LordFish said:
Bvenged said:
Unfortunately, with a little more expertise and funding even encrypted systems could be "spoofed" or "hacked". Nothing in the world of computers is immune, even isolated networks are at risk through human interference.
I put to you AES256 hard-coded public key encryption, my college prof said until they invent (if they invent) quantum computers, uncrackable. Yes if the system is designed with flaws than the encryption can be circumvented, but never encrypted data cracked. Just look at the financial sector, hackers can't log into their bank accounts and give themselfs millions of pounds... at least, I hope they can't
Too late, banks have been hacked years ago. Here's a few damning cyber-attacks that actually happened and could have the potential to ruin a country or the lives of people around the world.
4 Hackers Indicted in $9.5 Million Bank Card Attack - They conducted computer fraud by hacking a card company to stolen information and data which they then used to fraud nearly $10 million dollars from the bank. This happened in 2009:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/11/rbs-worldpay/
In 2007, Exstonia's entire electronic infrastructure went into lockdown:
The attacks, which started around April 27, have crippled Web sites for Estonia's prime minister, banks, and less-trafficked sites run by small schools, said Hillar Aarelaid, chief security officer for Estonia's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), on Thursday. But most of the affected Web sites have been able to restore service [after a period of time].
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9019725/Estonia_recovers_from_massive_DDoS_attack
While stealing hundreds of thousands of pounds isn't much to a bank, it's crippling to their repulation and thus, thier business. If you found out your bank was vulnerable and not so secure, would you let them look after your money? Bank hacked, money stolen over internet, crime syndicate to blame:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/three-arrested-in-first-internet-bank-robbery-710780.html
Oh, and Stuxnet and Flame show that you don't need to risk your people's lives or even cyber-hijack weaponry to harm, hamper or spy on an opposing nation: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18393985
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There are ways of getting around things with computers that are sometimes completely abstract. Once again, it wouldn't surprise me if some bright spark figured a way around the military-grade encryption without a quantum computer... or made a quantum computer and got through the encryption directly. The Enigma Cypher unbreakable in WWI, but the Polish cracked it; then the ever-more complicated nazi-germany evolutions were cracked in 1940 by British Intelligence.
I'm sure the military encryption is truly safe for now, and probably will be for years to come, but it's better to be safe than sorry and to keep developing more secure systems all the time. With the right security you can minimise risk but never remove it, but why would a malicious individual or group spend years cracking a nuke's launch system when you could do just as much harm, much more easily, when they could bring down numerous planes at once by neutralise several airports' air traffic control systems?
FAA's Air-Traffic Networks Breached by Hackers: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124165272826193727.html
UK Airport's Air Traffic Control Data Stolen: http://www.channel4.com/news/air-traffic-control-data-for-sale-on-ebay
