Cyber attacks : Urgent for the nation Security Expert
Cyber attacks : Urgent for the nation Security Expert
  • Arthur E. Michalak (info@koreaittimes.com)
  • 승인 2013.10.15 04:55
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SEOUL, KOREA - Professor Han Keun-hee details his take on the status of Korea’s information security, considering recent cyber attacks that happened on March 20 and June 25 this year.

Han Keun-hee, Professor and Vice-president of DreamSecurity

“After facing a number of cyber attacks and terrors in recent years including 7.7 DDoS attack in 2009, 3.4 DDoS attack in 2011 and 3.20 and 6.25 cyber terrors in 2013, it is true that local companies and public institutions are now starting to realize the importance of data security. Those institutions that have been hacked or have faced cyber threats are coming up with counter-measures, but many organizations are still looking on their problems with indifference, thinking that they will be spared from these attacks. Except for a few companies, many of them are not even trying to hire data security experts and the investment into the field is merely 5% of the total put into the overall IT sector as they see their investment into information protection area as expenditure not as an essential part in carrying out and managing their business projects or in securing their businesses and protecting their industrial confidentiality” Han claims.

To Professor Han, there is a pressing need for the nation to improve its information protection. “It is urgent for the nation to nurture security experts right away as they cannot be prepared overnight. In case of Korean men, it would take about seven years, including their military term period, for them to start working only as beginners in the sector.”Furthermore, those experts that could actively respond to cyber attacks and promptly analyze them should have on-site experiences in various fields such as software, server, network, database and others. And if this is the case, it would take more than ten years to have them in place. This is why the nation should start training and securing data security personnel as soon as possible so as to practically fight back against cyber attacks and threats in the future. Therefore, the government should take lead in continuously fostering cyber security experts by drawing up long-term plans” further explained the professor.

As to issues to be urgently addressed in the information security sector, the professor points out that preventive measures are important to cyber security issues as it would be late to do something only after the fair. “In particular, the importance of software is ever increasing in order to secure a competitive edge in the future industry in a time when IT sector is converged with other similar or correlated businesses. It is obvious if you observe the rate of software being used for all businesses. For instance, at least 30% of the components of new cars of this year are operated based on software and the rate of using software for medical machines, devices and military equipment are explosively surging. Therefore, it is a matter of utmost importance to build safe software that is free from defects, programming errors, glitches and weak points. To this end, software must be developed based on ‘secure coding’” reveals Han.

“Taking an example of a human being, a person may suffer from diseases for his life if he was born weak, and even a strong man can suffer from diseases if he exhausts himself or fails to physically care about himself. An information system is like a human being. An information system cannot work alone without the help of software. When this software is developed weak, resulting in being easily exposed to software diseases such as defects, errors, glitches and weak points, hackers would use these diseases to penetrate into systems since all computing devices, facilities and hardware are run by software, therefore, if software is developed free from such diseases from the beginning, even expert hackers wouldn’t be able to easily attack it” responded the professor to the question about ‘secure coding’.

When closing the interview, Han also mentions the importance of cyber ethics, saying that “Korea has now reached the global level in utilizing the Internet and mobile services. They have, however, pros and cons as the two sides of the same coin. Some of the harmful effects are vicious Internet postings taking the advantage of cyber anonymity, private information leakage, lack of rights to be forgotten, Internet addiction, game addiction and others. They say ‘well-begun is half done’. So it is urgent to teach ’Internet ethics and etiquette’ to children as early as possible.”


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