| by Victor Cherubim
( February 12, 2013, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) It seems strange to note that mines and mining have an image problem.
Mines as we all know them are synonymous with wars, conflicts, terrorists including world wars. Mining is associated both on land and in the seas, with prospecting for gold, with fat cats minting money prospecting the share market.
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Today who dares, wins. Perhaps the misinformation that is being spread about Sri Lanka, as President Rajapaksa maintains, has to be fully investigated. There is so much rubbish being spread like butter around the world about what Sri Lanka is not.
Recently, mining was in the news with surfers in Cornwall, England and in the Great Barrier Reef, Queensland campaigning against altering the coasts famous waves, its seabed contours and damaging the environment. The former is a project to mine for tin below the sea surface, the latter is concerned with the expansion of coal export ports along Queensland’s “Gold Coast.”
But the latest move open is “mining for information.” Cyber risks are on the rise. “Information is becoming an increasing valuable commodity both in business and in government, and we are seeing ever more incidents targeting spyware.”
“In the early days of cyber security, the focus was on protecting computer systems from risks, such as viruses and worms. which damaged files and slowed processing power sometimes by overriding the computer’s memory or startup function. Today the real target for cyber-attackers is Information,” according to IT security firm, Symantec.
Sri Lanka has had a spate of hacking recently. There appears to be a noticeable vulnerability. The Board of Investment, Sri Lanka National Security Media Centre, Sri Lanka Ports Authority, have all been victims of hacking. In BOI, “the entire database including the details of over 2000 investors and other important documents has been published on the internet.” Hacking can comprise both hacking with intent of leaking, sometimes defacing, even as a pastime.
“Data loss could be happening on a daily basis often unintentionally through user error, without the organisation’s awareness.” Like fake Emergency Calls, fake hacking incidents have also been reported. But ignoring or denial of cyber risk despite niggling weakness, is disaster.
There is suddenly a mushroom of companies and institutions sprouting to tackle this problem. C/SRA state their students are trained “to acquire a fundamental understanding of various computer and network security threats such as identity theft, credit card fraud, online banking phishing scams, virus and backdoors, email hoaxes, sex offenders lurking on line, loss of confidential information, hacking attacks and social engineering.”
“We are informed that criminals who pose a threat to national security could be caught before they have committed a crime, with software now available to track their online behaviour. Their future movements can be predicted by “mining” vast amounts of information from social media websites including Facebook and Twitter. After a few clicks detailed picture of their life, including information of their friends can be built” and possibly used by security services in Sri Lanka.” We need preventive action now.
Today who dares, wins. Perhaps the misinformation that is being spread about Sri Lanka, as President Rajapaksa maintains, has to be fully investigated. There is so much rubbish being spread like butter around the world about what Sri Lanka is not.
Foraging for information, including misinformation is the past time of people and nations. The big stick policy is still in vogue. Sri Lanka has a bounden duty to protect; a right to protect; irrespective of the cost, Sri Lanka has not only to protect its culture, its traditions, its civilisation. It will be a false security if the Government also does little to protect our business and our private information.
We know the hallmark of good governance is to protect the individual and the country from not only cyber threats but threats against communal harmony, which the President has given assurance to the world that this will be done, at all costs.
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