America Isn't Ready for Real Digital Protection of Its Infrastructure

Combating Digital Crime & Digital Terrorism

"Describe the overall impact (e.g. economic, social, etc.) of utilizing technologies in combating digital crime and digital terrorism"

It has become very obvious over the past few years that the United States' technologies that are supposed to combat cyber attacks on corporate, personal, and government computers are enormously ineffective. Some would say that is an understatement. This paper discusses ways to combat cyber crime and cyber terrorism. There is good reason why this subject needs addressing not just in college research papers but by the agencies that are supposed to protect Americans and the U.S. government and its employees (including the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Secret Service, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, among others).

Why better digital crime prevention is imperative

In fact one of the most devastating digital attacks on U.S. government computers occurred earlier in June, as hackers linked to China gained access "... To the sensitive background information submitted by intelligence and military personnel for security clearances" in the Office of Personnel Management (Reynolds, 2015). It was a cyber crime of enormous proportions, and in addition to the regular personnel records of federal employees -- which may lead the cyber criminals to attempt to blackmail, intimidate workers and steal their identities -- the hackers stole a "trove of military and intelligence records that could be even more valuable" (Reynolds, p. 1). The forms that were stolen by the criminals were "Standard Form 86," which lists employees in very sensitive positions and their "weaknesses, past arrests, bankruptcies, drug and alcohol problems" (Reynolds, p. 1).

In addition, thieves stole personnel information from current and former employees including issues linked to divorce information, social security numbers, and private information on roommates, spouses, relatives and friends, Reynolds explained. So, following this successful digital attack, there are nearly 14 million present and former federal employees who are in a "collective panic over the loss of their information" (Reynolds). This brazen security breach is being called a "cyber Pearl Harbor," which may be a stretch, but even though no bullets or bombs have been used, China has accomplished a great deal in terms of infiltrating U.S. personnel information.

What should the U.S. be doing to thwart cyber criminals?

Reynolds writes that the federal government is offering those 14 million employees (and former employees) "free identity-theft protection," but it's like putting a "band-aid on a severed limb," Reynolds writes on page 2. But looking at the problem and what to do, James Jay Carafano explains that the kind of theft that the Chinese pulled off didn't necessarily require "ninja cyber skills" because entrance into so-called protected servers and computers can be done with "phishing" -- gaining entry through passwords by "tricking legitimate users into handing them over" (Carafano, 2015).

It is "unforgivable that the feds couldn't stop the hackers from taking so much out and running their vacuum cleaner operation for so long undetected" (Carafano, p. 1). Washington spends too much time trying to tell the rest of the world what to do and too little time getting its own house in order" (Carafano, p. 1).

The existing challenges based on the independent nature of law enforcement agencies include: a) ensuring cyber crime is being reported; b) ensuring adequate analytical and technical capabilities for law enforcement; c) working in "a borderless environment with laws of multiple jurisdictions"; and d) raising awareness and putting into place "information security practices" (Wolf, U. 2009).

What the United States needs to focus on -- and this is a huge challenge based on the vulnerability America has clearly shown in terms of failing to protect its government resources and infrastructure -- is protecting the "networked critical infrastructures" (NCIs). In a peer-reviewed article in the journal Communications of the ACM, the authors explain that NCIs include "transportation systems, electricity grids, and telecommunications networks, which, if seriously compromised, would disrupt the American economy and "the lives of all citizens" (Siaterlis, et al., 2014).

The past few years have seen a "dramatic increase in the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) within the NCIs," and the main purpose of those increases has been to "reduce the cost of industrial installations and implement new services" (like maintenance of infrastructures and monitoring of energy markets) (Siaterlis, 64). However, the downside of using "standard technology components" is that using them exposes the companies to "significant but common cyberthreats" (Siaterlis, 64).

Those "standard technology components" used by for infrastructures open the door to being attacked by digital criminals which can lead to "serious outages"; the studies to date show that security regarding supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) is subject to hacking. And intrusions by cyber criminals into these systems can result in the loss of "vital services (such as transportation and water and gas supply).

The point of the article is that in order to fully assess the effect of the cyberthreats against the cyber dimensions and the physical dimensions requires reliable and accurate scientific instruments; and moreover, unless NCIs have the ability to assess cyber threats, vitally important water, gas and transportation systems can be compromised (Siaterlis, 64).

In fact a single failure within just one NCI could have "…a cascading effect on others"; an example was the loss of the northern electricity grid in India in 2012, which led to loss of power for healthcare, transportation and other services for 600 million people in India (Siaterlis, 65).

How could the U.S. use a strategy to mitigate the challenges of cyber crimes?

One potential solution, according to the Wall Street Journal, is a "collaborative and networked defense," going farther than just sharing collective intelligence but also sharing information about "…vulnerabilities, threats and remedies" (Bissell, 2013). Knowledge of security risks should be spread instantly between agencies and their servers, and this collective intelligence (which should be available to smart, tech-savvy vendors) can direct "security audits and cyber forensics" to those areas that are deemed vulnerable (Bissell). There are vendors out there now that have developed features such as "…injecting data feeds of anonymized and aggregated data about IP addresses, file names, email addresses, query and search strings…" which is basically what the national Cyber Security Act of 2012 was supposed to do (Bissell, p. 2).

The truth is that traditional security functions, like firewalls and antivirus scanners cannot and do not cancel out each threat; and moreover, there seemed (at least at the time of this article) to be a shortage of "specialized cybersecurity talent" out there, and this is an enormous problem.