Cyber security is a hot spot

“This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends” is a book about cyber security. Or more about the lack of cyber security. A long time ago, I read “Future crimes”.

The dark side of technology

Already painting a very dark picture of what is possible on the dark side of technology. Criminal AI (Don Watson), hacking of genetics, tailor-made biological viruses, quantum computing, IoT, nano, etc. Basically, everything is hackable. There are only two types of companies — those that know they’ve been compromised and those that don’t know.

Hackers

The book describes a journey through the world of hackers. It is not a pretty picture. A weird mix of private, enterprise and governments hacking each others’ systems. Cyberwarfare, with Ukraine as an example. But also interference in elections and referenda, stealing IP, hacking of infrastructure and utilities (including nuclear reactors) and cyber attacks.

Leaking code

Today, the Pentagon’s Joint Strike Fighter aircraft contains more than 8 million lines of onboard software code, while Microsoft’s Vista operating system contains an estimated 50 million lines. Each line of that code contains instructions that can potentially be subverted for any number of means. You should have zero confidence in an application that contains more than…