So I read this interesting chart. What are your greatest fears? ISIS and other terrorist groups came in at number one. Then came climate change. But the third has to do with a huge tech threat: cyberattacks. Cyber crimes are a major fear.
And this is a global fear, not just a US one. In fact, 51% of people surveyed said cyber crimes are a major threat to humanity. In some countries, it’s higher. For example, in Japan, it’s the biggest fear. And in Germany, United Kingdom, it’s the second biggest fear. But what about here in the USA? Cyber attacks are the second biggest fear in this country as well.
Well, look at the number of major global attacks in just 2017 alone. The most infamous was WannaCry. Here, hackers hold entire systems hostage until they got hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Bitcoin. I’ll never forget how it messed up the UK’s hospital system, to the point people couldn’t even get life-saving surgery. Then came Petya, a month later. This cyber attack hit world wide, from US big pharma to Russian oil. They hit Ukraine so hard it almost brought that country to it’s knees. Other major hacks include Wikileaks CIA Vault 7, Cloudbleed, and France’s Macron campaign.
But I notice a couple of things. Russia and China did not take part in the survey. I find this interesting because many believe Russia and China play a huge part in these cyber crimes. North Korea plays a major, major part in cyber crimes, but they’re not in the survey for obvious reasons. So yes, cyber attacks are a huge concern in the US. We hear that concern in our Boston computer service shop. Silicon Valley and Washington need to hear us. But it seems like they’re too busy fighting each other. We have a real enemy and concern to fight here. Are they listening? Does either side even care?