A Call To Arms, After a Dismal Year for Cyber Security

While thousands of tech companies and organizations, big and small, and many more concerned citizens got out and protested mass internet surveillance earlier this month, one senior VP at a security firm told attendees at this week's RSA Conference on cyber security that they aren't mad enough.

In what could be seen as a 'call to arms' address to the cyber security community, VP and general manager of Juniper Systems business security division Nawaf Bitar told the cyber security community assembled at the annual RSA Conference on Tuesday that they weren't doing enough.

Bitar: Fed Up With Talking About Outrage

'Our privacy is being invaded, our IP is being stolen, the public trust is at an all-time low, and the attack on our information is outrageous,' said Bitar during his keynote address at the RSA Conference 2014 in San Francisco, CA, according to Information Week. 'But you know what? I don't think we give a damn. I'm fed up with talking about outrage.'

Bitar pointed out that much of the 'outrage' being expressed by the cyber security community (and modern society in general) over recent revelations of mass surveillance and other growing threats to everyday cyber security is rather feeble, especially compared to historical acts of protest like the Tiananmen Square protests and Tibetan monks protesting war with suicide by fire. Instead, he called the current engagement against surveillance and privacy threats 'first world outrage.'

Gov. Surveillance and Criminal Hacking: The Cyber Security Crisis

''Liking' a cause on Facebook is not outrage. Retweeting a link is not outrage. Posting a bad review is not outrage,' intoned Bitar, according to IW's report, before taking aim at cyber security officials who boycotted the RSA Conference 2014 after revelations broke that the major security company accepted money from the National Security Agency to deliberately weaken encryption standards: 'Not showing up at a conference is not outrage.'

Last year was probably the worst on record for cyber security and the community of experts charged with maintaining it. Starting in the summer of 2013, revelations leaked by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden led to a veritable avalanche of revelations about the U.S. government's deep and wide compromising of cyber security, nationwide and around the world.

Add to that the numerous high-profile hacking and data theft cases that cropped up in 2013, continuing cyber threats from foreign nations like Iran and China, topped by the end-of-year credit card breach at Target stores - which left over 100 million customers vulnerable to theft and fraud - and you end up with something of a moral crisis for the cyber security community.

'You in this room have to do better,' said Bitar on Tuesday. 'We're complicit -standing by and watching a crime.'

Bitar continued, 'We should be truly outraged, not first-world outraged. The time for apathy is over. We cannot go on the offensive and hack back, but we can no longer remain passive. It's time for a new type of offense - a type of active defense that disrupts the economics of hacking and challenges convention. It's time for all of us to turn the tables on the attackers.'

In his speech, Bitar didn't provide many details on how the cyber security community could approach an 'active defense,' other than pointing out that many ideas in cyber security are now outdated and urging radical innovation in the industry, which drew some skepticism from the crowd.

But he did make an emphatic point about what's at stake, displaying an image of a mushroom cloud in his presentation, according to PC Mag, and saying, 'It's time for all of us to turn the tables on the attackers... Or we can wait for the next world war to begin in Silicon Valley.'

TagsUnited States National Security Agency, NSA, Cyber Security, RSA Conference, Privacy, government surveillance