The Department of Defense wants access to private computer systems in the name of cybersecurity. In addition to being a privacy nightmare, CIO.com columnist Rob Enderle says a centralized information sharing system will actually make the United States more susceptible to cyber attacks and suggests an alternate approach to cybersecurity.
This article from Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group is in response to the Leon Panetta, U.S. Secretary of State, speech on the liklihood of a cyber Pearl Harbor.
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Anything that the government gets its hands on where it’s in Canada, the U.S. or other places usually does not end well. But I am being too skeptical here.
Enderle said infrastructure systems such as electricity and heat “don’t share information well or have a common security structure.”
According to Enderle, a terrorist attack on one private or public system probably won’t even work on most others, since they run a variety of different security packages, operating systems and applications, all surrounded by different policies.
And he is right, but the terrorists probably know this already and it would still have a huge impact if let’s say the take the power out in New York City.
My take on Panetta’s speech is this. You have to really trust the government officials to not peek inside the personal computer data of its citizens. To me that’s a big stretch.
But we shall see. Still a very interesting read from Enderle as always.