Future Crimes: Why Cyber was Only the Beginning

April 20 , 2015, Cloud Security Alliance, San Francisco—Mark Goodman, an author, described the ongoing and increasing challenges for security and our other infrastructure. Many threats are already here and the potential for serious damage is increasing.

Goodman started out as a police officer and noted many trends of crime over time. Criminals were early adopters of electronic technologies, starting with pagers in the ’80’s, then moving to cell phones as they appeared. Now, people in Mexico are building their own cellular networks that are not reachable through normal cell phone equipment. This cell network is fully encrypted, so the local authorities are unable to tap into the traffic.

We are living in exponential times for technology changes, but society and the legal systems are only able to change in a linear mode. For all of time, criminals have been early adopters. The availabilities of the latest technologies have created a paradigm shift that allows the criminals to scale up their activities. Now, we have the appearance of crime as a service.

All of the tools for cyber crime are available on-line. The number of state-level actors continues to climb and the smaller players can easily fade into the background. This misapplication of new technologies can be frightening, consider what is possible if the IBM Watson technologies were used for criminal activities. The expected crossover of computer power exceeding that of humans is projected for about 2045, and we have to consider scenarios like that of “Terminator”. Stephen Hawking suggested that the singularity may become the end of the human race as we know it.

Cyber crimes are moving from computers to a 3-D world, from on-screen to areas like robotics. There have been a number of instances where a hobbyist drone was in an area it should not have been, like the White House lawn. Some people are using drones t smuggle contraband like drugs and cell phones into prisons. A number of drones have been hacked while operating, and some are getting armed. The CIA will not be the only ones with remote weapons capabilities.

The coming IoT provides many more targets for nefarious activities. As the world moves from IPv4 to IPv6, we will see a dramatic increase in the number of end points, and everything is going online. These new devices can and will be used as the starting point for new types of bot-nets. Even cars are becoming WiFi hotspots and people have demonstrated the hack of a car’s master control computer to take over all automotive functions.

One solution is to not connect a much as possible. One high-end prison had their network hacked, and someone opened all of the maximum security cells at once. This activity obviously caused a lot of consternation and a scramble to fix the entry points. The application of technology to any activity allows that activity to scale up with minimal costs and effort. The person who controls the code can be the person who can control significant parts of the world.

The security industry has to reconsider their approaches, from a police policy functions to something similar to a medical approach. Most of our critical infrastructure is completely computer based. Our world is wired, but not secure. Therefore, we need to start working on some incentive-based programs to change the entire landscape, an X-Prize for security. Work has started on a $20 M X-Prize for security that is hoping to get global inputs outside the traditional sources.

There is a long history of incentive-based developments. An early example was the prize to develop a portable way to determine latitude. Knowing latitude allows for more efficient travel and enables exploration. The two major developments were the chronometer, a highly accurate timepiece, and the sextant which allowed travelers to measure astronomical offsets from a known position.

The security industry needs to crate a Manhattan Project for cyber security. We need to protect out critical infrastructure against the increasing threats, and we need to change out way of thinking about those threats. Technology invokes changes for all people, but we need to also change our way of thinking to solve the greatest challenges.