Between Hype and Understatement: Reassessing Cyber Risks as a Security Strategy

Abstract

Most of the actions that fall under the trilogy of cyber crime, terrorism,and war exploit pre-existing weaknesses in the underlying technology.Because these vulnerabilities that exist in the network are not themselvesillegal, they tend to be overlooked in the debate on cyber security. A UKreport on the cost of cyber crime illustrates this approach. Its authorschose to exclude from their analysis the costs in anticipation of cybercrime, such as insurance costs and the costs of purchasing anti-virus software on the basis that these are likely to be factored into normal dayto-day expenditures for the Government, businesses, and individuals.This article contends if these costs had been quantified and integratedinto the cost of cyber crime, then the analysis would have revealed thatwhat matters is not so much cyber crime, but the fertile terrain of vulnerabilities that unleash a range of possibilities to whomever wishes toexploit them. By downplaying the vulnerabilities, the threats representedby cyber war, cyber terrorism, and cyber crime are conversely inflated.Therefore, reassessing risk as a strategy for security in cyberspace mustinclude acknowledgment of understated vulnerabilities, as well as a betterdistributed knowledge about the nature and character of the overhypedthreats of cyber crime, cyber terrorism, and cyber war