Over the weekend, I attended the annual convention of the World Future Society. There were several interesting speakers there, so all week I'll be tossing out nuggets of info that I gleaned from their presentations. One of the most worthwhile talks came from Bill Neugent, chief engineer for cybersecurity at MITRE, which manages federally funded R&D for the Department of Defense, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Internal Revenue Service. Among Neugent's observations on "cyberinsecurity" were the following:
1) Within the next 12 months, there will be some virus or worm that will exploit a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows and cause at least $200 billion in damage, prompting a migration away from Windows. "The Big One is coming," Neugent said.
2) Beware Trojan horses. While most attempts to hack or infect a company's computer system come from the outside, the ones that come from the inside are the most damaging. Companies have to be particularly concerned about outsourcing information-technology work, particularly software development, to countries like China where employers have less knowledge about worker backgrounds.
3) Terrorists probably feel that computer networks are more valuable online than offline, to allow them to communicate and transfer money, "or [the networks] would already be down," Neugent said.
4) Most security systems are geared to stop amateur hackers and not professionals, whether they be corporate or government spies. And the pros are almost impossible to stop. U.S. government "cyberops" guys, for instance, reportedly never fail when they attempt to break into a computer system.
