Reuters/Sherwin Castro

Reuters Editor-in-Chief Steve Adler leads a discussion with a panel of national security experts at this free event on June 16th.

08 Jun 2011Thomson Reuters

Cybersecurity is a matter of deep and increasing concern to governments, businesses and legal systems. On Thursday, June 16th, Reuters Editor-in-Chief Steve Adler will sit down with a panel of cyberintelligence experts to discuss the skills and attributes needed to win at cyber warfare – today and in the future.

Panelists include:

• Frank Cilluffo – Associate Vice President at George Washington University and Director of Homeland Security Policy Institution
• Marc Gordon - Chief Technology Officer, Bank of America
• Mike McConnell - EVP Booz Allen Hamilton, former director of National Intelligence and former director of National Security Agency
• Mike Sheehan - Former NYPD Deputy Commissioner of counter terrorism and National Security Council Member under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton

Admission is free, but tickets are required. To reserve your place, RSVP to Patrick Flanary by close of business on Wednesday, June 15th.

Date: June 16th, 2011

Time: 8:15 pm – 10 pm

Place: 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10128

Read the Breakingviews story on hacking below:

Cybersecurity: This may go down as the year of the hack, with Sony and Amazon among the targets. But the compromising of information on almost 40 million RSA security tokens, which protect sensitive military and financial networks, may be the most serious instance. Cybersecurity efforts – and spending – suddenly look inadequate.
RSA’s devices are familiar in the worlds of banking and government. The keychain-like gadgets generate a six-digit number every minute or so. Users must enter the number along with a user name and password to access a network. Unfortunately, a sophisticated attack on RSA, the security division of EMC, suggests that a group of hackers found a way around the first part of the process.

Fortunately, that still left other security walls in place, such as passwords. Moreover, the attacks seemed extremely specific – defense contractors including Lockheed Martin seem to have been the only parties that have been subject to attempts to break into their systems. Unfortunately, this relatively good news isn’t enough in the world of computing security.

Passwords can be broken through simple means such as calling users and saying that “IT needs your password to update your system”. And financial companies can’t rest easy knowing they haven’t yet been targeted. A foreign power willing to steal sophisticated U.S. weapons systems may also be interested in destabilizing America’s financial system – and enterprises in places not friendly with the West might worry the same the other way around.

RSA’s offer to issue new tokens should prevent further intrusions this time. Yet the possibility that companies, especially financial institutions, could have seen their crown jewels exposed will surely cause consternation in executive suites. And with computer networks increasingly critical to global business and powerful technology readily accessible to governments, criminals and amateur hackers alike, the recent attacks won’t be the last such effort.

Consultancy Forrester estimates that security ate up about 8 percent of North American and European corporate IT budgets in 2007, and that figure grew to 14 percent in 2010. With companies now anxious not to be the ones hacked next time, that figure looks sure to go up.

robert.cyran@breakingviews.com