Espionage, Crime, Terrorism: Some Implications for Information Assurance

1
Espionage, Crime, TerrorismSome Implications
for Information Assurance

• Steffen W. SchmidtUniversity Professorand Jerry
  Shakeshaft Master Teacher in Political Science
• Iowa State University

2
I. The Threat

• Growing use of computers, IT, the Web and
  networked systems for crime, cyber warfare, and
  terrorism.
• Increasingly, groups, and states are using
  detection avoidance techniques (i.e. Information
  Security Assurance).
• They are also using proactive tools to defeat
  encryption and other blocking strategies.
  (Information Security Enforcement).

3
Examples

• The Colombia Drug Cartels
• Osama Bin Laden
• the China and Taiwan CyberWar
• We predict a black day for America and the end
  of the United States.Osama bin Laden

4
The Contexts

• Goodlands
• legal use of security
• for ethical purposes
• US national interest
• UN and international law compliant
• state interests (Iowa)

• Badlands
• illegal
• uncivil uses
• threats to U.S. security and defense
• violation fo international law and practice
• state level (Iowa)

5
II. The Defense

• Governments (the USA) have used tools to stop the
  Bad Guys including
• hard intelligence (eves dropping)
• interception
• soft monitoring (public data)
• building and equipment security
• security checks of individuals with access

6
III. The Offense

• Countermeasures include
• site penetrations
• data alteration
• disinformation
• virus attacks, information seizure
• law enforcement and criminal prosecution

7
IV. The Problem

• The USA and its allies have dominated Information
  Security for the past decade.
• They have used Technological Interdiction and
  Eradication of Threats (TIET) tools quite
  effectively by maintaining a lead on R D on
  information assurance.

8
The problem continued.

• US faces increased threats
• governmental security (DOD entries, drivers
  license offices, voter lists, etc.)
• the private sector (Microsoft site hacked,
  bibliophile.com)
• Education
• Non-profit organizations (Environmental Defense
  Fund?).

9
V. Solutions

• Train more people in Information Assurance
• Develop new, state-of-the-arts defensive as well
  as offensive techniques to secure information.
  Example ISU program and ...
• Emergency Response and Research Institute 6348 N
  Milwaukee Ave, Suite 312, Chicago, Illinois 60646
  USA http//www.emergency.com

10
The Problem with the Solution

• How do we assure ourselves that the people we are
  training will be Good Landers and not Bad
  Landers?
• You can use this power for good or for evil.
• How do we reconcile university practices with the
  need to do background clearances, monitoring,
  training prohibition, etc.?