Silver bullets and cybersecurity

Abstract

Within 24 hours in November 2002, a British hacker was indicted by the US justice Department for breaking into military and NASA computer systems and the US Congress passed a bill that funded $903 million for computer security initiatives (Wired.com, 14 Nov. 2002). Meanwhile, nearly every multimedia conference since 11 September 2001 has discussed the need for increased computer security, both in the public and private sector. Is this burgeoning field all hype? It seems that although some hype exists, the fears are warranted. On one hand, terrorists and hacktivists have employed various means to attack or shut down government sites since the Web's inception. On the other hand, despite grave warnings by the US government and security companies, we have not really seen great dangers of cyberterrorism in the private sector. What we have seen, however, is an increase in general hackers attacking the public and private sector either to prove they can, to cause aggravation, or for financial gain. The paper discusses basis security concerns, event management software and intrusion detection.