Cyber crime threatens our way of life, says strategist

Abu Dhabi - More than 100 governments have set up a Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) to plan and coordinate activities to defend the information security environment.

More than 100 governments around the world including the UAE have set up a Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) to plan and coordinate activities to defend the information security environment, a US strategist has said.
In a lecture titled 'Cybersecurity and Cyber war: What Everyone Needs to Know', hosted by the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research (ECSSR), Peter Singer, strategist and senior fellow at the New America Foundation, explored key aspects of cyberspace and its security.
"A generation ago, cyberspace was just a term from science fiction, used to describe the nascent network of computers linking a few university labs. Today, our entire modern way of life, from communication to commerce to conflict, fundamentally depends on the Internet."
According to him, cybersecurity affects everyone: Politicians wrestling with cyber crime and defending online freedom; generals protecting the nation from new forms of attack while planning new cyber wars themselves; and business executives defending firms from once unimaginable threats.
Most of all, the strategist said, cybersecurity issues affect "us as individuals".
"We face new questions surrounding everything from our rights and responsibilities as citizens of both the online and real worlds, to simply how to protect ourselves and our families from a new type of danger. Yet, there is perhaps no other issue that has become so important so quickly, and touches so many, but remains so poorly understood."

• UAE