Code Wars

 

 

"Today, anything we hold close is the subject of hacking. Not only hacking for mischief, but worse..."

In the old days, wars were won or lost based on how secure a nation's communications were. I worked in the land of secure communications for many years while in the Navy. It was a constant chess game with other countries. Some historians believe a big reason for the Allies winning in the European theater was the breaking of the Enigma code by British cryptologists.

Code wars continue to go on today. Only the venue has changed. Yes, our nation still has to ensure that anything which is transmitted on any medium needs to be secure. Nefarious nations, evil people, pranksters, crooks, you name it, are still trying to break our codes. However today, the battlefield has gone protecting critical information sent via electromagnetic radiation into the ionosphere, to the world of virtual reality.

I have said this many times. There should be a special place in Hades for people who develop computer viruses. A cottage industry has sprung up just to develop counter measures to the latest and greatest malware, Trojans, viruses, adware, or whatever. We have gone from a world of not needing passwords, to requiring simple passwords, to developing complicated passwords, to changing complicated passwords twice a month. I can't wait to see what is next. Trying to log in to anything these days is enough for me to pull what little hair I have left out of my head.

It is almost impossible these days not to read about a new intrusion in someone's private data base. Already this week we learned about the intrusion at Sony. This particular intrusion was not to steal, not to corrupt, it was to punish. Many experts believe this intrusion was done be the North Koreans to punish Sony. Seem the Norks got wind Sony is making a film (satire) about the Great Leader being assassinated. That does not sit well in Pyongyang.

I also recently read there is a new malware in the Ethernet which can infest a network and destroy all the code. It will overwrite existing code so thoroughly, the original code will be totally non-retrievable. Think what that malware could do to a financial institution if it broke through the firewalls and infested the redundant systems as well. Or if it got into our electrical grid? Or our nuclear plants? Some of these new intrusive code strains are almost undetectable.

There is more to tell on this subject, but I have work to do. I need to finish updating and changing my 21 passwords, and then run complete scans on all my computers. If there is any time left in the day after doing all that, I will help my wife celebrate her birthday.