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The rhetoric about cyberattacks is nearly deafening. It seems like my Twitter timeline blows up every day about cyber-this or cyber-that. Makes me want to cyber-puke. Since Mandiant pointed the finger at China everyone seems to be jumping on the bandwagon of tough talk and posturing. Take example #1: The US is now fielding teams to play offense and respond to computer attacks on critical infrastructure. I would like to be clear that this team, this defend-the-nation team, is not a defensive team,” Gen. Keith Alexander, who runs both the National Security Agency and the new Cyber Command, told the House Armed Services Committee. “This is an offensive team that the Defense Department would use to defend the nation if it were attacked in cyberspace. Thirteen of the teams that we’re creating are for that mission alone. Uh, this is news? Maybe that there is finally acknowledgement that the US (along with every other first world nation) invests in building cyber-attack capability. I know it’s hard to remember, but a few short years ago there was an uproar when Anonymous documentated that HBGary was proposing to build weaponized exploits. Where’s the uproar now? Oh yeah, now it’s politically correct to defend ourselves. This is media-driven nonsense. I doubt the strategy has changed at all, except maybe accelerated a bit. Though it will be interesting to see if and how sequestration impacts these kinds of investments. Rich recently pointed out that China is fundamentally different because they use military hacking apparatus to help commercial Chinese entities gain intelligence that helps them win big contracts. Obviously Israel’s announcement that their cyber-defense capabilities will be used to protect private Israeli enterprises is different, but it is another clear indication that the line is blurring between the private and public sectors. As it should. The Defense Ministry will set up a new body to support local defense industries in coping with cyber threats, ministry director-general Maj.-Gen. (res.) Udi Shani announced Tuesday. And if you need another data point showing ‘cyber’ is the new hotness, the CEO of BP disclosed on CNBC that BP Fights Off Up to 50,000 Cyber-Attacks a Day. Cybersecurity is a growing issue around the world, not only with companies but with governments,” Dudley observed. “We see as many as 50,000 attempts a day like many big companies … to my knowledge we haven’t had an incident that’s taken away data from us, but we’re incredibly vigilant. Clearly someone is hiding something from the CEO here, but he pulled the plausible deniability card in the form of “to my knowledge…” But if he’s right and they haven’t lost any data that would make them only such company. And before you start bitching in the echo chamber about how the hype is getting in the way of you doing your job because you are being paraded in front of the board and up to the CEO’s office once a week, remember when no one gave a crap about security. It’s always good to be careful what you wish for. Share:

Raising children in the age of the Internet is both exhilarating and terrifying. As a geek I am jealous of the technology my children will grow up with. You can make the argument that technology always advances, and my children will feel the same way about their offspring, but I think the genesis of the Internet is a clear demarcation line in human history. There is the world before the Internet, and the world after. The closest equivalents are the rise of agriculture and the Industrial Revolution, and I argue the Internet hit harder and faster. Mix in mobile devices, near-ubiquitous wireless data, and “the cloud”, and the changes are profound. Part of me feels incredibly lucky to have lived through this change, and another part is sad it wasn’t around sooner. It is an exciting time to raise kids. The resources available to us as parents are truly stunning. We have access to information resources our parents couldn’t conceive of. Want to know how to build a robot? Make the perfect sand castle? Build a solar-powered treehouse? Answer nearly any imaginable question? It’s all right there in your pocket. Anything my children choose to explore, I can not only support, I can get the supplies deliverd with free two-day shipping. My kids will grow up with drones, robots, 3D printers, and magical books with nearly all of human knowledge inside. Which isn’t always a good thing. Once they figure out the way around my filters (or go to a friend’s house), there won’t be any mysteries left to sex. Not that what they’ll find will represent reality, and some of it will warp their perceptions of normality. They will post their innermost thoughts online, without regard to what that may mean decades later. They will see and learn truly horrible things that, before the Internet, were physically isolated. They will witness lies and hatred on a colossal scale (especially if they post anything in a gaming forum). I accept that all I can do is try my best to prepare them to understand, filter, and think critically on their own. But I truly believe the benefits outweigh the dangers. Like this author, I will flood my children with technology. They have, today, essentially infinite access to technology. I don’t limit iPad time. I don’t count the television hours. We don’t restrict the laptops. This may change as they grow older, but my gut feeling is that the more you restrict something, the more they want it. And our family’s lifestyle is more centered on physical activity and creating than consuming. There is, however, one place where I have started restricting technology. Not for my children, but for myself. This week as I sat in the parents’ observation area at our swim school, I noticed every adult head wasn’t focused on their kids, but on the screens in their hands. Go to any playground or Chuck E Cheese and you will see more parental heads staring down than up. I noticed I do it. And my children notice me. Children, especially young children, don’t necessarily remember what we try to teach them. They, like nearly every other species, learn by watching us. And they remember absolutely everything we do, especially when it involves them. I don’t want my kids thinking that the screen in my hand is more important than they are. I don’t want them thinking that these wonderful devices are more important than the people around them (well, I do prefer Siri over most people I meet, but I’m a jerk). I can’t just tell them – I need to show them. I have started weaning myself off the screen. When I’m with my family, I try to only use it when absolutely necessary, and I verbalize what I’m doing. I am trying to show that it is a tool to use when needed, not a replacement for them. I am not perfect, and there are plenty of times it’s okay to catch up on email in front of my kids – just not when I should be focused on them. And, to be honest, once I got over the initial panic, it’s nice to just relax and see what’s around me. It doesn’t hurt that my kids are damned cute. On to the Summary: Webcasts, Podcasts, Outside Writing, and Conferences Rich quoted on Watering Hole Attacks. Adrian’s DR post: Database Security Operations. Favorite Securosis Posts Mike Rothman: Compromising Cloud Managed Infrastructure. You cloud is only as secure as the web interface you use to configure it… Adrian Lane: The BYOD problem is what? Rich: Ramp up the ‘Cyber’ Rhetoric. Other Securosis Posts Email-based Threat Intelligence: Quick Wins. Email-based Threat Intelligence: Industrial Phishing Tactics (New Series). A Brief Privacy Breach History Lesson. Incite 3/13/13: Get Shorty. Could This Be the First Crack in the PCI Scam? TripWire nCircles the Vulnerability Management Wagon. Untargeted Attack. Email-based Threat Intelligence: Analyzing the Phish Food Chain. In Search of … Data Scientists. Encryption Spending up in 2012. Security Education still an underused defense. Favorite Outside Posts Mike Rothman: Father hacks ‘Donkey Kong’ for daughter, makes Pauline the heroine. Hacking for the win. This is the right example to set for young girls. They can do anything they want. Adrian Lane: Which Encryption Apps Are Strong Enough to Help You Take Down a Government? People talk about privacy, but Matt Green arms you with some tools to actually help. The question is would you actually use these tools. Dave Lewis: Time Stamp Bug in Sudo Could Have Allowed Code Entry. Gunnar: Google services should not require real names – Vint Cerf. Two years back Bob Blakley brought us on a quick tour of the weak points of Google requiring real names – in a word: insane. Top News and Posts Spy Agencies to Get Access to U.S. Bank Transactions Database Microsoft and Adobe release patches to fix critical vulnerabilities. Deja patch. Obama Discusses Computer Security With Corporate Chiefs. Update on iOS 6 exploitation. TL;DR: it’s really hard. Blog Comment of the Week This week’s best comment goes to Nate, in response