It's so easy being trendy!
There is a growing trend of governments setting up their own dedicated cyber-security centers and colleges under various titles, with massive amounts of funding. Granted, it is becoming necessary but one has to wonder why it’s happening in such an obvious trend wave when cyber-security has been an issue for at least the past 5-10 years?
Heck, even the Saudis are building a shocking secular High-Tech Science Oasis campus housing one of the world’s fastest supercomputers. Its purpose is not solely cyber-security, but I assure you, it’s in there. Similar efforts are being made in Singapore, Belfast in the UK, and Korea, among others. It’ll be interesting to see if these dedicated efforts will yield different results against the rising tide of transnational cyber-crime as technology progresses and criminals get more creative.
Sorry for the lack of an actual link (I assure you that this quote can be corroborated) but it has been stated fairly recently that cyber-crime and fraud has surpassed drug and weapon trafficking in earnings (or losses, depending on how you look at it) in the international crime scene. Clearly, this is an issue, but what is actually supposed to be done about this? How do you educate consumers who are too naive and trusting (some would say stupid, ignorant, and just plain deserving of what they get) to understand that the email you get from someone you don’t recognize telling you to click on that link and put in your PRIVATE CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION is probably not trust-worthy. Seriously, I mean when the head of the FBI is getting tricked by phishing emails only to be saved by his wife telling him that he shouldn’t be banking online anymore, where is the hope. (Here’s the actual transcript of the speech where he revealed himself as an almost victim to phishing)
Anyway. I feel like I’m falling into the classic blogging mentality of every post being a rant about all the idiots out there. I genuinely hope that this whole issue of the internet being a super-scary place is a generational issue, but with the stuff I see people putting on their facebook and youtube for everyone to see (yes, facebook info showing up in Google for everyone to see because your profile is set to full on public), the glimmer of hope is dwindling.