Feds Must Adapt to New Style of Cyberwarfare, CEO Says

Symantec chief executive officer John Thompson says the landscape of cyberwarfare is changing, and to protect ourselves, the government must work to change our network defense.

In an article on the Federal Computer Week website, Josh Rogin reports that Thompson made the remarks during a keynote speech last week at the Air Force Information Technology Conference at Auburn University’s East Montgomery campus.

Thompson told attendees that, in the past, critical information was protected via a “suit of armor” approach in which layers of protection were added to keep information safe. These layers, however, restricted the data, hampering real-time use at the cost of mission performance.

“Cyberattacks have changed in recent years from amateur hackers seeking notoriety to organized criminal enterprises with financial or hostile goals,” Rogin writes. “For example, large-scale virus or worm attacks have decreased from about 100 from 2002 to 2004 to six last year.”

Thompson warned the crowd that today’s cybercriminal is interested in “perpetrating silent, highly targeted attacks to steal sensitive personal, financial, and operational information.”

According to Thompson, effective cyberdefense will depend on a mixture of protecting information technology infrastructure, protecting the information itself and protecting the interactions among people using the information.

To read the full article, click here: http://www.fcw.com/article95705-08-17-06-Web