All we can do about massive cyberattack is pray
May 15, 2017, 6:03 AM | Updated: 8:53 am
By now we all know that the most powerful country in the world, that being the United States, still can’t defend itself against a cyberattack. The Senate got that message last week from the Guardians of the Internet – the security experts in charge of cyber-warfare.
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But with the media focused on the president’s latest drama – nobody cared.
“We are discussing one of the most important topics to our national defense and the room is empty,” Senator Richard Blumenthal said.
Blumenthal made that comment Thursday, after hearing warnings like this one from Admiral Mike Rogers, director of the National Security Agency.
“The analogy I try to use … look it’s hard to expect the police force to stop burglaries if you’re going to leave every one of your doors not just unlocked but open.”
If I may expand on his analogy, it’s also difficult to prevent a burglary if the police leave their most sophisticated lock picking tools just lying around.
It was the day after that comment, that computer users around the world began seeing the message, “Oops your data has been encrypted.” According to Microsoft, the NSA itself was partly responsible.
Microsoft says the NSA knew for months about this latest flaw in Windows, but instead of alerting Microsoft, the NSA figured they would exploit it to get the bad guys. But then the bad guys stole their exploit and used it to collect ransom from innocent people.
About all we can do is pray.
“Dear Lord, please protect our files … from the people trying to protect our files.”
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