http://www.darkreading.com/advanced-threats/exploit-devs-at-risk-the-nuclear-scienti/240153960
By Tom Parker
Dark Reading
April 30, 2013
When news stories broke last month regarding the legitimacy of using lethal
force against civilian hackers, I questioned what the future might hold for
exploit devs and other members of the cybersupply chain who are facilitating
state-funded, offensive cybercapabilities -- particularly when it comes to more
belligerent regimes, such as Iran and North Korea. Are we inevitably set on a
path where these individuals may be at the same level of risk that, say,
Iranian nuclear researchers have been during the past few years?
As extreme as this might sound at first glance, parallels between nuclear
proliferation and cyberconflict are often drawn, primarily due to the
potentially paradigm-shifting nature of both technological advances.
Nuclear scientists have been a hot commodity since Ernest Rutherford discovered
that he could split an atom in 1917. Subsequent to Rutherford's discovery,
history is littered with scientists being captured, killed, or even defecting
to a foreign state, most recently including numerous slain Iranian scientists,
as well as Shahram Amiri (another Iranian scientist), who was reported to have
defected to the U.S. courtesy of the CIA in 2010.
While clearly nuclear and cyberplatforms are not the same, the high demand for
individuals who are capable of building highly sophisticated and dependable
cybercapabilities, coupled with the apparent desire by a growing amount of
nation-states to gain superiority in this domain (otherwise known as an arms
race), inevitably creates an environment similar to what has existed in the
nuclear domain for much of the past century.
[...]
______________________________________________
Visit the InfoSec News Security Bookstore
Best Selling Security Books and More!
http://www.shopinfosecnews.org
