week 3 238
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week_3_written_assignment.docRunning head: WEEK 3 WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT 1
WEEK 3 WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT 2
Week 3 Written Assignment
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Introduction
Computer viruses, network outages, data compromised by hackers and other cyberspace incidents are affecting our daily lives in ways that range from inconveniences to life-threatening. With the increase in the number of mobile devices, digital applications, and data networks, the cyberspace and its underlying infrastructure are becoming more vulnerable to wide range of attacks both physical and cyber threat and hazards. Cyber security is becoming a major area in recent day’s security concerns. Eight years ago, in the US National Threat Assessment, cyber security was short read and it did not appear as a relevant security threat in the US. However, in 2014, cyber security was the number one threat to the US according to that year’s National Threat Assessment. Over a period of less than a year, the state department of the White House was attacked, the Sans Casino, and the infamous North Korean attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment Company (Beyond the Build: Leveraging the Cyber Mission Force, 2015).
One interesting thing that Admiral Rogers captures in his address in Aspen’s Security Forum is the attack on Sony Pictures which was pinned to North Korean government having sponsored it. The Sony attack unique in the sense that it was adversely public and the North Korean government had publically stated that they would take direct actions if Sony Pictures released The Interview movie, months prior to the attack. The other interesting thing about this attack was that Sony was hacked internally and the Wiper malware was launched internally in their systems which ended up destroying 70% of their computing capacity.
What interests me about the North Korean Sony Pictures attack is that unlike most cyber-attacks that are individually or terror group oriented, the intensity of the attack was that it was state sponsored. The way the United States government handled this attack was very different from the way other major cyber-attacks had been handled. Admiral Rogers affirms that no other cyber-attack has seen the president of the United States personally name the suspect country and that the North Korean case was different.
The whole Sony attack was revolving around the release of a movie and some parties being against the movies’ release. The major concern raised by this attack is what if the next time a nation state or a group decides they do not like a certain US policy or doesn’t agree with some company’s decision and decides to take the same road. My follow up question to Admiral Rogers would be if the US government and the private sector are placing measures in place to reduce internal attacks on their systems to avoid a repeat of a similar attack.
