Stop saying 'Cyber Pearl Harbor,' RSA boss pleads

Art Coviello, executive president of RSA, used the opening keynote of the RSA conference to criticize the habits of some in the industry for spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) as a marketing tool. "I absolutely hate the term 'Cyber Pearl Harbor'," he said. "I just think it's a poor metaphor to describe the state we …

[Katie Saucey]

I would agree with Mr. Coviello the 'Cyber Pearl Harbor' is a stupid metaphor, but that's the exact phase every single news outlet will be screaming when some major shit does hit the fan, ( hopefully such an event won't be such a completely unmitigated disaster/surprise that the black hats are tweeting "tora tora tora!" ).

[P. Lee]

> Cyber Pearl Harbor' is a stupid metaphor, but that's the exact phase every single news outlet will be screaming

Except in Japan, where a "Cyber Pearl Harbor" is a brilliantly executed IT strategy resulting in a significant tactical victory.

Also, not in other places where they spell "harbour" properly...

[hplasm]

Surely if it's "Cyber" (!) anything

Then it should be "Perl Harbor" (Harbour).

[John Smith 19]

"completely unmitigated disaster/surprise that the black hats are tweeting "tora tora tora!" )."

Careful now.

Tweeting something like that could get you 20 years.

[Field Marshal Von Krakenfart]

I would agree with Mr. Coviello the 'Cyber Pearl Harbor' is a stupid metaphor, but that's the exact phase every single news outlet will be screaming when some major shit does hit the fan

Every single news outlet???? Or just Fox News?????

[Destroy All Monsters]

Cuber Purl Hurbor

Well, it has at least that thing in common with the actual "Pearl Harbour" in that some people are salivating for it to occur so that the floodgates of "PUBLIC SPLURGING" may be opened wide ... wide. Maybe one could finagle something? An unknown country (or maybe Venezuela) causes havoc using unheard-of Weapons of Cybermass Destruction, after which we can solemnly declare "You are either Cyber-With Us or Cyber-Against us". Let the bombing commence! Hold on, I am getting a call by Krugman.

Also:

> a transactional risk engine based on feedback from 50 billion data points

WTF does that shite even mean?

[John Smith 19]

Re: Cuber Purl Hurbor

"> a transactional risk engine based on feedback from 50 billion data points

WTF does that shite even mean?"

Hire a con-sultant and I'm sure they will tell you for a modest fee.

[Field Marshal Von Krakenfart]

Re: Cuber Purl Hurbor

"> a transactional risk engine based on feedback from 50 billion data points

WTF does that shite even mean?"

It means spying on 50 Billion merkin emails, facebook accounts, twitter accounts, etc. - see icon .

[Katie Saucey]

Re: Cuber Purl Hurbor

"Also:

> a transactional risk engine based on feedback from 50 billion data points

WTF does that shite even mean?"

I assume it means 50 billion more tax dollars are needing for further greasing of this "risk engine" +supporting think tanks and consultants. That's probably low balling though, I hear the data point/dollar exchange has been shit lately.

[Tom 7]

Re: Cuber Purl Hurbor

WTF does that shite even mean? It means that someone has managed to program a computer using the language of marketing. The language can be reduced to the 'Do What' endless loop but the same result can be achieved in a more green way by unplugging the computer and shaking your head at the barstaff when asked how you are.

[Rampant Spaniel]

How about we don't use it because it's disrespectful to those who died in the original attack? I get the whole *gate thing, but seriously, many people died in a surprise attack from a country we were not at war with.

Sometimes we need to just be a little more respectful. Seriously, we have to change the name of the dog in the remake of dambusters because we all have to pretend nobody ever used the N word to make us feel better about being absolute c***s to an entire continent of people for hundreds of years but we are free to disrespect people who died in an attack that fell way outside the scope of the rules of war just because some people think it sounds catchy?

[Spoddyhalfwit]

People died in 911 too but we've bandied that around to scare the beejeebies out of people for ten years, it was even used as a good marketing line to launch an attack on an innocent country we weren't at war with. So why not appropriate pearl harbor for marketing spin... Seems everything is fair game these days.

[Rampant Spaniel]

Innocent in some ways, not in others. If a state is actively sheltering terrorists who attack other countries then sure they are fair game but I do respect your point. Two sides of the same coin and just as bad. Personally I felt Afghanistan was justified (I wouldn't have gone about it in quite the same manner but it was more justified than Iraq). You are correct, but two wrongs don't make a right.

The media, especially in certain countries, is incredibly disrespectful just for the purpose of being sensationalist due to a dire lack of talent for actually reporting news. This is aided significantly by a notable percentage of the country swallowing any jingoistic crap thrown their way by thinly veiled political party news channels.

[Destroy All Monsters]

"but seriously, many people died in a surprise attack from a country we were not at war with"

The war with Japan did NOT begin at Pearl Harbour. It began with the US blockade of Japan, not a friendly act. One might even consider that it began when the US demanded that the UK break the UK-Japanese treaty after WWI for a closer cooperation with the USA.

In the same way as for 9/11, there is history before the event, which is not so much forgotten as elided. Like 9/11, Pearl Harbor was not a surprise attack, far from it. One could see it coming clearly (wasn't Roosie ex-secretary of the Navy? His main skills may have consisted in collection of model ships but still...) Whether a frankly unbelievable level of incompetence by the persons in charge or "expedient politics" to rally the masses then allowed the attack to succeed shall be discussed elsewhere.

The Navy/Army guys in charge at Pearl Harbor got the full railroading treatment afterwards although they had been kept in the dark about any political developments whatsoever and told not to go on alert. Teh.

A good read and an interesting comment section at:

How U.S. Economic Warfare Provoked Japan's Attack on Pearl Harbor

[Not That Andrew]

@Destroy All Monsters

Japan were not the victims here. You could argue that all the US's previous actions were reactions to previous Japanese actions like the invasion and annexation of Korea, the creation of the Manchuko puppet state in Northern China and the full-blown war with China.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: @Destroy All Monsters

"You could argue that all the US's previous actions were reactions to previous Japanese actions like the invasion and annexation of Korea, the creation of the Manchuko puppet state in Northern China and the full-blown war with China."

Ummm... yeah? So what exactly did the US have to do with Korea or China? Did the US attack itself after its invasion of the Phillipines and the creation of the Hawaiian puppet state? No. You could argue that it was about competition for the Pacific but don't unpack the "humanitarian intervention" chestnut.

[Not That Andrew]

Re: @Destroy All Monsters

I'm not claiming that it was humanitarian interest, or I would have mentioned the Rape of Nanking. The US saw the Sea of China as part of it's area of influence and saw Japan's actions as a threat. But to cast the US solely as the agressor and Japan as the victim is to ignore the actions of the Japanese.

[Field Marshal Von Krakenfart]

How about we don't use it because it's disrespectful to those who died in the original attack? I get the whole *gate thing, but seriously, many people died in a surprise attack from a country we were not at war with.

Japan; a country america was not at war with prior to perl harbour, really? Have you being reading Amerikan propaganda about the "unprovoked attack" on perl????

In the 1930's Amerika provided Japan with most of it's metal and oil and was quite happy to continue to trade with Japan throughout the early 30's, I was only after the rape of Nanking that public opinion turned against Japan and Roosevelt turned off Japan's oil supply thereby forcing Japan to look to invading French Indochina and the Dutch east Indies to secure an oil supply.

In 1941, U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull handed the Japanese what is now known as the hull note, it stated tat amerika would resume trade (oil and raw materials) only if Japan pulled all its troops out of china & Indochina and end its alliance with Germany and Italy

Ironic, isn't it, a significant portion the Japanese ships and aircraft that attacked perl were probably built from Amerikan scrap metal and powered by fuel supplied by Amerika .

[Christian Berger]

We really should increase security levels at critical infrastructure

Stop using proprietary protocols like DCOM (used by OPC, OLE for Process Control). Stop using overcomplicated protocols like OPC-UA which are likely to have huge security implications and have _never_ been even close to someone with any knowledge about security.

Stop using operating systems which are _way_ to complicated to be managed. After all one of the security holes in Stuxnet was actually a well documented feature in the manual. (executing the stub code of .dll files loaded because they contain an icon referred to by a link file) If you don't understand Windows and aren't prepared to _learn_ about it, don't use it. You can easily get a stripped down version of Linux which is far easier to understand and secure, or some minimalistic micro controller running a minimalistic protocol.

However the opposite is happening. People are currently talking about "SCADA in the Cloud", of course with Microsoft Azure. In those areas choosing Microsoft is still fine as it's a "big trusted partner". (That's usually the only justification you'll here)

[John Smith 19]

" VP of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Group"

That's just taking the p**s.

[Christian Berger]

Re: " VP of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Group"

Well seriously as much as I dislike Microsoft, but that group has actually moved something. They are responsible for Windows going down from a random infection every 30 minutes after connecting it to the Internet, to nearly nothing. Now you need user intervention or the Flash or Java plugin to own a Windows machine. (or good SEO and a warez site)

Still they are also the ones mandating locking down computers with things like "Secure Boot", so it is a double edged sword.

Of course then there is also the group of people who find Microsoft trustworthy just because it's a big company. Those are common among industrial control company.

[frank ly]

"... and the cost in terms of reputation that victims could face. "

Reputation is very important of course; especially for banks and major corporations who need our trust to operate. The reputations of banks and major corporations must be protected at all costs.

[Christian Berger]

Re: "... and the cost in terms of reputation that victims could face. "

It would be nice if Reputation was important, but companies usually don't care, they can just blame it on the hackers. Since the dumb customer doesn't understand a thing, they can leave their passwords as 1234 and won't get blamed for it.

[John Smith 19]

Re: "... and the cost in terms of reputation that victims could face. "

"Reputation is very important of course; especially for banks and major corporations who need our trust to operate. "

Not to mention the suppliers of Public Key Encryption software to those banks & corporations.

Not mentioning any names of course.

[Field Marshal Von Krakenfart]

Personally....

I don't think the risk to the world is another Pearl Harbour, the real risk is a Deutsche Bundesbank BundesTank blitzkrieg destroying the European economy.

Icon: Merkel's policies

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Personally....

You mean, in case they really start adapting the same pyramid scheme as the US Federal Bank? They cannot do that yet - only when the Euro is used for energy purchases and as reserve currency becomes it feasible, but as far as I can seem the yuan is getting there first, certainly after the China-Russia oil deal.

[Field Marshal Von Krakenfart]

Re: Personally....

The Euro is a reserve currency, it currently comprises approx 25% of the worlds reserve currencies, the remainder being approx 65% USD and 5% GBP, YEN & Swiss franc and 5% others.

The euro is used to buy energy. One of the conspiracy theories about why the merkins invaded Iraq was that saddam hussain was going to start selling Iraq's oil in euros. That would have resulted in a awful lot of petro-dollars returning to the USA, potentially devaluing the dollar.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Personally....

The euro is used to buy energy. One of the conspiracy theories about why the merkins invaded Iraq was that saddam hussain was going to start selling Iraq's oil in euros. That would have resulted in a awful lot of petro-dollars returning to the USA, potentially devaluing the dollar.

As far as I can pick up from financial sites, that is not exactly a theory - Saddam made quite a tidy profit doing so, so the US had no choice but to act, making Saddam a showcase of what would happen with anyone else adopting that idea. That did help for a while, but now China closed a major oil deal with Russia (think double digit billions) and here too they entirely avoided the dollar as trading currency. The problem for the US is that both of these parties are a tad too risky to bomb, so it will probably go for subversion and stoking unrest in the region instead to get the pipeline damaged..

[Anonymous Coward]

Call it whatever you desire

Reality is that the entire world is under 24/7 attack by cyber crims who are doing monumental damage to society. Japan has the right idea with mandatory 10 year prison sentences for hackers and 2 years for pirates. The more scum we get off the streets and in prison the better. If these people refuse to live within the laws of society, they don't belong in society.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Call it whatever you desire

cyber crims who are doing monumental damage to society

In relative value I beg to differ, that's not the impression I get. I see far more damage caused by market manipulation, questionable law enforcement and very bad politics.. The damage hacking is causing is a mere nibbling at the edge of the cake in comparison, and I sure as hell would like to see some evidence that it causes more damage than funding all these "cyber defence" setups is costing. That is at best a tie..

[M7S]

I thought the term referred to the fact that roughly 50% of the code attacking me......

.....is comprised of Zeroes.

[Tom Paine]

Only on El Reg...

....would it have been necessary both to attribute and then to translate "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose".

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean you can't actually re-route all the natural gas?

The post is required, and must contain letters.

[Liam Shepherd]

"I'm an optimist"

No one working in security should be an optimist.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "I'm an optimist"

Probably the only Oglaf cartoon that is suitable for work - be warned, if you page forward or backward, be assured that the rest is NOT. Enjoy.

[amanfromMars 1]

Re: "I'm an optimist"

Are the current global problems, Liam Shepherd, because present security bods, wonks and analysts are psychotic, sociopathic, manic depressive, paranoid schizophrenics and totally out of touch with creative virtual reality?

Methinks anyone working in security should definitely not be a pessimist and always be optimistic, for otherwise would they be quite absolutely useless at their job, and be a liability to one and all, and themselves too.