Each and every day headlines appear about the growing conflict in the digital domain and that has many in cyber security deeply concerned. New methods of attack, new vulnerabilities, the latest and greatest malware, and reports of successful attacks are now a daily occurrence.
The most recent such event is the cyberattack and resulting data breach involving 4 million current and former federal employees. All this has prompted headlines about hovering on the edge of a cyber war.
The topic of an all-out cyber war is now becoming far more frequent. It has been the focus of a number of war games over the past few years; having had the opportunity to participate in several of these cyber war games, I have to say the threat of an actual cyber war is not something to take lightly. The impact such an event would have on the entire world goes far beyond what has been described in the media, and the true impact grows each and every day.
So how prepared are we? The answer is, it depends on where you look. State and local emergency management agencies are called upon in such a crisis. Of course, there are some that would receive high ratings and others that fail. It would be interesting to have an independent evaluation as to just how prepared they are. The overall average is likely to be rated in the Cs at best. Those that have created cyber emergency response plans probably don’t update them as frequently as needed given the magnitude of change occurring in this domain, even though there is help (documents) available online. Another area that should receive much more attention is ensuring that state and local emergency management officials hold a regular exercise to test and refine their cyber emergency response plans. Private sector critical infrastructure providers MUST be a part of those activities!
Given the current threat and the risks of being ill prepared for such an incident, the Governor of each state should make sure realistic cyber emergency management plans are developed and updated and an appropriate exercise happens regularly at the state and county levels. It should also be conducted in major cities as well.
