The third digital war Part 3
Rumors about a hundred thousand Chinese army hackers also difficult to consider exaggerated. In recent years in China, hacking has become a cultural phenomenon on a national scale. Hackers have not censured by the government and society, and became national heroes. The state finances the hacking competition, and the winners are recruiting for domestic surveillance of dissident minded citizens, and then for international cyber espionage.
Marketing research confirmed that the market of digital defense and attack is growing rapidly. Total for 2015 the governments of developed countries and private military companies are going to invest $10 billion in the form of dozens of contracts with contractors from all over the world. All developments in the area occupied by about 120 countries. International experts agree that next year this figure will rise to seven or eight times, in proportion to the number of successful cyber-attacks of cyber criminals and hacker groups called extremely promising virtually any position in this sector.
War without special reasons
In the corporate sector news about the hacks appear every month. Over the past year hackers have managed to crack the mobile operators T Mobile and Vodafone, sites on Patreon, Twitch.tv, Kickstarter and Ashley Madison, a chain of retail stores Target and Home Depot, and JPMorgan Chase Bank. In different cases, the amount of leaked information and its value are very different, but one thing remains constant: no company, whether it is at least a small startup or a multinational conglomerate, cannot guarantee the security of customer data.
Annual financial losses from leaks and hacks are astronomical 450 600 billion U.S. dollars, of which, according to various estimates, from 100 to 300 billion comes from the United States. Officials have long equated cyber terrorism to drug trafficking in terms of danger to society and damage. The total spending on network security is still not even crossed the mark of 100 billion.
All that money does not guarantee the safety of client and corporate data. Firms are implementing two factor authentication via SMS or USB keys, encrypt the data keys almost military style, protect the network by using the latest technology, but it also gives slack to the negligence of the employee. The famous saying of consultants on cyber security: "the Main patch should always be put on the user". And about this gap in protection is often overlooked: among the largest incidents of data leakage in recent years over and over again to meet those that were not involved hackers, and important information has been published by employees negligently.
If the digital threat has captured the minds of governments and the private sector, how ordinary people whose lives are also increasingly dependent on the Internet and social networks? Yes, of course, in the broadest sense of the words hacking page to steal password is also cyberterrorism. First of all, the scale: the last number that was published, for example, Facebook on the statistics of attacks was 600 thousand "attempts" to protect the network daily. The figure was last published in 2011, more similar data the network administration are not laid out, obviously, so as not to scare users.
War without wounded
When the leaders of the States in 1949 signed the Geneva Convention, it was about the "humane war". The document guaranteed the inviolability of the sick, the wounded, medical personnel and even laid down their arms soldiers.
Who would have thought that after 65 years any person is represented in the digital space an array of data: passwords, addresses, and account numbers, and the war will be fought not with firearms, artillery and aircraft, computers and skills of bypass of systems of protection. The war of the future, apparently, all can do without a single casualty. But a hostage it could be anyone. It is sufficient to disable antivirus and put in email simple password.