Net-Connected Systems Wrestle with Cybersecurity

Defending against cyberattacks gets more challenging every day. Fortunately, there are tools, techniques and organizations ready to tackle the problem.

John Koon, Senior Editor

Cyberattacks pose the greatest threat in today’s connected world. They are unpredictable, inescapable and they can disrupt lives in many ways. A successful attack can overload a network so you cannot access the services you need as in the case of distributed denial of services (DDoS) reported recently or bring down your smart energy grids to cause a blackout. Some time ago, Ukraine power grids were attacked by Russian hackers, not once, but twice. The second one caused a power outage for 230,000 people. Worse, hackers were able to track the military unit in Ukraine and compromise their military intelligence.