In spring, a young geek’s fancy turns to cyberterrorism. This is, after all, the Digital Age.
Ah yes, a love bug is the air. Online to be precise. You know, it’s funny how something so seemingly simple as an expression of love on the Net can so completely transform the daily lives of ordinary people everywhere.
But something’s wrong. People aren’t happy; no one’s laughing. Office workers are cursing their computers and each other. This Love Bug bites.
Wireless devices, which are becoming on-ramps to the Internet, apparently escaped the Love Bug unscathed. They may not be so lucky in the future.
Love Bug’s damage is not as bad as originally thought. It only cost businesses, the federal government and others about $9 billion.
What kind of a monster, capable of crashing e-mail systems on a continental scale, could this be? Foreign terrorists with a hardened political agenda? A disgruntled twentysomething in Silicon Valley? An organized crime syndicate? Anti-globalists, perchance.
None of the above, apparently. Turns out the industrialized world was brought to its knees by a Filipino or two with a computer in a sordid Manila apartment.
This latest cybercrisis is interesting-actually scary-on several levels.
First, the Filipino(s) suspected of spreading the Love Bug may have been trying only to steal some passwords and did not intend to wreak global havoc. U.S. law enforcement does buy this explanation.
But what if it’s true? What if it’s possible, through petty Net theft, that a person can unwittingly take down e-mail systems worldwide and do untold other damage. If true, the wired world is in bigger trouble than it thinks.
At least with Y2K, we knew what we were dealing with.
Government policy makers trying protect critical infrastructure-like telecom networks-are in a bind. There’s disagreement on how to craft a cybercrime defense. Who’s the bigger threat: the hacker or the high-tech terrorist.
The high-tech community, which has everything to lose if e-commerce cannot be made secure and stable, is leery of government intervention. Giving the FBI, the Federal Trade Commission or some other agency more cyberclout could mean the undoing an unregulated industry, high-tech execs fear.
But these attacks are not happening in a vacuum. Others are taking note.
Look, for example, at the lesson Russian ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky drew from Love Bug: “The era of detective stories and James Bond has long been over. Now there is a different era-the era of computers and the Internet. And we can bring the entire West to its knees with our computer specialists,” Zhirinovsky was quoted as saying.
Then again, cyber warfare is a two-way street. Ask the Pentagon. NATO airstrikes alone did not win the Balkan War.
