Security experts say Georgia has been unprepared for denial-of-service and other cyber attacks that have crashed servers and Web sites, hampering Georgia’s abilities to communicate with its troops and with citizens.
Georgia has blamed Russia for the attacks; Russian authorities deny responsibility and say they, too, have suffered from information warfare. But whomever is to blame, they seem to have been effective.
“In terms of the scope and international dimension of this attack, it’s a landmark,” Ronald J. Deibert, director of the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, is quoted in a Thursday Washington Post article, Longtime Battle Lines Are Recast In Russia and Georgia’s Cyberwar.
This is yet another warning, as if Web-reliant businesses needed one, that the ever improving capabilities of cyber attackers can quickly bring a company down to its knees.
Harvard Business School professor Ben Edelman is quoted in the piece as saying, “Imagine how devastating it would be to a military commander to lose access to a server that tells him where his troops are stationed and where he has resources.”
So imagine how devastating it would be for your company to lose, even temporarily, e-mail, customer and personnel data, or financial transaction and recording capabilities.
Don’t Delegate
All this to say, executives need to be active partners with IT when it comes to corporate computer security. It’s not a matter just to be delegated to the tech experts.
Here are fivequestions for which you need to know the answers:
- How, when, and where is your crucial data backed up?
- If you had to restore from a backup, how long would it take you to be at full capacity? Is there a scenario where it would take days rather than hours to be back online?
- What is your communications plan should you suddenly lose email or other key technologies?
- How often are your security measures reviewed against the current capabilities of cyberthieves?
- Is your security capability aligned with the level of risk you are willing to accept? In other words, do you need to expand your security resources to diminish risk?
Related reading:
Georgia Cyber Attacks From Russian Government? Not So Fast (CSOonline.com)
