My blog post for a financial web site was rejected. However I am going to share it with you. But only because it got good feedback elsewhere. Some credit to my brother, Gary Garside, the filmologist (if thats a word) Would you rob the Boston Mercantile Bank ? Jon Danica Burge Garside Some may have already guessed what this blog post is about. The Boston Mercantile Bank is fictional, in real life it was the Shawmut Bank, robbed by the mythical Thomas Crown, because he was bored. The Shawmut Bank is no more, it was acquired in 1988, and its brands retired in 1995. But in 1968, to rob a bank you still need bagmen and a wheelman, romantic terms also retired from the lexicon of modern financial malpractice. Thomas Crown robbed the Mercantile because “Vicki, I am bored”. But our modern bagmen have different reasons, sometimes if not more often, different objectives. So who are the hackers? Could disaffected youths, with bad complexions and a fascination with Dr Who really be the cause of so much angst in the operation centers and board rooms of the financial sector ? Are we to fear the rejected cast of Big Bang Theory or are we under threat from a highly stylized John Travolta in Swordfish. The truth is complex, and its characters, usually less flavorsome. 201X is becoming the decade of hacktivism. We are repeatedly seeing records set and broken, for the amount and size of attacks. Growth has been exponential to global political and financial discord. Moreover, given the current efficiency of hacktivist attacks, such as WikiLeaks revenge attacks (December 2010), South Korea DDoS attacks (March 2011), Operation Megauplaod (January 2012) and the now more than year long, multi vulnerability and multi vector, Operation Ababil, we believe this will only serve to encourage even more actors to enter the picture, and spawn a vicious cycle of future malicious activity. However the main reasons for hacks and attacks is still very much personal gain and often notoriety, be it individuals or organized crime, but as the recent summit between the USA and China made clear, there is an increasing awareness of state sponsored hacking. Lets stick with Boston for the moment. Goldman Sachs office sits atop Interstate93. I-93 is critical to local traffic, even as its name suggests, to interstate traffic, but Goldman Sachs, some could argue is critical infrastructure to the US, if not the global economy. The free flow of capital is fundamental to our globalised economy, but to facilitate that requires the juxtaposing requirements of openness and security – money is exchanged though essentially an API – Mr Crowns moment of opportunity, the mass money transfer rarely occurs. Enterprises do however still spend an inordinate amount of money on Firewalls, IPS and other perimeter security. But today’s Thomas Crown, probably does not play polo, more likely while he (or she) is ‘bored’, a disenfranchised computer science degree graduate, who with a few master classes from youtube has the tools to reduce the Gbit connectivity of the parochial Shawmut Bank to a dial up connection, instilling fear and uncertainty in their deposit holders as they are unable to view their account balances, make every day payments or transfer cash to a waylaid child. The 21st century runs on immediacy, it demands it and is most fearful when its not available. Immediacy is as much a currency as the dollar, and in many circles considered more valuable. Sure, this is akin to Steve McQueen putting superglue in the banks front door lock, but if his team glue enough locks……. The motive is similar, the result differs, $2.48 million in insurable losses vs the reputational and lost transactions revenue, but no one is checking locks for glue. Up until now, I have barely even mentioned DDoS, but that is one of the greatest threats to the finance sectors value and reputation. I mention this because DDoS is changing, and quickly. Volumetric, the ready mix truck of super glue is fast defeated. Increasingly often we are seeing application aware DDoS attacks, and more recently a surge in SSL based attacks. Mr Crown is not putting glue in the locks anymore. He is dynamiting the foundations, with the possibility of removing the vault with a truck. Now what film did I see that in ???
Posted on: Sat, 28 Sep 2013 03:59:55 +0000
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