Safe Keeping Blog

This past Thursday, FBI Director Robert Mueller made a statement to the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which should not be taken lightly.

He said, “The cyber threat will equal or surpass the threat from counter terrorism in the foreseeable future.”

For those of you reading the news lately, foreseeable future could be right around the corner.

Our nation is heading in a direction of technology addiction and dependency. We trade stocks daily online, pay our bills online, pay our membership fees online, online banking, and much more. The data stored daily is enormous.

Cyber warfare could have a catastrophic impact on our nation’s infrastructure. The October 2011 biennial economic espionage report to Congress, explains “the breadth and sophistication of computer network operations,” and “continued exploration of new means to circumvent defensive measures by cyber thieves, is increasing.”

Of major concern is China and Russia. The report states that “entities within these countries are responsible for extensive illicit intrusions into US computer networks and theft of US intellectual property.”

If there is ever a time to educate the nation in productive defensive tactics to protect personal intellectual property, it is now. With the ever changing increase and advancement of technology, we must educate the youth of yesterday, today and the future in order to protect our national infrastructure of networks.

In an Unclassified Statement for the Record on the Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, Director of National Intelligence, James R. Clapper, lists three of the most menacing foreign intelligence threats the US will face within the next two to three years: cyber-enabled espionage, insider threats, and espionage by China, Russia, and Iran.

As citizens, what can we do? Now is the time to make sure that we are all contributors to the strength of our cyber-security as a nation. Every point of entry into a network has the potential to be a point of strength or vulnerability. We can establish a culture of security by first securing our own devices—cell phones, tablets, laptops, and networks; we can also require the same of the businesses we patronize.

One way to start is by running a security check up on your computer and mobile devices. Make certain that all of your devices are locked down with secure passwords, and teach children to do the same. See a list of reputable companies that offer free security scans at the National Cyber Security Alliance website.

While we aren’t individually responsible for our national security, we can all do our part by securing our devices and networks and passing on a culture of security to our children.

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Dennis Schmid is a married father of 3 living in Mesa, Arizona. Dennis works full-time for the leader in Identity Theft Protection and has first-hand knowledge of what society needs to protect families and businesses from cyber-attacks and identity theft.