“Hacked” is one of the major buzzwords this election cycle. From Hillary’s emails to fears of Russia to Trump’s promise to prioritize cyber-security. Unfortunately, neither candidate has really had much of an opportunity as of yet to really dig into cyber-security threats, and even if they could, it would be a difficult thing to communicate in 30 second sound bytes for public consumption.
So… what cyber-security threats will our next president have to deal with? Here’s what we know:
- The ISIS Hacking Division
There was a time when a group like ISIS would never have considered hacking classified documents. But these days, you can hack a server across the planet with a used eighty dollar smart phone off of eBay and a few dozen Youtube videos to teach you how to do it. Be that as it may, ISIS hackers aren’t exactly Neo and Morpheus just yet, but they are a growing threat. ISIS has already been using their hackers in order to attain sensitive information on “high-value targets,” and this is a threat that will continue to grow into the next president’s first term.
- Russian Hackers
Recent reports suggest that American servers are under “constant attack” by Russian hackers. They only seem to slip through the cracks every now and then, so you could say that they’re using a “human wave” attack, a method that is far from elegant, but also very far from ineffective.
- Domestic Terrorism (and Trolls)
Sometimes the greatest threat to our national security comes from within. Not all hackers even have a political agenda, some of them are just in it, “for the lolz,” as they like to say.
Both Clinton and Trump have promised to put the most recent technology to work in combating hackers, but… what does that really mean? It’s more of a canned response to assure the public not to worry, right?
They say that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and it should be self-evident to anyone with a basic working knowledge of cyber-security that our next president could actually cut down on military spending by putting more money into advancements in computer technology. The NSA, CIA and freelance tech consultants could create a security system that is, if not completely hack-proof, at least decades ahead of anything that hackers domestic or abroad have access to. Einstein said that World War 4 would be fought with sticks and stones, but maybe not, if World War 3 is fought with a suped up version of Avira Antivirus.
