We held a fascinating cyber-security dinner earlier this week with Marc Goodman, the author of the best selling book, “Future Crimes: Everything is Connected, Everyone is Vulnerable & What We Can Do About It.”
We had about 40 cyber-security founders & CEOs, security company executives and Chief Security Officers in attendance, so the crowd was knowledgeable and the conversation was deep.
Some of the highlights from Marc’s comments and banter with the audience:
- The myriad breaches we hear about are best understood as all being related to one another. Moore’s law means that computing dimensions, and the associated vulnerabilities, double each 12-24 months while our defenses, such as the capabilities of law enforcement, grow linearly. As a result, the gap is widening every year. Until we find a way to close this gap, expect more cyber crime.
- “Crime Inc.” is incredibly well organized and sophisticated. These groups are organized like traditional companies, with CFOs, VPs of HR and QA departments, for example. Criminals are increasingly difficult to track and catch, given the resources and strategies they have at their disposal to avoid law enforcement.
- Its much more difficult to defend yourself than to play offense. When you’re attacking someone, you only need to find one way in. When defending yourself, you need protect every avenue of potential compromise.
- The internet of things (IoT) holds great promise for us as consumers but with the advent of technologies like IPv6, its estimated there will now be 1 trillion address spaces for every grain of sand on the earth. Literally everything will be connected in the future, including things on and in our bodies such as pacemakers. These devices will all be hackable, making the human body more vulnerable than ever.
- Governments are doing a great job with offensive capabilities, but there is much less sophistication around defense. As an example, if you call the police to say that your hard-drive has been defaced by a malware attack, they’re unlikely to lift a finger, but if you call to say that someone has painted graffiti on your home, they’ll come out to file a police report. Why the different treatment?
Stay tuned for more from me in ’16 on the cyber-security front – new investments and new ideas.