Sep 17 2007
Botnets. Phishing. Crimeware. Government-sponsored hacking. TD Ameritrade. Ad-based trojans. Some week.
Given all the press attention, you’d think all this was a big surprise. And I suppose it is to some people. The unwashed masses, certainly. The tech industry as a whole, apparently. The infosec community, not by a long shot. All the cyber-badness we’re experiencing today was foreseeable, and foreseen, a decade or more ago.
Why not the tech industry? I always tell people that it boils down to a lack of imagination. I’m not talking creativity. I’m talking about daydreaming over things like, What bad things might happen if somebody misuses [or abuses] this thing I’m building? What assumptions am I making, and how screwed are we if they prove wrong? Who’s going to feel the pain if I’m not thinking far enough ahead?
Questions like these are second nature to security minds. Until they’re first nature to technology minds, trust me, things won’t start to get any better. In fact they’ll continue to get worse. Scratch that: They’ll continue to surprise.
I recommend you get to know your neighborhood security geek. They’ve seen the future — and you can too.
Related posts:
Posted by Larry J. Hughes, Jr. on Monday, September 17th, 2007, at 11:01 pm, and filed under Articles, Future Forecast.
Follow any responses to this entry with the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can post a comment, or trackback from your site.
Riskbloggers - Security Wisdom ahead of the curve | 21-Jan-08 at 1:52 pm | Permalink
[...] I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Get to know your neighborhood security geek. Or Toffler. They’ve both seen the future. [...]