March 17, 2008 1:15 PM PDT
Security Bites Podcast: Hacking gets political
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CNET's Robert Vamosi talks with Josh Corman, principal security strategist for IBM Internet Security Systems, about political hacking.
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In the past, talk of a "digital Pearl Harbor" was dismissed by some security experts as largely political. Yet more and more evidence suggests that a politically inspired Internet event could occur sooner rather than later. A recent U.S. government report titled Annual Report to Congress on the Military Power of the People's Republic of China (PRC) 2008 talks extensively about the increasing role of China's ability to conduct war over the Internet.
Recently, CNET's Robert Vamosi spoke with Josh Corman, principal security strategist for IBM Internet Security Systems, who believes that criminal hackers follow three basic motivations: prestige, profit, and politics (the three Ps). It's the latter that he's concerned about.
"All of our security defense models," said Corman, "were built based on a model of threat which was purely prestige-driven," referring to the virus writer, who only wanted his creation mentioned on the evening news. Now, we're living in a time of profit, and have begun to react to that. But Corman's thinking ahead; he's talking about criminal hackers--either independent or state-sponsored--entering the realm of politics.
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