Crumbling Global Security Ties?
There's a lot of talk in cybersecurity about what we need to do, but not always talk about what we have done. And that might be because the global response hasn't been sufficient enough.
There's a lot of talk in cybersecurity about what we need to do, but there's not always talk about what we have done. And that might be because the global response hasn't been sufficient.
For instance, it's imperative that more countries across the world write the legal and political policies to properly investigate cyber crimes and to keep up with the growing attacks. According to Symantec's Internet Security Threat Report, criminals were responsible for creating 240 million new malicious programs in 2009, twice the number found in 2008's report. While the numbers rise, global information sharing isn't necessarily keeping pace.
"It's a highly diplomatic type of thing," said Benjamin Wright, a lawyer and legal instructor with the SANS Institute. "A whole bunch of baggage gets loaded onto these things where it's not just about law enforcement, but about a whole relationship between one country and another."
Not only do countries have to grapple with who's responsible for investigating and prosecuting cyber cases, but there need to be international standards put in place for properly processing evidence. Perhaps it all starts with information sharing, a point of emphasis so far for the Obama administration. The issue, however, is that only about 50 countries currently are sharing information regularly, according to Phil Reitinger, deputy undersecretary of Homeland Security's National Protection and Programs Directorate. This doesn't even take into account putting the structure in place to handle other important attributes of law enforcement.
"Cybercrime has emerged so fast in historical terms, and it touches so many jurisdictions at once that it severely strains the historical ways that law enforcement does cross border coordination," added Wright.
One outfit has been tasked with developing a code of practice for cybersecurity law enforcement: The Australian Internet Security Initiative. The dialog is ongoing, but I haven't heard of any actionable items yet. This concerns me greatly, as the numbers of sophisticated attacks continue grow. One of the scarier points made by Reitinger is how cybercrime doesn't even take a lot of skill these days. "We have to step our game up," he added. "There are very good ones, but it's not hard to do."