Threats against cyber security seem to be everywhere these days. From viruses slowing down your computer or smartphone, to major attacks on international companies. It’s hard to go a day without hearing about some new and increasingly sophisticated cyber attack. Incidents at Target, Home Depot, and most recently Sony Pictures all illustrate the problems of living in a world more digitally connected than ever.
The "internet of things" is coming. Today its not uncommon for the average person to own four or five internet connected devices, and each passing year brings us even more ways to connect to the web. But the blurring of personal space and cyberspace isn't the only blurring taking place.
To a large extent, our country’s economy, communications, health care, public utilities and military all depend on cyber security as well. Unfortunately, as recent events have shown, this dependence comes with risk.
To date, hackers around the world reportedly put more than 150,000 computer viruses in circulation every day and 148,000 computers are compromised daily. The cost? According to McAfee Security, victims of cyber crime lose over 400 billion dollars each year.
With so much at stake, we ask what’s being done to protect us from this new and evolving threat? This hour we’ll talk with experts who are up to their elbows in bits and bytes about the reality of staying safe in the cyber world.
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GUESTS:
- Professor Bryan Ford- Leads the Decentralized/Distributed Systems (DeDiS) research group at Yale University. His work focuses broadly on cyber security and building secure systems. Prof. Ford earned his B.S. at the University of Utah and his Ph.D. at MIT
- Professor David Thaw- Assistant Professor of Law and Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh and an Affiliated Fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School. His research examines the regulation and impact of Internet and computing technologies, with a focus on cyber security, cyber crime, and cyber warfare
- Chairman Arthur House- Chairman of the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) and an expert on cyber security threats against national security and public utilities
John Dankosky, Chion Wolf and Katie McAuliffe contributed to this show.
