Hacking into the cyberworld

摘要

In mid-November 2013, shadowy saboteurs attacked and crippled multiple sections of the electric grid in the United States. The previous day, assailants sponsored by a rogue government had struck at the heart of London's investment-banking industry, four months after a similarly brazen assault on New York's Wall Street firms. Fortunately, the mayhem unleashed was only simulated. The three independently planned 'war games', respectively code-named GridEx Ⅱ, Waking Shark Ⅱ and Quantum Dawn 2, were designed by financial and government officials to test defences and responses to the growing threat of cyberattacks. GridEx Ⅱ alone involved more than 1,800 participants from 200 government and utility organizations in the United States, Canada and Mexico, part of a major emergency drill aimed at improving the agencies' crisis action plans. Why go to such lengths? The magnitude of the cybersecurity problem is massive. In the United States, President Barack Obama called it "one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation". The threat is growing as crucial infrastructure - everything from energy and security to transportation and telecommunications - becomes increasingly reliant on the Internet.