Perhaps this is getting overly paranoid. Is it realistic to think that there is a master plan where our electronic devices and software are being infiltrated with malicious and potentially dangerous programs and circuitry? One might say that this is science fiction and that I am over-reacting. But think about it. This particular “bug” has been found. How many others are out there that we don’t know anything about? And to what extent is our eagerness to automate and our indifference to the security implications of outsourcing and offshoring creating a high-risk environment? We have seen the results of trusting the “experts” to understand and protect us against the destructive side of obscure financial instruments, such as CDOs, which cannot be valued accurately. Can we afford to trust the “experts” to protect us against cyber attacks? Or should we put in the controls and oversight today, rather than try to clean up the mess afterwards?
There are lots of questions, but few real answers. However, there is genuine concern that technology and “techies” are pushing us into dangerous territory where nobody really understands the full scope of the applicable security risks. Can we learn from the financial crisis and put in the oversight and controls that we need to avoid an equivalent technology meltdown? Or do we just wait until a crisis occurs and then try to fix it at enormous cost? It depends upon how proactive we want to be. It will be costly and difficult to examine and test the very extensive range of devices and concomitant software that is vulnerable to compromise, but it is something that has to be done if we are to avoid the type of exploit reported in the Wall Street Journal.
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