Author: ma163769

The growing prospect of cyber warfare needed to be addressed urgently before such weapons broke down the entire edifice of international security, heard the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) as it considered other disarmament measures, before concluding its thematic debate.

source  The UN Economic and Social Council

A new benchmarking study of 19 of the world’s 20 leading economies found that the United Kingdom and the United States lead Group of 20 (G20) countries in their ability to withstand cyber attacks and to deploy the digital infrastructure necessary for a productive and secure economy. The index also found that several major economies–Argentina, Indonesia, Russia and Saudi Arabia–do not have cybersecurity plans and do not appear to be developing them. The index is at www.cyberhub.com .

Terrorism and cyber warfare are the two most important threats to humanity, and NATO and the European Union must take steps to create defense systems. The possibility of starting a cyber-war is analyzed with seriousness and professionalism, given that such a conflict would throw the world into chaos unimaginable.

Until today, 90% of attacks that could be considered legal, terrorist-informational, did not reach any legal discussion because “victims” have been thousands of miles of “attackers” positioned in different countries or continents and in most of them as “attackers” were working in the service of states.

The first reported cases of terrorism informational caused by terrorist groups “established” occurred in 1998 in Sri Lanka by “Tamil Tigers” in Serbia in 1999 by one of Serbian policeman who attacked NATO information systems, and of course in the conflict between Hamas and Israel-Hizbulah since 2006.

There are many cases that do not reach the press because of restrictive legislation on terrorism, for example, several attempts to derail fast trains in Japan (Shinkansen), which are fully computerized or in some cases criminal penetration of air traffic control networks.

Source Knowledge Horizons. Economics

The past two decades has witnessed a number of initiatives by international bodies like; the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Council of Europe (COE), G-8, European Union, United Nations and the Interpol, which recognized the inherent cross border reaches of cybercrime, the limitations of unilateral approaches, and the need for international harmony in legal, technical, and other areas.

 

In cyberspace a cyber attacker can hide himself readily, and even disguise his attack to appear to originate from a third party. The problem of attribution for a cyber-action is clearly one that will complicate any effort at security controls. Uncertainty about attribution will also constrain retaliatory action. The current level of research in reliable attribution is not adequate. The cyber crime treaties cannot be implemented unless trust exists between signatories that best efforts are being put to identify the criminals and therefore, transparency is first precondition for success.

The inability to track cyber terrorists would make it difficult for local and international jurisdictions to track the entire network of cyber terrorists as well as to prosecute them due to the lack of proof of identification of these cyber terrorists. The potential adoption of a new variant of Cyber Crime and Terrorism convention by all nations would provide the eco-system that may put the criminals and terrorists under pressure and increases the success probabilities of the international law enforcement agencies.

Source     Norbert Wiener in the 21st Century (21CW),  IEEE Conference

THE VAST stores of digital information generated by everyday lives communications data, credit-card records and much more are now yielding invaluable clues about the terrorist attacks in Paris and are helping guide the hunt for the surviving plotters. But prevention is better than cure. The attacks have highlighted the failure of the authorities to share information across borders and agencies. How can this be improved?

Each government sets different rules for what data may be looked at, by whom and with what authority. This is partly due to politics (Belgium has numerous squabbling police forces); and partly because of legal restrictions as the European Parliament takes privacy extremely seriously, as does the German government. Many Europeans fear that any data shared with America will be snooped on by spy agencies. The attacks also reignited a long-running debate about encryption encoding messages such as e-mails, in ways that even government intelligence agencies cannot break (it is easy to make a code, even with an ordinary computer, and much harder to break it).

Breaking down barriers to information-sharing is a much better idea. Terrorists and criminals cross national borders easily. Law-enforcement should be able to do the same. The police should have access to databases such as passenger name records on internal European flights, and the fingerprints of people who have arrived claiming refugee status. Interior ministers are already pushing strongly for this. Public worries about privacy and abuse of power are reasonable, but the answer to that is good intelligence oversight. Britain for example, is making reforms which would require the spy agencies to have judicial authorisation before they bug individuals, rather than just doing on a politicians say-so.

 

Source : The Economist (Online)

         The growing importance of ensuring cyber security remains a central theme on which nations can build their digital transformation  programmes was made clear in the second half of last year when the European Union (EU) reached agreement on cyber security rules across all its members .

The ruling marked the first time the EU has ruled directly on cyber security and is clearly a response to the exponential growth in cyber security incidents. The emphasis on critical national infrastructure is an overdue recognition that as software and control systems become increasingly integrated, cyber attacks can have devastating and lasting impacts in both the cyber and physical worlds. As one of the largest economies in the world, this step by the EU is significant.

The time to effect these changes is now. The Internet is less than 30 years old and it was never built for security. It’s only in the last 20 years, as it has morphed into a platform for global commerce, that this has become a fundamental concern. The field of cyber security law is new and approaches to combating threats are still evolving. Inevitably, the effectiveness of any new regulations must lie in the details of their implementation.  It is worth watching and learning from the EU’s unfolding cyber security regulations as they pass through their final stages in the European Parliament. It is vital that they enhance the security of the EU’s nations.

source : ArabianBusiness.com

Facing more frequent cyber attacks on the global financial system, the world’s major advanced economies are racing to bolster cyber security protections.Top finance officials from the Group of Seven leading advanced economies, meeting in Japan through Saturday, are taking stock of their nations’ cybersecurity and are working on plans to improve coordination globally. Recent cyberattacks on banks in Vietnam and Bangladesh put financial institutions and regulators on edge about weaknesses in the global financial infrastructure, including the Swift global inter bank messaging service where breaches occurred.

“There are many institutions and many countries who think they can just wait for the perfect technology, a silver bullet to make these issues go away. But they’re not going away,” said Deputy Treasury Secretary Sarah Bloom Raskin, who is leading U.S. efforts to create a financial-sector cybersecurity framework among the G-7.

The latest findings include an assessment by each G-7 member of its cybersecurity infrastructure in an effort to create common security standards. Their discussions will set the stage for a G-7 cybersecurity agreement that Ms. Raskin hopes to see by October.

The Treasury Department’s latest steps within the G-7 follow years of efforts by the Obama administration to address cybersecurity concerns on a range of fronts including energy and hacking by nations. Last fall, for instance, the Group of 20 leading economies—including China and Russia—agreed that no country should support cyber-enabled theft of trade secrets and other intellectual property for commercial purposes. Government officials acknowledge that a similar pact for financial-sector cybersecurity at the G-20 level is likely much further down the road.

  Source :The Wall Street Journal Online

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Intel Security, in partnership with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, has just released Hacking the Skills Shortage, a global report outlining the talent shortage crisis impacting the cybersecurity industry across both companies and nations.

Global organizations are more confident than ever that they can predict and resist a sophisticated cyber attack, but are falling short of investments and plans to recover from a breach in today’s expanding threat landscape, according to the annual EY Global Information Security Survey (GISS), Path to cyber resilience: Sense, resist, react.

57% of respondents rate business continuity and disaster recovery as a high priority, but only 39% are planning to invest more in it in the coming year