In today's digital world, the terms hacker and virus are widely recognized. Back in the day, Internet security wasn't something that many people were concerned about. But in November 1988, remote breaches were unheard of, at least until the Morris worm appeared. In less than a day, the worm affected 10% of computers connected to the Internet across the United States, causing $100 million in economic losses.
On the occasion of this ominous case, the members of the CompTIA IT Security community and its staff shared their thoughts regarding the state of Internet security in 2015.
“Unfortunately, awakening comes only after something terrible happens, not before”, said Andrew Bagrin, founder and CEO of My Digital Shield. “The problem is that we don't take things seriously and always look for ways not to spend money on prevention.”
Ron Culler, head of the technology department and vice president of Secure Designs, Inc, says that today there are about 3.2 billion users and 1 billion websites, but in 1988 it was not as easy to connect to a server or a system as it is today; you needed to have considerable knowledge back then.
“The emergence of the Internet of Things has raised the bar for security even higher. With the sheer number of devices connected to the Internet today, the sources of ‘infections’ have multiplied,” says Beat Kramer, CEO of Contronex, Inc. “This requires a multi-layered approach to security, including protection for BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and IoT (Internet of Things) environments.”
Patrick Lane, a senior executive at CompTIA, said that in 1988 the creator of the Morris worm had information that was known to very few and the Internet was mainly an academic, military and research tool! Since then hackers have become smarter and those who need to protect themselves must acquire a good level of technical knowledge.
According to Chris Johnson, CEO of Untangled Solutions, security professionals and everyday technology users have a role to play to stay away from hackers. “Three out of five passwords are a variation of the password 1234. We can be better, we don’t need to be at the mercy of hackers and Internet terrorists.
Tim Ku from ProEthicalHacker.com stated that hacks and vulnerabilities will continue to increase and may get out of our control. What is needed is a new Internet Protocol and it starts with a transition to a multi-distribution standard.
The Bagrin concludes by saying that “We security professionals must work harder not only to detect and protect against threats but we must ensure that our defenses have been properly developed everywhere. We also must ensure that people are educated about the simplest ways to protect themselves from attacks.
