Cybersecurity and Cyberwar Quotes

“In 2010, McAfee thought it impressive that it was discovering a new specimen of malware every fifteen minutes. In 2013, it was discovering one every single second!”
― P.W. Singer, Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know®

“The Internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn’t understand, the largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had.”
― P.W. Singer, Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know®

“Whenever they spoke, most of us would just keep quiet, nod our heads, and put on what author Mark Bowden calls “the glaze.” This is the “unmistakable look of profound confusion and disinterest that takes hold whenever conversation turns to workings of a computer.”
― P.W. Singer, Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know®

“access readers that require supposedly unique fingerprints have been fooled by forged fingerprints pressed into Gummy Bear candy,”
― P.W. Singer, Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know®

“Richard 'Dickie' George served at the National Security Agency over 3 decades [...] one of his biggest concerns in cybersecurity, however, is not merely the advancing threats in the cyberspace, but how we are going to find the people to respond to them...”
― Allan Friedman, Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know

“...states rely on private industry to take on their share of responsibilities in securing this World.”
― Allan Friedman, Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know

“...as the rules spread, and non-signatories can't help but engage in the process, countries start to internalise the logic of cooperation, that is, they begin to act like rules are there even if there are no formal rules agreed upon.”
― Allan Friedman, Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know

“...the lines of when and how a cyberattack becomes an act of war, and who can and should be held responsible for it, remain fuzzy.”
― Allan Friedman, Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know

“Resilience in cybersecurity starts with the primary goal of preserving the functions of the organisation, as a result, the actions that are needed to be resilient vary.”
― Allan Friedman, Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know

“Thread assessments in cyberspace may be even more difficult, the very nature of vulnerabilities in cyberspace makes assessing them extremely difficult.”
― Allan Friedman, Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know

“A threat assessment is the process of weighing the risks that any entity faces, be it a nation, a business, or even an individual.”
― Allan Friedman, Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know

“All of these aspects of security are not just technical issues, they are organisational, legal, economic, and social as well, but most importantly, when we think of security, we need to recognise its limits. Any gain in security always involves some sort of trade-off.”
― Allan Friedman, Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know

“Just because someone is young doesn't mean the person automatically has an understanding of the key issues. Cybersecurity is one of those areas that has been left to only the most technically inclined to worry [...] Anything related to the digital world or 0s and 1s was an issue just for computer scientists and the IT helpdesk. Whenever they spoke, most of us would just keep quiet, nod our heads, and put on what author Mark Bowden calls 'the glaze'. [...] The glaze is the face you put on when you only call something 'stuff'.”
― P.W. Singer, Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know

“Our most senior leaders, now in their 60s and 70s, likely didn't even become familiar with computers until well into their careers, and many still today have only the most limited experience with them.
As late as 2001 the director of the FBI did not have a computer in his office. While the Secretary of US Defense had his secretary to print out his emails to him, write his response in pen, and then had the assistant type them back in.”
― P.W. Singer, Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know