Cyber security and You

Unless you have been living under a rock since your birth you are probably exposed if not completely addicted to the everyday technology of the 21^st century. Such luxuries include IPhone’s, Galaxy’s, Xbox’s, PS4’s, Laptops, TV’s and the list endless. It seems every day we are introduced into something that is newer, that is better, that we must have. As we buy and spend and demand we dive deeper into this dependency with smarter phones and dumber people.

While we may feel protected and advanced as a society many fail to realize the endangerment not only to our privacy and security, but also to our well-being.  The amount of security put on these magical devices as they are rushed from manufacturer to the demanding consumers who refuse to wait any longer for sequels and the next generation is close to nothing. Everything today is in jeopardy, from a person’s selfies, and passwords, to their bank accounts, camera phones, and even cars and security cameras.

In movies, shoes, and video games we are seen hilarious depictions of hacking often not seeing the actual monitor or text scrolling to quickly to read and miraculous things happening to their targets, as we watch this we think that it is impossible and merely science fiction. While it may be reassuring to believe it is something that is not possible the horrifying truth is that in today’s world we live in a constant threat to anyone with the knowledge to hack into our personal devices as all information can be stolen remotely since the introduction of Wifi.

The worst part of knowing how heavily dependent our lives have become on  technology and knowing how easily accessible it has become with the growth of our network is seeing how long ago it has been started and how advanced it’s become, to the point that it is inexpensive and a broader amount of people can learn.

In 1982 the CIA knew about the KGB stealing software and using it for their own purposes, in return for the wonderful thanks the KGB thanks they were given a Trojan horse hidden inside of stolen software to control gas pipe monitoring. The Trojan horse in this case was a logic bomb that went off after a certain amount of uses and caused one of the largest explosions in history. This of course was something initially put in, in order to be impressive we need to be able to see instances of zero access rights and yet receive complete control and cause panic.

Done and done since 2010 by Stuxnet, a virus that was found in thousands of power plants around the world. This nifty little virus was able to break in unnoticed and sit idly in the power plants until it was signaled for action. Once signaled it overworked smaller mechanical pieces until they broke and hid any alarms for fixing eventually leading to the failure(or destruction) of larger machines. This virus went off in Iran to a Nuclear power plant destroying over 1,000 centrifuges. A similar incident occurred in 2003 around the areas of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, where the power went out for 2 days with the same initial start of failing equipment.

With self-driving cars powered completely by an AI and permanently on Xbox One Kinect camera and even the soon to be TV with a camera and mic can we think we are truly safe? If we cannot protect our power or our infrastructure what will keep us safe as everyday new unprotected products are rushed out? Are humans using technology to much, are we to reliant, should we change our habits, will people change, or do some people just want to watch the world burn?