Why CIOs to be proactive not reactive to cybersecurity threats

The greatest cyberthreat might not be a massively destabilizing attack that takes out the electrical grid or some other piece of critical infrastructure. Instead, the most significant risk could come from the accumulated damage of a constant barrage of attacks that shake the collective confidence in the Internet as a platform.

So argues Rick Howard, chief security officer at Palo Alto Networks.

“I really think that we are on the verge of having this affect our way of life,” Howard said during a recent event hosted by Federal News Radio.

Security challenge isn’t a cyber Pearl Harbor

“We’ve got so accustomed to using the Internet to manage ourselves — our communicating with our family and our friends, communicating with our business operations and all that kind of stuff. And what we’re seeing is a thousand cuts, death by a thousand cuts,” Howard said. “We’re not seeing this giant thing that we used to all think about 15 years ago — [that] we’re going to have a cyber Pearl Harbor. That’s not what’s happening. What we’re seeing is a lot of little slices, that it’s slowly eroding our confidence in the digital space. And if we get to the spot where we can’t trust that environment anymore, then where are we as a society?”

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