Cybersecurity for Dummies

While reading this uneventful account of another recent cyberattack — supposedly orchestrated by the Chinese — on the computers of a U.S. Senator (this time it was Bill Nelson), I stumbled upon this factoid about some earlier attacks: That same year [2006], Chinese hackers infected the systems at the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and ...

While reading this uneventful account of another recent cyberattack -- supposedly orchestrated by the Chinese -- on the computers of a U.S. Senator (this time it was Bill Nelson), I stumbled upon this factoid about some earlier attacks:

While reading this uneventful account of another recent cyberattack — supposedly orchestrated by the Chinese — on the computers of a U.S. Senator (this time it was Bill Nelson), I stumbled upon this factoid about some earlier attacks:

That same year [2006], Chinese hackers infected the systems at the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which controls technology export rules, forcing the computers to be replaced altogether.

Now, what can beat this as a cybersecurity strategy? Let’s tell the enemy we could replace computers faster than they could attack us! But what if the old models are being replaced by the Chinese-made Lenovo computers? Hmmm…

Evgeny Morozov is a fellow at the Open Society Institute and sits on the board of OSI's Information Program. He writes the Net Effect blog on ForeignPolicy.com

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