Richard Clarke’s law or cyberwar hype
Everybody knows the Godwin’s law: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches”.
In cybersecurity or cyberwar scope, I think we can now create a Richard Clarke’s law : “As an cyberattack discussion grow longer, the probability to designate chinese hackers or government as responsible and refer to cyberwar becomes unavoidable”. What do you think about this?
Richard Clarke is a former presidential advisor on cybersecurity. Now he’s the chairman of Good Harbor Consulting, a strategic planning and corporate risk management firm. The favorite Richard Clarke’s topic is cyberwar.
Hype or reality? In his mouth, China is blamed for every cyber attacks against every company in the US. When medias or many cybersecurity “experts” start talking about hacking, China (or Russia sometimes, cyber cold war is back…) is always designated as source of cyber attacks or cyber espionage. And then we got cyberwar mention… Yes China or Russia have offensive cyber capabilities and exploit them daily to launch cyber attacks and spy on us but so do many other countries like USA, Great Britain, Germany, India, Israel (and even France)…
Cyberspace is not in state of war. It’s just the new espionage playground even if the military are interested in very closely.
Remember some Richard Clarke’s declarations:
“I’m about to say something that people think is an exaggeration, but I think the evidence is pretty strong. Every major company in the United States has already been penetrated by China”
If Congress will not act to protect America’s companies from Chinese cyberthreats, President Obama must.
In his 2010 book, Cyber War, former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke invokes the specter of nationwide power blackouts, planes falling out of the sky, trains derailing, refineries burning, pipelines exploding, poisonous gas clouds wafting, and satellites spinning out of orbit — events that would make the 2001 attacks pale in comparison. From Think Again: Cyberwar by Thomas Rid - foreignpolicy.com
No, I don’t like very much Richard Clarke. Why? Because I think the apocalyptic tactic is not the best solution to mitigate cyber threats. To sell fear is good for business and mainly for former government officials (now working in private sector), who expect to profit from cybersecurity boom. Anti-China and cyberwar marketing will not protect American or European critical infrastructures from cyber threats… Cyber attacks are reality but… come on… stop referring to cyberwar every time and start thinking differently about cybersecurity.
Few relevant articles:
