How To End The Age Of The Hacker
If plain-clothed Russian Special Forces broke into Walter Reed Medical Center or the Mayo Clinic and took all the patients and staff hostage, I’m pretty sure we would effectively end their threat in such a way as to ensure it never happened again. Not least among the options we would consider would be a retaliatory military strike against Russia.
If the Chinese military operatives that have managed to infiltrate the US and have been here for decades, neutralized and overran the premises security for Boeing, Raytheon, GE and several other Defense Industrial Base members and transmitted thousands of our most secret technology plans back to China, we would likely regard it as the most serious level of attack on America. Those PLA guerillas would probably not survive such a bold offensive action and I can’t help thinking the Chinese leadership would also personally feel the flame of American counter strikes.
So, why is it that we tolerate cyber ransom attacks that paralyze our hospitals and endanger the lives of thousands of innocent patients every year? Why do we shrug while adverse nation states and criminal groups compromise the personal, financial and employment security of untold citizens every year? Why do we put up with a massive global “Dark Web” that openly sells our privacy and intellectual property? Why do we not feel threatened because the Russian and Chinese governments probably know as much about each of us as our own government? We raise hell about domestic companies that track us, eavesdrop on our conversations and plant ads on us based on what they picked up from an active microphone in our TV set, so why not extend that hell to foreign entities?
Why do we let hackers feel like they can operate with impunity, savaging our countries citizens, ripping off our trade secrets and stealing our top military technology? Why do we not strike a viscous blow against foreign manufacturers that plant eavesdropping chips in the electronic products they export?
Why have we simply pivoted to spending billions each year on counter-spy technology and supposedly impenetrable security systems, which regularly get penetrated, to mitigate these blatant attacks? Why have we let the criminal scum and authoritarian sociopaths of the world force us into a life where everything is so damned complicated, where you have to have extreme security, dozens of arcane passwords and password-protected password managers, just to hopefully keep those jackasses OUT of our stuff?
I hope that one of the first things President Biden does, is to announce an end to the Age Of The Hacker. He should establish realistic, practical and effective measures with our cybersecurity community, intelligence agencies and military to end this. He should put the world’s hackers on notice that effective the first of the month, any attacks on American businesses, government agencies, medical institutions or databases will be considered with the same seriousness as a physical attack.
A cyber attack is just as serious as a home invasion, terrorist bombing or missile strike. It can paralyze, disrupt or destroy critical institutions and infrastructure, put thousands of people out of work, wipe out their finances and compromise their security and privacy.
A troubling newer development, researchers say some hackers are now specifically targeting industrial control systems (ICS) to directly infect computer networks that control operations in manufacturing and utilities environments. Those researchers have concluded that a new ICS malware known as Snake looks to be the work of a criminal operation getting involved in this space and represents “a unique and specific risk to industrial operations not previously observed in ransomware malware operations”.
In today’s world the equation is simply: why spend the money on a rocket or explosives when you can just destroy them from your keyboard?
Anything you can do with instruments of war, I can do with a computer. I can shut down your electrical infrastructure, put a StuxNet or Snake clone in your nuclear facilities, overload your telecom circuits, deny service to your critical online facilities, turn off the cooling to your massive server farms and cripple your military sensors and automated defense networks. I can activate a dozen Trojan horses that I planted in various strategic places over the last few years and take control of things you wouldn’t believe.
I can play hell with you, just by hacking all the cyber stuff you’ve all come to rely on and take for granted as you build your businesses, government information systems and medical and scientific research centers. And, why not?
Indeed.
We need to answer that question, Why Not, with some deadly serious consequences. They need to know that attacking us will hereafter put you in peril of not only a cyber retaliation but perhaps also a physical or military one. When the cyber punks, the Russian “mafia” and state-sponsored hacker pools realize that pressing that Enter key could cost them their computer, earn them a visit from the men with black glasses, a Seal Team or even a Hellfire missile through their bedroom window, then perhaps the Wild Wild Cyber West will come to a close.
Once the hackers of the world realize that not only is there a price that will be paid for nefarious computerized attacks but that we ALL need our digital resources, then the outlaws will largely begin to disappear.
We put an end to airliner hijackings. We made sure that no Asian country can break out of the Pacific and threaten us again. We set up defenses to ensure that Russia cannot just roll across Europe or send bombers swarming down on us from the North. We put an end to slavery and are restructuring our society as I write to ensure more equality and end hundreds of years of oppression.
We can stop hackers too. We just have to make up our minds and do it.