Whether it was Russia or a dead DNC staffer that leaked or better said hacked the DNC email system, the damage has been done. To most people in the USA, it was a passing story, but the truth is that one has to be naive to think America’s most important data is safe. While other countries are learning to build better and safer systems to protect sensitive data, America lags behind.
In fact, back in April NBC ran a story about an Iranian hacking into a control center of a NY dam. It was the first time such a hack occurred using simple Google searches.
“While foreign nation-state hacking into U.S. infrastructure is common and growing in scope and sophistication, the dam hack is significant because prosecutors say it’s the first time a simple, search engine-driven hack of a piece of U.S. infrastructure has surfaced as the tool of choice. It’s also the first time federal indictment tied a foreign state to the hacking of critical U.S. assets, ” the NBC report said.
Essentially, the USA is far behind most of its enemies. This has implications for security, but it also has an implication on how Americans can be influenced by bad actors wanting to shape and shift public opinion. We see this clearly in this year’s election, where WikiLeaks holds the cards to the outcome in November.
If America, wants to protect itself and society it needs to learn how to better deal with information protection in both the public and private sectors.
