Security expert warns: 'Recognize and deal with cyberspace threats'

By Brice Wallace

Whatever roles you might have in your life — entrepreneur, executive, spouse, parent, neighbor — you can add another one.

Warrior.

That’s what a retired U.S. Air Force intelligence officer stressed during talks last week in northern Utah about cyber security. Col. Cedric Leighton, now a CNN military analyst and the chairman of his own global strategic risk consultancy, said government, companies and individuals need to shuck their “sclerosis,” leverage their knowledge and “understand there is a responsibility to secure cyberspace for all of us.”

In addition to threats from hackers and terrorists, nation-states like China and Russia will use cyberspace and artificial intelligence in an attempt to “leapfrog” the United States as a global power.

{mprestriction ids="1,3"}“It is really up to us to make sure that we not only understand the threat but can deal with the threat in a rational way,” Leighton said during Bank of Utah’s Fall Speaker Series, which took place in four Utah cities over two days.

“Basically, what we’re looking at here is the realization that, whether we like it or not, we’ve all been enlisted in the cyber army. We’re all part of this. Our contributions may be small, they may be great. But the issue is this: We need to create a cyber mindset throughout our society that understands the threat, that sees this as one of the big possibilities that is out there and to actually make sure that the promise of the Internet remains the promise of the Internet.”

A new paradigm to address the situation would feature companies having proper security clearances and liability protections, that individuals have adequate privacy protections and that “information flows both ways between government and the private sector and also from company to company,” he said.

Germany could serve as a model, he said, noting that that nation has proposed offering federal government money to help companies defend themselves against cyber attacks. That approach hinges on the belief that the nation, industry and society have a shared responsibility to address the issue, with that approach requiring information sharing and coordination. The hope is to stem cyber attacks, which in 2016 cost 65 percent of German companies a total of $65.3 billion.

“We need to make sure that, as a society, we understand that we need to use our talents, to organize ourselves, to train ourselves and equip ourselves so that we can actually be ready to engage in a continuous, global cyber war, because the other people are doing it, and if we don’t come to that party ready, that party will pass us by and that will be a very dangerous occasion for us.”

Those nation-states are countries that have blended government, business and other elements of society to create sophisticated threats. They have the resources, the means, the willingness and the strategy to deploy those threats, Leighton said. Among the attacks was a U.S. federal government department breach by China that affected 21.5 million records related to security clearance applications. Those records included medical conditions and financial situations of applicants — information that could be used against them to place them in compromised positions.

What’s more, several U.S. companies have been targets of hackers, including Nortel, Target, Sony and Home Depot. This summer, the personal information of 143 million Americans was exposed in a data breach at credit reporting agency Equifax.

The situation likely will become more complex as we are only in the “dawn of the Cyber Age,” he said. Soon, there will be 5 billion people on the Internet. Already, the number of Internet devices surpasses the world population. By 2020, there will be at least 50 billion Internet devices, with many using artificial intelligence, augmented realty and virtual reality, he said.

“The world is coming together in a much more interconnected fashion than has been the case in the past. … All of this is becoming part of daily life. It is not something that is science fiction,” Leighton said.

“Data, knowledge, information — all of that is, in essence, the new oil. … With artificial intelligence, augmented reality and virtual reality — all these things coming together — you’ve created a new economy based on data.”

Cyber crimes cost businesses at least $2 trillion annually, and current cyber protections are “absolutely, fundamentally inadequate” because they are unable to keep up with the threats, including 1 million new pieces of malware deployed every day, he said.

“Your daily life, no matter where you are, if you are in a somewhat-developed country, you are beginning to be dependent on the Internet. In developed countries, that is absolutely already the case. Banking, healthcare, manufacturing, education — all of these things are dependent on the Internet. We put our intellectual property on the Internet — Sometimes to share it. Sometimes to send it to others. We do it in a way that allows access to it. … Security sometimes has been an afterthought.”

The real world and the cyber world are blending, and society needs to find ways to stay ahead of any threats they present, he added. “It’s going to be even more the case that these worlds are going to converge,” Leighton said, “and we have to pay attention, no matter how much we dealt with this or not in the past.”{/mprestriction}