The Assistant U.S. Attorney General for national security issues says all Internet-connected computers are potentially vulnerable to outside attacks.
John Carlin visited central Iowa to share with business leaders what the government sees as threats. And how companies can protect themselves.
” In today’s world, if you have an internet-connected system, there’s no product you can buy that will build a wall high enough or deep enough to keep a dedicated nation-state, organized criminal group out,” Carlin says.
Carlin says companies need to be thinking from the start about how they will manage innovations as they are developed. And he says law enforcement and intelligence agencies hope to be more public about what they’re seeing so companies understand both the risks and how to deal with them.
“We’ve been determined to stop treating this as an intelligence problem, where we watch what the adversary is doing, because what we were seeing was too horrifying,” according to Carlin. He says every day they were watching billions of dollars’ worth of information get snatched away from companies, and he wants business leaders to be more aware.
“Encouraging companies to think about risk management at the level of the C suite,” Carlin says. Carlin says where there’s an internet connection, there’s a risk of getting hacked. But forethought and advance planning can help.
Thanks to Amy Mayer, Iowa Public Radio.