Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: cybercrime/malcode

I believe it is wonderful to think about cognitive computing. However, as a fellow CIO & CTO, I would suggest a key priority has to be focused on Cyber Security until it is resolved; or in a better position to proactively blocker would be intruders. Without a solid Cyber Security plan and model in place and operational; your cognitive computing capabilities will be worth nothing in the end once hackers are helping themselves to your IP and other information as well as your AI machines.

The news comes from the recent IBM Institute for Business Value study, “Redefining Competition: Insights from the Global C-suite Study — The CEO perspective.” Researchers interviewed more than 5,000 C-level executives worldwide about their perspectives on a variety of technology issues, including the importance of mobile solutions, cloud Relevant Products/Services computing, and the Internet of Things.

Torchbearers and Market Followers.

Cognitive computing, which involves developing computing resources that are capable of mimicking the way human brains work to tackle increasingly complex problems, emerged as one of the most important issues likely to confront business executives in the near future.

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China’s public report on their own Cyber Security Strategy — don’t get too excited; it is a “public” version of their plan (mean nothing in depth).

New cyber warfare unit

While China was assessed to have cyber warfare capabilities for quite some time, the declaration by its Central Military Council of the formation of a new military branch focussed on digital battleground technically called Strategic Support Force on 1st Jan. 2016 confirmed this. This new force is mainly aimed at providing resources capable of protecting China’s cyber and space security. On this occasion Xi pointed out that this force is central to achieving the “Chinese Dream” suggesting its importance.

This development has not come as a surprise. Last year China had released it’s first-ever White Paper on military strategy [entitled “China’s Military Strategy”] which stressed on need to shift to “active defence” and emphasized China’s commitment to “winning informationized local wars” as also becoming a maritime power. The White Paper also contained the first official acknowledgement of China’s commitment to building a cyber force with the capability to engage in offensive cyber operations.

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Very good read; and hints at something that I have been highlighting for a while around AI, NextGen transformation and adoption, etc. One very large brick wall that I highlighted in my latest posts around 5 areas that need to be address for AI to be adopted more broadly is Cyber Security.

If we do not get Cyber Security address soon around hackers, cloud, etc. AI (including robotics), brain interfaces, etc. will be either rejected or very limited in its adoption. It is just that simple.

What are CISO’s (Chief Information Security Officers) worrying about in 2016?

According to the recent 2016 Security Pressures report from Trustwave, theft of information from a successful breach or cyber-attack ranks as the top worrying outcome for nearly two-thirds of respondents.

With the Identity Theft Resource Center placing the number of records exposed from data breaches in 2015 somewhere around 170 million, it’s no surprise.

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If Russia, China, etc. upgrades their infrastructure to Quantum before US and it’s does; today’s breaches will not even compare to this scenario.

The push to bring more technology-related businesses to the state has officials hoping for long-term growth over places like Fairfax County, Va., where the federal government has already made substantial technological investment.

After the ceremony, an expert panel discussed some of the opportunities and challenges facing information infrastructure, the importance of collaboration between the public and private sectors, and how to increase consumers’ cybersecurity confidence.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker said during the panel that the current standing of federal cybersecurity has vastly improved since she was appointed to the post in 2013 — but there is still a ways to go.

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Brand’s view and concerns about hacking driverless cars are valid. And, I do believe in time that government will eventually catch up in passing some laws that will make companies ensure that their technology is safe for consumer usage and are safe for the public. I just hope that the pendulum does swing too far to the other side of over regulation.

It is not easy to slot Brad Templeton. What do you make of a person who is not only the networks and computing chair at Singularity University in Silicon Valley but also a software architect, a director of the Foresight Nanotech Institute, board member of the cyberspace watchdog Electronic Frontier Foundation, the first person to have set up an Internet-based business, a futurist lecturer, hobby photographer, artist, as well as a consultant on Google’s driverless car design team?

In a phone interview from the US, Templeton, who will be in India this month as a key speaker during the SingularityU India Summit (to be held in association with INK, which hosts events like INKtalks—a platform for the exchange of cutting-edge ideas and inspiring stories), shared his views on driverless cars, the perceived threat from intelligent machines and censorship of the Internet. Edited excerpts:

Driverless cars are not hacker-proof and may find it difficult to navigate chaotic traffic. How are we addressing such issues?

It’s absolutely true that people are concerned about security of these cars, but it is wrong to presume that people in the media learnt about this before those who built the driverless car. The people who built the car are working to make the car secure. They won’t be able to do it perfectly, but they are going to get there. The Google team certainly has the most miles to its credit. Right now over 2 million km in automatic mode, driving around mostly in California. The chaotic driving in India is slower than some of the roads in Europe or North America. And it is actually easier to do slower and chaotic driving than faster. You get more time to stop, perceive the situation and make accurate moves. The real challenge is that in many chaotic driving situations, there are unwritten rules so you have to figure out how to sort of, play a game with the other cars. It may mean that some of the more chaotic places may have to clean up their act a bit if they want to have a technology like this.

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Eva Galperin, Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Morgan Marquis-Boire, Citizen Lab, University of Toronto.

Protecting high-risk individuals has always been a problem for the security industry. While many enterprises focus on mitigating scenarios that will affect the greatest number of their users, harm from attacks is not distributed proportionally. Cyber-attacks on high-risk individuals in dangerous situations can lead to torture, kidnapping, and worse. But dealing with targeted attacks is time-consuming and resource intensive. This problem is exacerbated when the target is an individual or small NGO rather than a large enterprise. This talk will discuss the challenges of protecting high-risk, targeted users using the experience of the speakers in assisting targeted NGOs and individuals.

Sign up to find out more about Enigma conferences:
https://www.usenix.org/conference/enigma2016#signup

Watch all Enigma 2016 videos at:
http://enigma.usenix.org/youtube

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The 6th annual European Smart Grid Cyber Security conference (7th – 8th March 2016)

Boy! I wish I could attend this meeting. I can imagine all of the conversations now “Quantum” & “Cyber Attacks” with some good old AI thrown in the mix. I am also guess that the 2 articles this week on the NSA maybe brought up too.

SMi Group reports: The MITRE Corporation will be presenting at the SMi’s 6th annual European Smart Grid Cyber Security conference (7th – 8th March 2016)

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Not sure how I missed this article from late Jan. If you haven’t read my article on Linkedin Pulse called “AI holding your information hostage — food for thought”; you may wish to read it. It parallels beautifully with this report/ article:

A new report from application delivery and cyber security specialist Radware suggests that the human element will increasingly be excluded from security as 2016 brings a ‘battle of the bots’.

It finds that throughout 2015, no industry was immune to cyber attacks, and few were prepared for them. In 2016, attacks are predicted to become even more aggressive with the arrival of Advanced Persistent Denial of Service (APDoS) attacks and an increase in volume and scope of sophisticated bot-generated assaults against web application infrastructure.

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Non-hackable RFIDs

You might not realize it, but radio frequency identification (RFID) tech is everywhere these days. From the cards in your wallet, to inventory control in warehouses, it’s the technology that works behind the scenes to power the world around you. RFID has brought efficiency to complicated industries and makes our tiny devices and everyday carry items speak to each other. But RFID technology has also been very vulnerable to security attacks and information hackers – until now. A team of researchers from MIT and Texas Instruments have developed a new kind of RFID chip that they believe is impossible to hack.

The new RFID chip is made of ferroelectric crystals, which are material made up of molecules arranged in a lattice pattern across three dimensions. Thanks to this unique structure, when you apply electricity to the lattice, each cell can be polarized as either positive or negative, representing the values of a bit of information. Because the cells retain their polarization when the electric field is removed, the chips can store data even when they’re powered off. Texas Instruments developed a series of 3.3-volt capacitors for the chip’s energy source, and 1.5-volt cells for data storage.

Related: This RFID-blocking wallet keeps your cards safe and cuts down on clutter.

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