A Brief History of Cybercrime and Cyberwarfare - The Technical and Social History of Software Engineering - page 418

profits that assist victims in recovery from cybercrime such as identity theft; and
antivirus and antimalware companies that block or remove attacking viruses, Tro-
jans, worms, and many other security threats.
Cyberattacks have also created a new professional occupation of Chief Security
Officer (CSO) or sometimes Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). These
positions began to appear in about 2000. Large companies have always had secur-
ity departments, but these groups were mainly concerned with the physical secur-
ity of buildings and with vetting new employees to ensure they did not have crim-
inal records.
The new CSO position and computer security organizations handle computers,
software, purchased software, and corporate databases. Most large companies
today have full-time computer security staffs, and they also have a number of key
personnel standing by as emergency responders in the event of a cyberattack or a
denial of service attack. Constant vigilance is the key to good cybersecurity.
Defending computers and software against viruses, worms, and other threats is
not a task for amateurs. Training and certification of computer and software se-
curity personnel is mandatory to be effective, and continuous education updates
are also needed. We are dealing with threats that morph and evolve continuously.
Some of these threats are created by the brightest minds within hostile govern-
ments. Computer and software defenses are not something to pass along to un-
trained generalists.
Computers and software have brought many benefits. But they have also
brought new kinds of crime and new threats to individuals, corporations, govern-
ments, and military organizations.
Improving Defenses Against Cyberattacks
Countries are often involved in “arms races” with other countries. A very import-
ant arms race is taking place more or less out of sight. This is the race between
cyberattackers and cyberdefenders and between the United States and possible fu-
ture enemies such as Iran and North Korea.
Unlike conventional arms races, which are between national governments, the
cyber arms race is between organized criminal groups and government cybercrime
defense units at local through national levels.
To date, conventional defenses against cyberattacks have included firewalls to
block intrusions, antivirus packages to prevent and remove intrusions, and addi-
tional tools to block spam and annoyances that are not dangerous.