Cyber threats not limited to software, hardware also at risk: Experts

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Well, that was a nice effort, but according to Mr. Shawn Henry, who is the president of Crowdstrike, a security company, “the risks are greater than what the average American recognizes. There are often physical attacks on hardware, on physical equipment, and this is the changing risk that people don’t see.”

Cyber Security

The point is that the security risks are not limited to software only. The threats are far greater than President Obama observed. Sony did not suffer only software damage, but its hardware was badly hit too. The employees were locked out of their systems and couldn’t access e-mail boxes for weeks.

Therefore, security experts are accentuating the Govt. to pay more attention on physical threats posed by cyber attacks such as those hitting operations of power grids or halting production at manufacturing plants controlled through electronic system.

Commenting on the same, the managing partner of Applied Control Solutions, Mr Joe Weiss expressed his concern by citing an example of how someone can hack into a highway patrol cop using radar to find out your speed.

He further added that the threats that we face now are more in line with “someone knowing your speed and remotely taking control of the gas pedal or steering wheel. In IT, all you want to do is stop the information flow. In a control system world, you want to prevent them from taking over the system.”

What worries these security experts more is the fact that almost same computer models are used in many other countries to control power grids and other major Govt. and private facilities, and plants. That makes it an international problem, and therefore, to combat it, the world needs to share  information on cyber attacks along with giving law enforcement agencies more power to investigate and prosecute cyber criminals.

Moreover, the organized crime is shifting to cyberspace because the criminals are exposed to a much lower risk as compared to physical crime.

The experts suggest that the Govt. can’t fight alone with cyber threats, so the companies will have to share information with other companies and the Govt., they will have to assume that they are going to get attacked anytime, and prepare against threats by moving to secure networks with better defenses.