The idea that the best—perhaps the only—form of defence is something which looks like a cyber-attack points to ever-more intense competition over computer networks
This outage might have attracted greater attention beyond Ireland’s shores had it not occurred a week after a similar attack had disabled a crucial oil pipeline on the other side of the Atlantic. On May 7th Colonial Pipeline, a company whose namesake asset delivers nearly half the fuel used on America’s east coast, had its systems compromised by a cyber-attack and had to shut down the flow of oil. Some people headed to the pumps in panic. President Joe Biden invoked emergency powers.
But the scale, speed and ease at which that contest can now play out has been transformed. Robert Hanssen, one of the’s most productive agents ever, supplied thousands of pages of classified material to his handlers. But he did so over a period of 20 years, from 1979 to 2001.
The Royal United Services Institute, a think-tank, analysed 1,200 ransomware attacks which mostly took place last year. Two of its findings make the extortionist’s incentives clear. The fact that 60% of victims were based in America or had their headquarters there can be explained by Sutton’s law: that’s where the money is.
The cyber-security industry, whose job is to protect its customers from such attacks, looks increasingly ineffective. Microsoft estimates that annual spending on antivirus software, firewalls and the like was around $124bn in 2020, up 64% in five years. Last year Debate Security, a group of cyber-security experts, published a report pointing out that despite all this the average number of breaches recorded each year by Accenture, a consultancy, has risen.
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