Is Digital Pearl Harbor THE most tasteless term in IT security?
SophosLabs: Can hackers really cause as much bloodshed as 353 Imperial Japanese Navy fighters, bombers and torpedo planes launched from six aircraft carriers? Can hackers really kill 2,402 U.S. citizens, leave 1,282 wounded, lose 65 of their own attackers in the process, and plunge the United States into a World War?
Heaven only knows. Maybe they can. The lack of security around Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems is scary.
And unsecured SCADA systems are everywhere. They control nuclear and chemical plants, gas pipelines, dams, railroad switches, water treatment plants, air traffic control, metropolitan transportation networks, and the cash flow via financial transaction systems.
At any rate, the lack of security around infrastructure has been the cause of hand-wringing in the 12 years since former counter-terrorism czar Richard A. Clarke coined the term “digital Pearl Harbor.”
The term has been trotted out most recently in the wake of a report from Bloomberg Government and the Ponemon Institute.
Bloomberg Television has been comparing an electronic attack with a surprise strike that slaughtered thousands, and assuring us that spending by government and industry on cybersecurity has to increase by a factor of almost nine to prevent digital Pearl Harbor from “plunging millions into darkness, paralyzing the financial system or cutting communications.”
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