“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
This quote, from Upton Sinclair, underlies many of the problems we face in making our systems secure. “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
It's also hard to understand something when your comfort or convenience depends on not understanding.
We know that we're rapidly expanding the cyber-physical attack surface. We know hostile agents are increasing in number and their attack tools are getting better. In the financial sector, we know that the number of attacks and the number of dollars stolen is both growing rapidly. We know the same pattern is starting to repeat in the cyber-physical world.
So why attach devices that could cause harm to the internet?
The answer is: we want our comfort, our convenience, and--if we build these systems--we want our paychecks. And that makes it hard to understand the problems and the risks.
It's easy to understand why it's a good idea to connect more stuff to the internet. More features. More flexibility. More convenience. And if you make the stuff--more money.
It's difficult to understand why it's a bad idea--especially when your convenience or your paycheck depends on not understanding it.
If you're a consumer, it's easy to believe that these problems are well understood by manufacturers. It's difficult to understand that the economic well-being of these companies and of the people in them depends on them minimizing, ignoring, and misunderstanding the problem.
If you own a car, and hostile agents can turn cars into weapons, odds are it won't be a _your_ car. If you manufacture cars, and a hostile agent figures out how to turn your fleet into a fleet of weapons, odds are it won't be _your_ fleet. You have a strong incentive to not understand the risks.
On the other hand, if you want your car to be more secure, it's easy to understand the consequences: you're going to have to pass up comfort and convenience. And if you're building cars and want to make your cars more secure, it's easy to understand the consequences: the customers who don't care about security (which is most of them) will prefer the car with more features.
Likewise, for physical equipment that could be destroyed--as the Stuxnet attack destroyed physical equipment in Iran. If it were t happen, it's likely to not be your equipment. If you're a buyer, it's easy to understand your competitive disadvantage if your plant is not as easy to manage as your competitors'. If you're a manufacturer, it's easy to understand how you'll lose customers to a competitor who provides more convenience.
It's also hard to understand something when your comfort or convenience depends on not understanding.
We know that we're rapidly expanding the cyber-physical attack surface. We know hostile agents are increasing in number and their attack tools are getting better. In the financial sector, we know that the number of attacks and the number of dollars stolen is both growing rapidly. We know the same pattern is starting to repeat in the cyber-physical world.
So why attach devices that could cause harm to the internet?
The answer is: we want our comfort, our convenience, and--if we build these systems--we want our paychecks. And that makes it hard to understand the problems and the risks.
It's easy to understand why it's a good idea to connect more stuff to the internet. More features. More flexibility. More convenience. And if you make the stuff--more money.
It's difficult to understand why it's a bad idea--especially when your convenience or your paycheck depends on not understanding it.
If you're a consumer, it's easy to believe that these problems are well understood by manufacturers. It's difficult to understand that the economic well-being of these companies and of the people in them depends on them minimizing, ignoring, and misunderstanding the problem.
If you own a car, and hostile agents can turn cars into weapons, odds are it won't be a _your_ car. If you manufacture cars, and a hostile agent figures out how to turn your fleet into a fleet of weapons, odds are it won't be _your_ fleet. You have a strong incentive to not understand the risks.
On the other hand, if you want your car to be more secure, it's easy to understand the consequences: you're going to have to pass up comfort and convenience. And if you're building cars and want to make your cars more secure, it's easy to understand the consequences: the customers who don't care about security (which is most of them) will prefer the car with more features.
Likewise, for physical equipment that could be destroyed--as the Stuxnet attack destroyed physical equipment in Iran. If it were t happen, it's likely to not be your equipment. If you're a buyer, it's easy to understand your competitive disadvantage if your plant is not as easy to manage as your competitors'. If you're a manufacturer, it's easy to understand how you'll lose customers to a competitor who provides more convenience.
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