JMU distinguished lecture: Cyber war, cyber peace, stones, and glass houses

Software is in such a vulnerable state today. Most systems and networks were poorly designed and built from the start, which makes them even more difficult to defend against cyber war, cyber espionage, and cyber crime attacks. We need to design and implement things to be more secure in the first place. Unfortunately, this is not the prevailing view in policy circles. Policymakers often end up making decisions based on an incomplete understanding of how systems actually work. This is reflected in the support of concepts like “active defense”—which is really an offensive tactic positioned as a defensive measure. Dr. Gary McGraw recently gave a Distinguished Lecture at James Madison University entitled “Cyber War, Cyber Peace, Stones, and Glass Houses” where he talks about several interesting topics, including these:

• The confusion around cyber war, cyber espionage, and cyber crime
• The continuing problem of attribution
• Why defense needs to be separate from offense in cyber
• Why countries that are vulnerable to cyber attacks need to exercise great caution when throwing “cyber stones”