Cybersecurity Goes Mainstream

Sunday night, the CBS news program 60 Minutes devoted its first 15-minute (or so) segment to cyber espionage, quoting such experts in the space as Jim Lewis, director of the technology and public policy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; Mike McConnell, former director of National Intelligence; and Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., co-founder and co-chair of the House Cybersecurity Caucus.

Those of us that have kept an eye on cybersecurity for some time didn't see anything terribly new. We heard about the 2007 Aurora experiment, in which researchers at Idaho National Laboratory demonstrated they could hack into the programs that controlled a generator and manipulate settings so it would self-destruct. We also heard about the vulnerability of our electric grid, the onslaught of cyberattacks against financial institutions, and the likelihood that enemy nation states have implanted malicious code in technology that the United States imports.

Even the one item that 60 Minutes presented as breaking news -- that power outages in Brazil in 2005 and 2007 were the result of cyberattacks -- was actually reported nearly two weeks ago by Wired magazine. Which media outlet had the news first is difficult to say, but a Web story in Wired quoted Richard Clarke, former special adviser to President George W. Bush on cybersecurity, referring to "Brazil, where hackers successfully brought down the power."

This is not meant as criticism of the 60 Minutes coverage. The fact is, the broadcast served a purpose: educating the mainstream audience about the seriousness of cyber crime and espionage. It's just unfortunate that so few are clued in this far into the game.