Cybercrime is not a new phenomenon nowadays, but it is getting worse every time it takes place. A massive cyber attack on major Internet Company, Dyn, took place last Friday 21 October ‘16. A large part of the Internet activity on the American east coast was paralyzed. Dyn is a company that houses a part of the Domain Name System (DNS). DNS is a crucial part of the Internet. It converts URL’s, for example digitalsocialstrategy.org, to a sequence of numbers in which computer use to communicate with each other. If this fails, websites cannot be accessed anymore.
As the rate of cyber attacks increases, so does the cost of security
for business and damage control. As you can see in the figure shown below, consumers compromised by data hacks in 2015 was more than four times higher compared with 2005. The cost of cybercrime to an average U.S. Business Company was around 1.5 million in 2015, which is incredibly high compared towards 24.000 dollar in 2005. Check in the figure these additional comparisons.
The US government believes that security of computer systems is important to the world for two reasons. The role of Information Technology increased over years and the growth of the e-commerce sector has made cyber security an essential component of our economy. In extend, cyber security is vital to the operation of safety critical system, such as emergency response, infrastructure and even the federal government.
Often, the perpetrators of cyber attacks are not identified immediately. This provides also speculations. As is often speculated that Russia is attacking America by the use of the web. As a result, one can state that cyber attacks should be treated as acts of war. Despite the fact that the attacks look little like the armed attacks that the law of war traditionally regulated.
Existing law effectively addresses only a small fraction of potential cyber attacks. Seen this growing issue, shouldn’t we pay much more attention on this topic?
What is your opinion in this?
Sources:
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/280386
http://www.nu.nl/internet/4339457/cyberaanvallen-in-vs-voorbij.html
