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Despite Recent Threats American Infrastructure Is Still Vulnerable To Cyber Attack
Trevor Boland
Staff Writer
2012-02-02
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When most people think of cyber crime and cyber terrorism, they think of credit card information being stolen, identities being compromised, and, most recently, massive DDOS attacks by organizations like Anonymous and Lulzsec. What they don't tend to think of is the water coming from their faucet, the lights in their home and the gas heating their houses. Yet the ramifications of attacks on these basic utilities could far outweigh those of identity fraud. And these attacks are on the rise.
 | | Despite Recent Threats American Infrastructure Is Still Vulnerable To Cyber Attack |  |
In 2010 the Homeland Security Department responded to only 116 requests for assistance from it's Control System Security Program cyber experts. By September of 2011 there were 342. All of these attacks aren't domestically originated, either. On Nov. 8 an IP address originating from Russia attacked an Illinois based water utility company, managing to control a Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition system, resulting in a burnout of the associated pump. These types of real world results to cyber attacks are not unknown. In 2007 hackers managed to attack a diesel generator, causing it so self destruct.
At this time, companies in the sights of these types of attacks can only prevent between 67% and 76% of these types of attacks. They could prevent more but there's one thing holding them back: money. Right now these companies spend $5.3 billion on cybersecurity. To reach a 95% prevention rate they would have to increase that amount to more than $46 billion, an increase they say their customers won't approve.
With the very real and national threat posed by cybersecurity some would like the government to step in and foot the bill for these improvements. Others may think that this is a private sector issue and the government need not intervene. However, Glenn Derene said it best in his October 2009 article, "The next world war might not start with a bang, but a blackout."
View All Articles by Trevor Boland
About the Author:
Trevor is a staff writer for the iEntry Network.
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