It's likely that at some point there is going to be something that we would consider
The worst cyber attack of all time
The worst case scenario one way to think about it is that a lot of these devices and systems just stop working
Everything from power grids our power grid is entirely connected to traffic systems to financial systems
And you can kind of start to think of all of the systems and devices
that are connected together in digital these days just stopped working
And to some extent, businesses will stop functioning infrastructure could stop working.
And it's really kind of the worst natural disaster that you could ever possibly imagine
The problem is is that all of these systems have more and more things get digital
We've seen hospitals in the U.S. that have been hit by ransomware that stopped being able to process patients
Think about in a couple of years when most of the trucks on the road that deliver goods across the US
are going to be completely automated to be controlled by self driving cars and GPS
So imagine if the GPS network goes down
or some method of connectivity between these trucks and how they navigate
and deliver goods and that goes down
and suddenly the infrastructure of the country stops working
As more and more of these systems are connected they're more exposed to attack
but they're not actually the ones the most exposed
the ones are the most exposed are the systems that provide the most convenience and that are the newest
In my house, I've got a smart thermostat and a smart garage door opener and smart lights
and I've got smart speakers some of which are listening to everything that I say
Imagine a cyber attack where every Amazon Alexa was recording everything that everybody was saying
and sending all that data somewhere
that only the attacker got and it sending it to somebody besides Amazon
15 billion devices now in the Internet of Things and in a couple of years it'll be 30
and a couple years after that it will be about 60
what that illustrates is just how much of our lives are going to be connected to a global network
And that means that thing about everything in your life that's now exposed to potentially a cyber attack
I think one of the worst case scenarios for a large scale global cyber attack
isn't going in and stealing some information or stopping something from working
It's changing information in some way
For instance what if somebody got in and change the results of an election
or changed the behaviour of how people vote
70 percent of all data breaches today take months or years to discover
So most companies and organizations that get breached even really major breaches
have no idea that it happened for months or potentially even years
because a really smart adversary doesn't want you to know that they're there. Right.
What's the point of screaming and yelling and breaking things
If your goal is to either exfiltrate something valuable
or change things in ways that benefit you
the only attack that were that will really make itself known
is something that's designed to cause chaos or to deny service in some way
One of the ways in a digital banking system that you can steal money isn't just to go in and rob a bank
and steal a million dollars or a billion dollars
it's to take a fraction of a percentage of a cent of every transaction
and in a world of high frequency trading
there are billions and billions and billions of transactions that happen every single second
Now imagine if you could just take a fraction of a penny of every one of those
Suddenly you're a multi millionaire and nobody might be the wiser
The impact of a large scale cyber attack might not be something like our water system
or our power grid or our financial system being shut down
It just might be an advanced actor slowly guiding us
in ways that we don't really understand or don't really realize at the time
and I think that's one of the big dangers of a completely digital society
I think everybody thinks about the worst case scenario for a cyber attack is a rogue nation state
North Korea decides to take down our power grid. Right.
But the problem with thinking that way is that it doesn't take North Korea
it doesn't take a nation state to be that advanced these days
attackers and the threats are evolving so fast, a lot of these
A lot of these other malware that we're talking about
a lot of the really advanced stuff is available to anybody who wants it
Anybody with some basic skills could take a few weeks
couple of months learn about information systems
and suddenly you get access to weaponized malware from the CIA that was leaked last year
Many years ago the U.S. government launched a cyber attack against Iran
trying to shut down their nuclear reactors and they created a virus to do it
that was supposed to shut down machinery
inside these nuclear reactors to prevent Iran from potentially getting nuclear weapons
it was supposed to break those centrifuges
but it was so well designed or poorly designed
that it spread beyond those centrifuges and it ended up being a global cyber attack
It's like I developed a virus that was designed to go you know make a couple of scientists sick
and then suddenly it made everybody sick
That's the worst case scenario somebody develops a weapon
that's designed to cause a lot of damage in a very narrow way
And then it ends up causing a lot of damage in a very broad way
And I think it's highly likely that we're going to see something like that happen
because it's not like anything has changed those kinds of weapons are continuing to be developed
they're becoming far more advanced and the potential damage is way higher than it ever was