the goods we buy come from virtual stores, and in many
cases our lives center on social media. And as a result, every day we share our identity and
personal details in millions of locations.

My cell is no longer primarily used for phone calls. Today it’s used for mobile banking, and
various other services that offer convenience. My car is now accessible online. I can follow its
location, turn on and off various features, simply by accessing an application on my cell.

But each and every one of these services require that they can identify me. And this is where it
opens up a Pandora’s Box. How many services does the average individual subscribe to, and
how do they authenticate?

Each of us have potentially hundreds of subscriptions online, and we identify ourselves with an
email address and a password. And in order to ensure that we can use the services, most

50 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – December 2014 Edition
Copyright © Cyber Defense Magazine, All rights reserved worldwide