World is living digital revolution as cybersecurity has become an urgent priority: US researcher
- 22 August 2015
More than 100 governments around the world including the UAE have set up a Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) to plan, coordinate, integrate, synchronize and conduct activities to defend the information security environment, a US strategist has said.
In a lecture on ''Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know'', hosted by the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research (ECSSR), Peter Singer, Strategist and Senior Fellow, New America Foundation, explored key aspects of cyberspace and its security how it all works, why it all matters, and what we can do about it.
The bestselling author said.''A generation ago, "cyberspace" was just a term from science fiction, used to describe the nascent network of computers linking a few university labs. Today, our entire modern way of life, from communication to commerce to conflict, fundamentally depends on the Internet.'' According to him, the cybersecurity issues that result challenge everyone: politicians wrestling with everything from cybercrime to online freedoms; generals protecting the nation from new forms of attack while planning new cyberwars themselves; business executives defending firms from once unimaginable threats, and looking to profit from them; and both lawyers and ethicists building new frameworks to define right and wrong.
Most of all, the lecturer added, cybersecurity issues affect us as individuals. We face new questions surrounding everything from our rights and responsibilities as citizens of both the online and real worlds, to simply how to protect ourselves and our families from a new type of danger; yet there is perhaps no other issue that has become so important so quickly, and touches so many, but remains so poorly understood.'' A group of diplomats, researchers, cybersecurity experts, intellectuals and media persons attended the event on Wednesday.
