The danger of cyber attacks
No matter what your political leanings are, it’s important to take note that recently candidate Barack Obama, at a roundtable discussion at Purdue University, pledged to fight nuclear, biological and cyber threats. Although the first two are exceedingly important, as a telecom person, I was most interested to see that threats to our information infrastructure were given such a high priority.
Mr. Obama said, “Every American depends – directly or indirectly – on our system of information networks. They are increasingly the backbone of our economy and our infrastructure; our national security and our personal well-being. But it’s no secret that terrorists could use our computer networks to deal us a crippling blow.” Think of how much we interact with computers and how much of an impact they have on our lives from banking to medical records and personal blogs to the electricity grids and telephone and broadband networks. From our microwave ovens to flight control, computers are everywhere. Any terrorist attack on the country’s information infrastructure would be devastating.
Let’s take this thought one step further, how much of an impact would it have on your business if the computer network, phone system, data storage and website were hit by natural or man-made disaster? What contingency, back-up and continuity plans are in place? How quickly could the company be back up and running? Unfortunately, it takes a tragedy to get us all to think about these things and then complacency takes over again. After September 11 and Hurricane Katrina, these issues were in the press constantly, but not as much now; however they should always be top-of-mind.
Know your network.
Last 3 posts by lstarr
- Broadband: The New, New Frontier? - September 9th, 2009
- We're all in the Communications Business - February 13th, 2009
- IPTV: Service and a Smile - January 15th, 2009
Tags: cyber attack, network, obama, tragedy