The popularity of computers and the subsequent creation of the worldwide web changed the way we live.
It has permeated every sphere and activity of life.
Suddenly there was a huge transformation, with all the information that we needed (and some not needed) at our fingertips.
Information is Power in a closely integrated world such as ours.
This was the ‘moment of Eureka’ that the world had not known.
We embraced the technology revolution with ardour, blissfully unaware that it would develop a dark and seamy side.
It was now possible to share everything; nary did anyone pause to think of what would happen when something was not meant to be shared.
Technology was being pushed to its seams; little did people realise that the erosion of privacy and confidentiality would be an unintended consequence that soon would rear its ugly head.
The future seemed boundless and bright. No threats or trouble marred the vision. Build it and they will come.
Never have these words rung truer than in the case of the cyber world.
Only a few decades ago, it was a concept, an abstraction too fantastic to enter the realm of reality.
But it came, and it conquered.
Today, every aspect of life either is on the net or governed by it.
The cyber world has reached its zenith. Our civilisation has surpassed itself in turning vivid imagination into reality.
And like all things, this too comes at a price.
There is a majority mainstream and a minority that exists in parallel. This has always been so.
But never before did the minority have the means and opportunity to wreck such havoc to put a spanner in the motor of commerce, politics and communities to spread rumours and even more alarmingly the truth about the inner machinations of politics and the world in which we live.
The famous fable of ‘The Cat and the Tiger’ comes to mind in which the cat taught the tiger every trick in the book, except to climb trees.
The cat was canny enough to keep a trump card up its sleeve in case the need to use it arose. Alas, we have not exhibited the same kind of prudence, when faced with overzealous miscreant’s intent on causing security breaches around data leakage and hacking in the cyber world.
Espionage for gaining access to confidential government and industrial information was once relegated to Bond movies or private agents trotting around the world in search of elusive information.
Today, the culprit could just as much be an innocuous child sitting with laptop in one corner of the world spreading panic and chaos.
This came to the fore in the recent Wikileaks debacle, where geographical boundaries were rendered meaningless and confidential information was harvested from myriad sources with disturbing ease.
Chandan Ohri is Partner, IT Advisory KPMG Risk Advisory Services, Auckland. The above article has appeared in the National Business Review.
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