Importance of Global Security Systems

With a growing global itch for e-commerce and Internet transactions, security of systems has become a hot topic around the world. With the number of Internet users almost exponentially growing every year, there is more and more information and personal data online and vulnerable to cyber terrorists or hackers. The situation has gotten so serious that the President of the United States, possibly one of the most powerful men in the world, has taken charge and began acting out against cyber terrorism.

Professionals and critics say that this is not nearly enough. It’s not the systems themselves that are the problem, rather the users that make the systems vulnerable. Security systems are upgraded, and almost immediately hackers are hard at work cracking and breaking codes to force their way through the doors. It's a game to them. The harder the security locks, the more fun it is.

Many cases we have seen money solve the problem; but when it comes to knowledge, it's almost as if money isn't part of the picture. Millions of dollars are being spent on securing companies networks, and single users are wiping them out completely with $1000 machines. Just as the hackers have united into an underground army of experienced and powerful computer users, companies and businesses are going to have to take an offensive and attack back with strategy, not with currency.

It's not even the fact that they are gaining anything from the hack, only the satisfaction that they did it, and the recognition from fellow hackers is payment enough. The security of the Internet has become such a big issue it has struck high agencies such as the F.B.I and the D.O.D. The Department of Defense has taken several steps to upgrading its security, including hiring its own 'in-house hackers' to protect their system from cyber strikes.

The threat of cyber-terrorism is global. The worldwide network of computers is so loosely knit that cyber crime is made to look like stealing candy from a baby. "If somebody wanted to launch an attack," says Fred B. Schneider, a professor of computer science at Cornell University, "it would not be at all difficult. There are an infinite number of opportunities." During the Gulf War, Dutch hackers stole information about U.S. troop movements from U.S. Defense Department computers and tried to sell it to the Iraqis, who thought it was a hoax and turned it down.

It's no longer a game of breaking web sites and stealing email passwords. These are people's lives that are on the line. We don't see or hear stories of security proficiency or an 'unbreakable' computer infrastructure for one simply reason; there are none. It doesn't matter how much money is spent on securing the systems, it's the systems themselves that are providing hackers with the information to commit their crimes and this isn't preventable. So, we should use those security systems which are considered as better then other to protect.

Upgrades to system security are seen as a challenge by hackers, and it's been proven time and time again that hackers cannot be stopped. Even when agencies are warned of attacks, they aren't prepared to take action and their systems fall apart. They don't have any clue how to stop cyber-terrorists. Even government institutes such as NASA and the White House aren't invulnerable from hackers.

That goes to show that if these technologically rich places, where security is the number one concern can't stop hackers, then no one can. It's scary to think how fast we are moving into the cyber world and how quickly we are converting to living digital lives because, a computer network can never and will never be a secure place for people's information.