Hong Kong corporations can no longer ignore threat of a cyberattack
Michael Gazeley says the spate of cyberattacks in the wake of the Occupy protests should raise the alarm on organisations' vulnerability
The threat of cyberattacks has escalated in Hong Kong. During the past month, the Anonymous collective - a global network of hacker-activists - has declared cyberwar on the Hong Kong government and police force, in support of the Occupy Central movement.
Further, it is clear that Anonymous was not the only group of hackers taking direct action, with websites on both sides of the political divide being targeted. Some were brought to a crawl using the "distributed denial of service" attacks. This is when so much artificial traffic is sent to the targeted system that it can no longer function properly. Other websites were attacked in different ways or simply defaced.
However, what everyone needs to understand, and urgently, is that these attacks are actually the least important cybersecurity dangers we face.
In today's increasingly connected world, it is estimated that over a million devices are being added to the internet every three hours. More and more of these are not computers in the traditional sense. There are smartphones and tablets, but also televisions, fax machines, printers, telephones, CCTV systems, fridges, baby monitors, and even next-generation light bulbs. That's not all. One also needs to add power plants, traffic lights, oil rigs, cars, aeroplanes, drones, ships, and even medical devices like pacemakers to the list.
We are collectively rushing headlong into what is commonly called the "internet of things", without realising that this also means we are fast heading towards the "vulnerability of everything".
If all this sounds like science fiction, note that former US vice-president Dick Cheney had his pacemaker's wireless feature disabled in 2007, fearing assassination by a hacker.