{"id":299,"date":"2012-06-30T11:06:44","date_gmt":"2012-06-30T15:06:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sdaconseil.com\/blog\/?p=299"},"modified":"2012-06-30T11:06:44","modified_gmt":"2012-06-30T15:06:44","slug":"from-cold-war-to-cyber-war-to-technology-vacuuming-when-elite-hackers-are-having-a-field-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/?p=299","title":{"rendered":"From cold war to cyber war to technology vacuuming: When elite hackers are having a field day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Montreal, 30 June 2012<\/p>\n

When the HIV virus spread in the 1980s, the Red Cross remained rather blind to the threat that was about to upset its established model of collecting and distributing blood samples.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We know the story:\u00a0 The inability of the organisation to test blood\u00a0for the virus\u00a0over several years inevitably led to a widespread scandal of contamination, deaths and legal fines in 2005.\u00a0 It is rather easy today to fault the governance of the organisation and the inertia of its practices.\u00a0 But how did it look to directors and managers when the new threat visibly arose and the established system in place could not cope with it?<\/p>\n

Interestingly there is another example in the making and the same governance lessons and challenges apply today.\u00a0 It is not affecting the health of individuals but rather the health of corporations.\u00a0 And it has stealthily built up in the last 10 years:\u00a0 cyber hacking that is vacuuming our technology repositories.<\/p>\n

Ever since the publication of the book \u2018Cyber Wars by Richard Clarke in 2010, articles have multiplied in the Medias about the proliferation of cyber threats: a collection of frauds, thefts, disruptions, malwares, etc.\u00a0 The Financial Times published last June 1st <\/sup>a special survey on cyber security.\u00a0 The Montreal conference recently presented a panel of experts on the issue.\u00a0 The main argument is simple enough:\u00a0 specialized military units from various nations (USA, China, Russia, North Korea…) have been escalating means and mechanisms of cyber attacks and cyber defenses.\u00a0 What is now scary is the very large gap <\/span>existing between these cyber warriors and elite hackers and the IT security capabilities prevailing in most private companies.\u00a0 Specialist hackers get in and out, with little traceability, if at all.\u00a0 Not surprisingly foreign agents have been intruding in our private repositories of technology and intellectual property for years.<\/p>\n

Most technology companies, research centers, and high tech start-ups are not prepared to adequately defend their technology treasures from the buccaneers, big or small, government linked or not.\u00a0 Yet the facts are there about the existing threats and we are still turning a blind eye:\u00a0security breaches are rarely acknowledged and even reported.\u00a0 Consider the case of Nortel, which suffered a serious and major hacking incident (IP theft) about 10 years before it collapsed.\u00a0 Not only was the incident not publicly reported, but it then appeared that Nortel did not fix the problem in any meaningful way thereafter.<\/p>\n

We are all counting on some technology edge to face competition from China and other challenging nations.\u00a0 Yet the technology leaps that China has achieved in the past 10 years, has exceeded the most optimistic predictions.\u00a0 Yes there are plenty of rightful transfers of technology, but security experts suspect that a great deal of unlawful transfers is taking place electronically, under our nose.\u00a0 We should bear forth an awkward question:\u00a0 Are we currently feeding our technology edge to our competitors at practically no cost, thereby foregoing our future options on economic growth?\u00a0 Some informal indicators are disturbing to hear from experts.<\/p>\n

Today the virus is there.\u00a0 We can only hope that directors and governors of technology companies are putting the necessary safeguards in place even if this means some minor budget reallocation and changes in internal practices?\u00a0\u00a0 On the three main counts underpinning risk assessment (threat, vulnerability and consequences), cyber hacking of technology scores high. The true cost of letting critical technology slip into foreign hands does not show on today\u2019s balance sheets but will tax our future.<\/p>\n

Elite hackers are having a field day.\u00a0 If you are still unsure, read the book.<\/p>\n

Andr\u00e9 Du Sault<\/p>\n

MBA (LBS), MPA (Harvard)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Montreal, 30 June 2012 When the HIV virus spread in the 1980s, the Red Cross remained rather blind to the threat that was about to upset its established model of collecting and distributing blood samples.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We know the story:\u00a0 The inability of the organisation to test blood\u00a0for the virus\u00a0over several years inevitably led to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,5,6,7],"tags":[17,92,23,43,75],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=299"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":303,"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions\/303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}