Fascinating: Today's House Energy Hearing On Cyber Security

[Mike 03]

There was a relatively brief (one hour, forty minutes) hearing on cyber security and the four witnesses were impressive, two of them in particular. Rep. Anthony Weiner chaired (and was the only person to ask questions--a hearing with one inquisitor) the hearing, and he really seems to understand these issues at a fairly deep level.

There was one witness named Dan Kaminsky who apparently discovered a weakness in the internet system and has worked for Cisco and Microsoft among other Fortune 500 companies and is an expert in security penetration. He clearly explains the magnitude of the assault on our security on the internet and also why the Conficker trojan is something new and far more complex than experts have seen before. This will blow your mind. It's not only a malware that updates itself, but it can be rented out to other bad guys who want to use it for whatever purpose they desire, so it can do virtually anything the current users what it to do. It's like it's own operating system and because it's purpose is profit, it actually can make money in any number of ways; stealing data outright or being rented out to the highest bidder.

The other really fascinating panelist was a guy named Rodney Joffe, senior technologist and vp for a company called Neustar (which I've never heard of). Like Kaminsky, he is one of the "geeks" who really combats these viruses on a day to day level.

I knew we had a problem, but I didn't know it was this complex and frightening. He spoke about corporations subject to extortion, 150,000 banking customers having their data stolen in a single event in Brazil.

The other witnesses were Larry Clinton, the CEO of the "Internet Security Alliance" and the fourth one I didn't write down, but he was a lawyer specializing in internet security issues, and he was impressive too.

This was another one of those unexpected Friday hearings that spring up out of nowhere and turn out to be much more fascinating than the sensational ones that get all of the attention. It's so impressive to see hearings that are truly about information and not about pontification.

Anybody who is fascinated by internet security, the evolution of internet security threats and identity theft would probably enjoy this hearing.


http://www.cspan.org/Watch/Program/2009/05/01/HP/A/41862/House+Energy+Hearing+On+Cyber+Security.aspx