Six Lines

Schneier on Cyberwar Hype

Posted by Aaron Massey on 07 Jul 2010.

If you didn’t have time to watch the video from my earlier post, Bruce Schneier has a succinct opinion article on CNN about the hype surrounding the threat of cyberwar that summarizes his thoughts on the topic.

Here’s a particularly interesting thought from the article:

We have a variety of institutions that can defend us when attacked: the police, the military, the Department of Homeland Security, various commercial products and services, and our own personal or corporate lawyers. The legal framework for any particular attack depends on two things: the attacker and the motive. Those are precisely the two things you don’t know when you’re being attacked on the Internet.

Many of the questions about reacting to cyber attacks boil down to how you react when we just don’t know who’s responsible or why they did it.