This is part one in a five part series written by Dr. Edward Amoroso, of TAG Cyber and Gen. Keith Alexander, of IronNet Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity
risk is now a mainstream consideration for any organization with valued assets.
This is particularly true for any team with responsibility to provide essential
services, including ones that might have safety or life-critical implications
if not properly protected. Power companies, financial services firms,
telecommunications companies, military organizations, and government agencies
all come to mind as dealing with this type of growing risk – and all operate
large-scale infrastructure.
What are the cybersecurity challenges of large versus small-scale infrastructure?
Early
computer security methods in the 1980’s and 1990’s were designed to address
small-scale risks to systems with modest size, scope, connectivity, and scale.
Early Windows PCs, for example, were typically protected with anti-virus
software, packet filtering rules, non-complex passwords, and basic malware
scanners. While these methods might seem less impressive today, the threat was
simpler in the early days, and most users felt reasonably…