In our April issue cybersecurity expert Keren Elazari argues that protecting cyberspace is a job far too large and complex for governments or corporations to handle on their own. Securing the digital realm can only be accomplished with the participation of individuals (people like you and me) as well as hackers.
Yes, hackers. On balance, hackers are a force for good, Elazari argues. Big institutions should stop fighting hackers and start embracing them. Hackers and independent security researchers can form a distributed immune system for cyberspace, seeking out vulnerabilities and threats and exposing them before they can do harm. In this TED talk from last year’s conference in Vancouver, she talks about the role of hackers at length.
Credt: TED Talks
This article was originally published with the title "How to Survive Cyberwar" in Scientific American 312, 4, (April 2015)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Seth Fletcher is chief features editor at Scientific American. His book Einstein's Shadow (Ecco, 2018) is about the Event Horizon Telescope and the quest to take the first picture of a black hole.
