Cyber Scene #5 - Cybersecurity threats, bench strength and talent search, and EU intelligence sharing follow-thru (or not)
Cyber Scene #5
Cyber Scene is intended to provide an informative, timely backdrop of events, thinking, and developments that feed into technological advancement of SoS Cybersecurity collaboration and extend its outreach.
Cybersecurity threats, bench strength and talent search, and EU intelligence sharing follow-thru (or not)
In his presentation to the Aspen Institute on 28 July 2016, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper cited cyber threats, both from nation states as well as non-nation states, as the #1 threat. He went on to identify Russia and ISIL as exemplars, respectively, of these two threats.
See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpG9MXVoeQAn for his full discussion with Moderator Jim Sciutto and 15 minutes of Q & A.
As a corollary to the reference of cyber attacks from nation and non-nation states, the Federal Times has been running a series of articles on cybersecurity beginning with a Part 1 discussion of this domain's talent shortfall. "Part 2, Known Unknowns of Cybersecurity Talent Shortfal l " by Steve Kirk of Fortinent, maintains that his company's research predicts that, on the heels of financial services and health care industries, "...manufacturing is likely to be the next industry specifically targeted by ransomware." The disruption of automation would be the objective.
See http://www.federltimes.com/articles/known-unknowns-of-cybersecurity-talent-shortfall-part-2 of 30 Aug. 2016.
Addressing the scarcity of talent (Kirk's Part 1)as well, Anne-Marie Slaughter, former Dean of Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School, former senior State Department Policy Planning Chief and presently President and CEO of the think tank New America, writes on 22 Aug. on the importance of celebrating a new breed of tech triathletes who are capable of working across public, private and civic sectors over the course of their careers. She underscores that despite work of entities like the Ford and MacArthur Foundations now conjoined with Knight, Mozilla, and the Open Society Foundations in creating Net-Gain Partnership, the demand still outstrips supply. She goes on to discuss how this public/private "ecosystem" backs into educational programs like the University of Chicago's joint degree program in computer science and public policy. LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman has championed these efforts before Congress. Slaughter closes by arguing that every think tank should also become a tech tank, and that "...tech heroes...should be trisector athletes."
https://www.ft.com/content/e47db7fc-65f5-11e6-8310-ecf0bddad227
As for those athletes who excel, the Economist documents how the Linux and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have been at the heart of the rise in cloud computing, and how open source software and cloud computing have launched what are known as "the cloud-computing wars" within the IT industry for a "once in a generation" battle. They predict the dominance of AWS similar to IBM 360's in the 1980's and the insertion of antitrust regulation as well.
As a follow-up to CyberScene #4's discussion of the impact of Brexit on intelligence sharing, leaders of France, Germany and Italy met in late August in Naples to step up intelligence sharing arrangements-- distinct from the economically focused Brexiters. Germany's Angela Merkel called on national intelligence services across the EU to step up to the plate. A follow-on meeting on 16 September with the remaining EU leaders was to focus on "...looking to peel off some low-hanging fruit to try to address issues ...borders, cooperation over terrorism..perceived to be at the forefront of (European) citizens' minds," per the Managing Director of the Eurasia Group. This meeting, including all 27 EU leaders less Britain's Theresa May who was not invited, did in fact take place in Bratislava and compiled a "Bratislava Road Map. Angela Merkel, who also gave a rare joint press conference with François Hollande, co-chaired the meeting with Polish leader Donald Tusk. There was some success on identifying areas of commonality and cooperation, but the most contentious issues continued to be out of reach and cybersecurity and intelligence sharing were not apparently deemed low-hanging fruit.
See: http://www.wsj.com/articles/germanys-angela-merkel-calls-for-more-sharing-of-intelligence-information-in-eu-1471886210?tesla=y and http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21707344-contentious-issues-about-growth-migration-and-european-defence-have-been-postponed-later
Back to the Current Cyber Scene Article