The nature of the hacking threat to open networks

Abstract

The drive towards the vision of an Integrated Information Systems Infrastructure has captured the imagination of the public and now of industry and commerce. The Internet provides a manifestation of this vision, and represents a major source of innovation through the development of novel computing and communication technologies. The World Wide Web (WWW) has provided an information rich environment, and has itself created a drive towards the development of corporate Intranets reusing the range of information search and retrieval technologies being developed on the Internet. This openness and interconnectivity carries a caution and a penalty, namely that dependency can arise, and with that dependency on technology: vulnerability. Nowhere is this indicated more clearly, than in the growth of the hacker threat on the Internet. A community of hackers has grown up making use of the Internet and supporting telecommunications infrastructure, to engage in a range of pursuits. These range from the harmless intellectual challenge of discovering new vulnerabilities in our increasingly complex computing and communication systems, to the malicious denial of service or compromise of sensitive commercial or government material. The linkage between hacking and information brokering has been established, as has the use of Internet as a means of gathering commercially sensitive information.