There are a lot of things that we associate with Cybersecurity: of course it’s one thing to assume that keeping different strong passwords for different sites or putting gaffer tape over the computer’s camera will keep some mysterious “bad element” out of our businesses.
However, this might not necessarily be the best way to look at the problem. In a sense, a broader term and context is necessary to understand the ramifications of technological change on the whole.
In a context where we can work with people for years and never even meet them face-to-face, or where e-mail and chat records every conversation or even argument (often to be dug up later), it’s really becoming unclear where the physical world ends and the digital world begins.
A one-track approach to such security will never work. Even assuming a good, strong password, a clever malefactor will soon find her way up, around, over, or under that wall. The skills required to be a full-stack Cybersecurity expert, argues IE Insights, might even require a new term such as the broader “Digital Security.”
The skills required for such jobs, which number around 200,000 in Europe and perhaps as many as four million worldwide, include consultancy, analysis, and management as well as the obvious technical skills.
Particularly, given that this field requires excellent functionality during crises, it is vital that certain character traits–ability to keep quiet, excellent stress management, coolheadedness, experience with crisis, trustworthiness, and more–are vital to functioning in such a role.
As technology enmeshes further with our lives: our printers, lights, radios, and even refrigerators can be controlled non-locally right now. Drones now fly above us every day and we think nothing of them. Just imagine what happens when personal robots and self-driving cars become ubiquitous. Each of these poses a risk for us and a juicy opportunity for a potential bad actor.
Just as with any sort of rapid change, the ultimate effects are difficult to anticipate. All we know is that there will be blowback from how much our lives begin to enmesh with cyberspace, and this is not simply to do with wasting time on social media.
Rather, the very things that we rely on to make our lives function appropriately, from those intangibles such as banking and webchats to the physical such as our houses and vehicles, can and will be affected. It’s vital that Digital Security become a much greater concern–and profession–than it has been up to this point, and sooner rather than later.