The highly publicized hacking of Sony Pictures and Monday’s infiltration ofCentral Command’s Twitteraccount are just two of the most recent examples of Internet crime.
“It’s a huge problem, and one that everyone needs to educate themselves about in today’s world,” said Professor Bryan Ford of the Decentralized/Distributed research group at Yale University. OnWNPR'sWhere We Live, Ford and other experts attempted to explain and provide solutions for the growing problem of security online.
Crime online is now not only a problem for the world of entertainment or state agencies, but for the average American. Whether e-mailing, using a SmartPhone to purchase something on Amazon, or -- as many consumers have learned -- using a debit card for an in-store purchase, there are countless ways personal information can be stolen via the Internet.
Listen below to some voices from Connecticut, gathered by Katie McAuliffe, talking about how online security poses problems:
So, if this is such an important issue for both countries and private citizens, why isn’t there a solution? In the past, Internet protection started and ended with a single user, or a single password.
As caller Bill from New Milford pointed out:
I think when it comes to something like security, there’s lots of different ways for people or companies to be attacked -- whether it’s viruses, or malware, or bad security built into software. But at the end of the day, the chain is only as strong as its weakest link. And in many cases, that weakest link is us, is people and our password habits.
But now, as massive corporations and states face security breaches, and huge sums of money are allocated to security online, where does the solution lie? David Thaw, an assistant professor specializing in cyber security and cyber crime at the University of Pittsburgh noted on Where We Live, “You can never win a cyber contest. It’s constant.”
Even so-called solutions to online threats are not safe from hackers who adapt at a rapid pace. The problem stems from the diversity of Internet users, hackers, and security approaches. And because so many entities control various aspects of the Web, there is no universal standard for online security.
For the corporate sector, not only is there no single way to protect users’ private information, there is also no impetus to do so. Ford said, “I win in the market by getting an insecure product in the market first, before the other guy spends a lot more time getting a lot more secure product to market.”
The inevitability of security failures seems to ensure, for now, an ongoing need for new products to help consumers with privacy issues -- but there's still no guarantee those products will never break.
Mallory ODonoghue is an intern at WNPR.
