(@Caute_cautim) John,
The first thing that I would like to do is deconstruct the statistics that Ms. Sheridan used in her article so that we can understand what the problem actually is.
Ms. Sheridan compares the value of the entire universe of cybercrime to individual businesses. I would venture to say this borders on the Logical Reasoning error known as, “Lying with Statistics.” If you want to look at scale, compare the entire universe of online criminal business to the entire universe of legitimate business; or compare large criminal enterprises to large legitimate businesses, and small criminal enterprises to small legitimate businesses.
The second thing that I would like to recommend is that instead of concentrating on all the failures, let’s balance the successes, and ensure that we’re not shouldering too much of the burden. The best analogy that I have is the responsible use and maintenance of an automobile.
We expect, first of all that if we drive to a bad neighborhood get out with the engine running and the keys in the car that your house will probably be cleaned out and your car lit on fire under the freeway by the time you hitchhike or Lift/Uber your way back home. You can tell people to act responsibly with their computers, but you will always have the equivalent to the person that gets carjacked, mugged, and burglarized after getting lightly rear ended in the middle of the night on a street with no lights in the inner city. The analogy to this is the "Your Computer is Infected" pop up with the number to a barely-English speaking operator that offers to remotely fix your system while browsing a dubious web site.
We also expect the licensed operator of heavy machinery to be familiar with it enough to recognize safety concerns such as odd noises and smells, and to stop driving it and get the car looked at. We expect basic maintenance tasks like changing the oil and windshield wipers, inspecting and changing the tires and brakes, and updating the operating system and antimalware definition files to be performed. How often do you think mechanics see cars come in where the brakes are completely worn away, or a multi-thousand dollar engine rebuild problem could have been prevented a couple of months earlier by replacing a $25 sensor when the Engine Light came on?
In conclusion, I would like to claim that the problem isn’t as bad as the article makes it seem. In my opinion, instead of shouldering a failure to protect people through “IT” means, we should be educating users on the responsibility they are undertaking by purchasing and using this equipment using analogy and language they can understand. Finally, we have to accept that even though there are resources available, some people are going to ignore the “check engine light” and "drive" into a bad digital neighborhood with their computers… at least it makes for good “You Tube” videos and shock-news articles. So, we should be planning on identifying, isolating, mitigating, and recovering from these scenarios rather than reacting to them by surprise every time.
Sincerely,
Eric B.
