Communications of the ACM
How Cybersecurity Became Your Problem
Fostering a sense of individual responsibility for cybersecurity will require citizens to get into the habit of securing their digital devices.
Credit: Belfast Telegraph
Cyberattacks are threatening to rise in frequency and complexity in the coming years, and this makes every person using modern technology a potential target, as such widely used technology is linked in some way to cyberspace.
The militarization of cyberspace is unworkable and would likely exacerbate the situation. Meanwhile, the vastness, interconnectedness, and mutable nature of cyberspace, which is composed of technologies and networks mostly owned and maintained by for-profit, multinational conglomerates, precludes centralized governance by any one public or private entity. Moreover, some federal agencies' desire to bolster cybersecurity protections is at odds with other agencies' advantages in keeping the world's networks open and vulnerable.
The expansion of cyberspace demands that businesses responsible for developing and manufacturing the myriad devices connected to it become more cybersecurity-minded, by baking security into their research and development protocols.
Reaching out and offering incentives to the hacker community for conducting responsible security research would be of enormous benefit to both industry and government. Equally important to such efforts is fostering a sense of individual responsibility for securing cyberspace, with citizens getting in the habit of securing devices and other linked assets via regular software updates, secure Web browsers, and two-factor authentication on email and social media accounts.
From Scientific American
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Abstracts Copyright © 2015 Information Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, USA
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