As a member of InfraGard, I was invited to the Great Lakes 2010 InfraGard Conference; this year’s theme was “Securing the Next Decade.”
I thought I would share a couple thoughts that I picked up throughout the day.
One of the first sessions was a series of presentations by the Detroit FBI Cyber Squad. Hearing, (directly from the FBI), how the FBI is dealing with electronic threats was very enlightening. Something that one of the agents (Brian Concannon) said, caught my attention. He said something to the effect that, “the solution for cybercrime is not better blocking of attacks, but being able to find, apprehend, and deal with the perpetrators themselves.” I do not hear these kind of statements very often, as most of us are just trying to keep our heads above water when it comes to cyber threats.
Another of the special agents presented on his niche, which was Intellectual Property theft. It was very interesting to see things like copyright infringement on movies and music, from the FBI’s perspective–how they really are in a no-win situation: companies are upset at them for not working faster/protecting better, and the consumers themselves see it as a victim-less crime, and give excuses such as, “The recording industry is ripping us off! We deserve music cheaper!,” or “It’s just a copy! I wasn’t even planning on buying the album anyways!” In other words, perception management is a key factor in the FBI’s prevention arsenal.
Most of the other presentations dealt with how the different government departments (DHS, FBI, etc) could better collaborate with the private sector, specifically in the area of detecting and dealing with cyber-crime.
Overall, I thought it was a very productive conference, that got me thinking in some new areas of I.T. Security.
-Josh
Defensive Depth 