Criminals are getting more sophisticated in their use of technology: in the past year, cyberattacks have increased 300%. Javed Ali, incoming associate professor of practice, provided some insight on these attacks.
"Unfortunately, even though modern technology has been a boom and beneficial in so many ways, it's also been hijacked by criminals and terrorists groups and other malignant actors to carry out all their business," Ali told KNX In Depth. "There’s always a dark side to modern technology and this is an example of that."
In May, Colonial Pipeline was the victim of a cyberattack, resulting in gas shortages and panic-buying.
"(There was a) sort of anxiety of not knowing when gas supplies would come back in a neighborhood or a city," Ali said on ABC Nightline. "So, these are all really tough, not only business decisions, but decisions that have cascading effects throughout the country."
Ali believes that the Biden administration could usher in a "transparent revolution in cybersecurity," as he wrote in a recent opinion piece in The Cipher Brief.
"We should be deeply concerned about adversaries exploiting gaps and seams in the ability of overseas-focused agencies like NSA to collect cyber intelligence inside the United States," Ali wrote, along with co-author Thomas Warrick, nonresident senior fellow with the Middle East programs group at the Atlantic Council and the director of the Future of DHS Project. "Just because there hasn’t been a 'cyber Pearl Harbor' or a 'cyber 9/11' doesn’t mean that one is impossible. It means only that we’ve been lucky—so far. Cybersecurity today takes serious resources, trust, and transparency."
Read Ali and Warrick's full essay, published by The Cipher Brief, here.
Read and hear the news items featuring Ali here:
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KNX In Depth: One obscure company's failure brings thousands of website crashing down -- First Jan. 6th report cites totally unprepared Capitol Police -- Privacy concerns w/COVID vaccine registry? -- Benzene in sunscreens, KNX In Depth, June 8, 2021
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Cybersecurity experts break down a cyberattack as they become increasing threat, ABC News, June 9, 2021
