Tuesday, October 01, 2019


Another risk you have to convince your BoD is real.
Rogue fears rise inside corporations as hacks evolve into ‘home invasions’
The percentage of technology executives who said state-sponsored cyberwarfare was the most dangerous cyberthreat their company faced declined from 38% to 26% in the third-quarter 2019 CNBC Technology Executive Council survey. But concerns about rogue employees rose, from 14% to over 18% of executives citing it as the biggest danger. And for the first time, rogue vendors showed up in the results, with near-6% of tech executives saying this was their biggest cyberthreat.
Victimized corporations’ networks are used to attack their customers and partners via what Kellermann called “island hopping,” which is occurring 51% of the time. Recent attacks that were a result of island hopping, including the attacks against 24 towns and cities in Texas; the Marriott International breach and, most notably, the Chinese Cloud Hopper campaign reportedly targeted companies including IBM and Hewlett Packard Enterprises to attack their customers.
An IT problem becomes a brand problem




Perspective.
NSA on the Future of National Cybersecurity
Glenn Gerstell, the General Counsel of the NSA, wrote a long and interesting op-ed for the New York Times where he outlined a long list of cyber risks facing the US.
There are four key implications of this revolution that policymakers in the national security sector will need to address:
The first is that the unprecedented scale and pace of technological change will outstrip our ability to effectively adapt to it. Second, we will be in a world of ceaseless and pervasive cyberinsecurity and cyberconflict against nation-states, businesses and individuals. Third, the flood of data about human and machine activity will put such extraordinary economic and political power in the hands of the private sector that it will transform the fundamental relationship, at least in the Western world, between government and the private sector. Finally, and perhaps most ominously, the digital revolution has the potential for a pernicious effect on the very legitimacy and thus stability of our governmental and societal structures.
He then goes on to explain these four implications. It's all interesting, and it's the sort of stuff you don't generally hear from the NSA. He talks about technological changes causing social changes, and the need for people who understand that. (Hooray for public-interest technologists.) He talks about national security infrastructure in private hands, at least in the US. He talks about a massive geopolitical restructuring -- a fundamental change in the relationship between private tech corporations and government. He talks about recalibrating the Fourth Amendment (of course).
The essay is more about the problems than the solutions, but there is a bit at the end:
The first imperative is that our national security agencies must quickly accept this forthcoming reality and embrace the need for significant changes to address these challenges. This will have to be done in short order, since the digital revolution's pace will soon outstrip our ability to deal with it, and it will have to be done at a time when our national security agencies are confronted with complex new geopolitical threats.
Much of what needs to be done is easy to see -- developing the requisite new technologies and attracting and retaining the expertise needed for that forthcoming reality. What is difficult is executing the solution to those challenges, most notably including whether our nation has the resources and political will to effect that solution. The roughly $60 billion our nation spends annually on the intelligence community might have to be significantly increased during a time of intense competition over the federal budget. Even if the amount is indeed so increased, spending additional vast sums to meet the challenges in an effective way will be a daunting undertaking. Fortunately, the same digital revolution that presents these novel challenges also sometimes provides the new tools (A.I., for example) to deal with them.
The second imperative is we must adapt to the unavoidable conclusion that the fundamental relationship between government and the private sector will be greatly altered. The national security agencies must have a vital role in reshaping that balance if they are to succeed in their mission to protect our democracy and keep our citizens safe. While there will be good reasons to increase the resources devoted to the intelligence community, other factors will suggest that an increasing portion of the mission should be handled by the private sector. In short, addressing the challenges will not necessarily mean that the national security sector will become massively large, with the associated risks of inefficiency, insufficient coordination and excessively intrusive surveillance and data retention.
A smarter approach would be to recognize that as the capabilities of the private sector increase, the scope of activities of the national security agencies could become significantly more focused, undertaking only those activities in which government either has a recognized advantage or must be the only actor. A greater burden would then be borne by the private sector.
It's an extraordinary essay, less for its contents and more for the speaker. This is not the sort of thing the NSA publishes. The NSA doesn't opine on broad technological trends and their social implications. It doesn't publicly try to predict the future. It doesn't philosophize for 6000 unclassified words. And, given how hard it would be to get something like this approved for public release, I am left to wonder what the purpose of the essay is. Is the NSA trying to lay the groundwork for some policy initiative? Some legislation? A budget request? What?




Depressingly true.
DHS lacks a cyber workforce strategy four years later
The Department of Homeland Security can’t ensure it’s prepared for increasing national cybersecurity threats because it has yet to complete a thorough workforce assessment, according to an inspector general report.




The tools of surveillance.
Glyn Moody reports:
Here on Techdirt, we love digital technology. We love how Moore’s Law and its equivalents help drive continual innovation and open up interesting new uses and possibilities. But powerful technology is just a tool, and like any other tool it can be used in good and bad ways. Which brings us to this latest piece of high-tech wizardry: a 500-megapixel cloud-based camera system with built-in AI, developed in China. The English-language Global Times, which is closely aligned with the views of the Chinese government, explains one possible use of such a system:
For example, in a stadium with tens of thousands of people, the camera can shoot a panoramic photo with a clear image of every single human face, the report said.
Read more on TechDirt.




Rearchitecting the enterprise.
Putting AI in the Internet of Things
The central nervous system is made up of the brain, the spinal cord and nerves. Your nerves respond to external stimuli, such as temperature or pressure, and transmit signals back to the brain, which decides on the appropriate reaction. In manufacturing, the myriad of connected Internet of Things devices act as the nerves, measuring parameters and collecting data, but what’s the brains behind the operation? Here Sophie Hand, UK country manager at EU Automation explains how artificial intelligence might just be the brains we need.
Gartner predicts that by 2022, more than 80 per cent of enterprise IoT projects will include an AI component, skyrocketing up from just ten per cent in 2019.




Interesting.
A 20-Year Community Roadmap for Artificial Intelligence Research in the US
These are the major recommendations of a recent community effort coordinated by the Computing Community Consortium and the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence to formulate a Roadmap for AI research and development over the next two decades.




I’ll take all the education I can get.
Microsoft has often highlighted the significance of artificial intelligence (AI) in recent months. In June, the tech giant, citing a study, noted that AI would contribute $5 trillion to global GDP growth in the coming years, among other advantages. On the same day, Microsoft highlighted its AI solutions that are being used to keep infrastructure safe. In the more recent past, we've also seen a couple of interesting Microsoft patents utilizing various artificial intelligence systems.
Now, the Redmond firm has launched a new podcast series centered around the technology wave in different fields of education. Titled "Artificial Intelligence in Education", the first episode of this podcast has been released.
If you are interested in checking out the series, you can access the first episode right now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and other podcast apps. Alternatively, you can also listen to it directly on its official website.




Nothing introduces error faster than reentering data that was entered, then printed, and then faxed.
Collaborative Law Firm: The Fax is Dead, Long Live the Fax
Via LLRX Collaborative Law Firm: The Fax is Dead, Long Live the Fax The long heralded death of fax machines has yet to materialize as doctors, pharmacists, state, local and federal government, to name just a few groups, continue to rely on systems that originated in the 19th century. Nicholas Moline, a member of Justia’s Engineering team identifies multiple ways that faxes continue to be used in law firms.



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