Taking a byte out of cybercrime
Jane S. Hill ; The Dallas Morning News
Issue date: 4/13/05 Section: News
To thwart problems, Thuraisingham said, the best practice is to incorporate "end-to-end security" in the early design.
"You have to understand what the Semantic Web is, what the layers are, then look at security of the individual pieces, then look at the security when you combine all the pieces," she said.
She and the other UT Dallas researchers are also working on biometrics--the ability of computers to recognize a user by physical features such as face, fingerprint or iris. Authentication by physical identification sounds secure enough, but it's not foolproof.
"This is our challenge: As we make steady progress, the attacker is making steady progress. We have to be one step ahead."
Macpherson at University of New Hampshire said most people, overwhelmed by the speed of technological changes, can't imagine how the good guys can stay ahead of lone hackers, organized crime rings, child porn traffickers, identity thieves, copyright pirates and other cybersharks.
But agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security are "very good at capturing the issues before they happen and identifying the next wave" of vulnerability, he said.
"Partnerships between private enterprise and law enforcement have been very useful at tackling cyberfraud. We've made great strides."
He suggests that anyone wanting to get involved in fighting cybercrime contact their local InfraGard program (www.infragard.net or dallas.fbi.gov/), which partners with the FBI to protect infrastructure.
Membership gives IT professionals a chance "to interact with different businesses and could lead to jobs down the road," he added.
Another avenue is the Cyber Corps initiative at the University of Tulsa that "trains elite squadrons of computer security experts to form the country's first line of defense against global cyberthreats," according to the Web site (www.cis.utulsa.edu/CyberCorps). Open to college students in their junior year or first-year graduate students, the program offers two years of tuition, paid by the National Science Foundation and Department of Defense, plus a stipend and a summer internship in a federal agency.
"You have to understand what the Semantic Web is, what the layers are, then look at security of the individual pieces, then look at the security when you combine all the pieces," she said.
She and the other UT Dallas researchers are also working on biometrics--the ability of computers to recognize a user by physical features such as face, fingerprint or iris. Authentication by physical identification sounds secure enough, but it's not foolproof.
"This is our challenge: As we make steady progress, the attacker is making steady progress. We have to be one step ahead."
Macpherson at University of New Hampshire said most people, overwhelmed by the speed of technological changes, can't imagine how the good guys can stay ahead of lone hackers, organized crime rings, child porn traffickers, identity thieves, copyright pirates and other cybersharks.
But agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security are "very good at capturing the issues before they happen and identifying the next wave" of vulnerability, he said.
"Partnerships between private enterprise and law enforcement have been very useful at tackling cyberfraud. We've made great strides."
He suggests that anyone wanting to get involved in fighting cybercrime contact their local InfraGard program (www.infragard.net or dallas.fbi.gov/), which partners with the FBI to protect infrastructure.
Membership gives IT professionals a chance "to interact with different businesses and could lead to jobs down the road," he added.
Another avenue is the Cyber Corps initiative at the University of Tulsa that "trains elite squadrons of computer security experts to form the country's first line of defense against global cyberthreats," according to the Web site (www.cis.utulsa.edu/CyberCorps). Open to college students in their junior year or first-year graduate students, the program offers two years of tuition, paid by the National Science Foundation and Department of Defense, plus a stipend and a summer internship in a federal agency.