Hard to find: patriot geeks to combat cyber militias | Bangkok Post: opinion

CYBER SECURITY

Cyber-attacks are hitting the headlines almost every day. Crackers, or black hat hackers, are trying to access sensitive defence industry information and stealing e-mail passwords from Diet members, threatening to disrupt key communications infrastructure. The "attacks" however, have killed no one in Japan. Probably few have died directly from them around the globe either. Very few who have planned and executed the attacks have been arrested so far.

China and Russia often appear on the list of the usual suspects. However, there is no evidence showing that the attacks are state-sponsored. The two countries claim that they are also victims. Given the current state of technology, it is extremely difficult to pin down the attackers.

Of course, this does not mean that there are no state-run or state-sponsored cyber-attacks, let alone that such attacks can be ruled out in future. However, the truth is that the overwhelming majority of cyber-attacks are currently planned and executed by private militias and mercenaries.