Communications of the ACM
Some Experts Question Efforts to Identify Cyberattackers
Cybersecurity experts testifying at a recent U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee hearing disagreed about whether the federal government should explore new ways to attribute the sources of cyberattacks. Some experts have called for new attribution efforts, such as trusted identification systems, while others warn that oppressive governments would use new identification technologies to track political enemies.
Labeling Internet Protocol packets with unique identifiers "would be far more useful for authoritarian regimes to monitor and control Internet use by their citizens than it would be in combating cyberwarfare, crime, and nuisance behavior," says Council on Foreign Relations fellow Robert Knake. He says the U.S. government should focus more on preventing damage and protecting its systems than on attributing the source of attacks.
Ponte Technologies president Ed Giorgio called for new protocols that would identify users on sensitive networks. He says attack attribution could eventually be an essential part of the government's emergency response capabilities.
From Computerworld
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