5 Trends to Sway Cybersecurity's Future
Understanding What Can, Cannot Be TrustedOther key trends are the growth of cloud computing, the changing demographics of Internet users and the blurring of the physical and data worlds, Friedman says.
"You can get security in many different ways, but ultimately it revolves around understanding what you can and can't trust," Friedman, co-author of "Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know," says in an interview with Information Security Media Group. "That's not just a technical question, that's an economic question, that's a legal question and fundamentally it's also a political question."
Friedman sees the rapid changes in information technology and how governments, organizations and individuals use it as having a significant impact on cybersecurity. "As we move into a post-Snowden world, where all of a sudden national boundaries and borders are a lot more important, we need to understand how the legal aspect is going to interplay with the security of data," he says.
In the interview, Friedman also:
- Discusses the importance of understanding the different demographic groups that use the Internet when deciding how to protect systems and privacy;
- Describes the rapid evolution of cybersecurity; and
- Explains that the biggest security challenge of cloud computing is defending more interfaces to the data.
Friedman was a fellow at the Brookings Institution and research director for its Center for Technology Innovation until late 2013. In January, he accepted the position of visiting scholar at the Cybersecurity Policy Research Group in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at George Washington University, where he works on cybersecurity policy.
Co-authored the new book, "Cybersecurity and Cyberwar," published by Oxford Press, is Peter Singer, senior fellow and director of the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence at the Brookings Institution.