Looking Forward to a Global Information Security? The Problem of Technological Development: Let us start with a quote from Steve Ballmer: “The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn't think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential.�
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And in having such power, public and private sector and of course people, generate more and more information to be processed again by the information technology. This information technology is interwoven in complex information networks. The latter being the highways of the information. With the booming increase in Internet users all over the World and their interconnection, the security risks for the information rise accordingly.
Source:
Internet
World
Statistics
at
http://www.internetworldstats.com/
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Globalization of the Risks: Unfortunately not only the risks increase. In recent years attacks against information frameworks, be it corporate, personal, bank or government, have dramatically increased. The criminals enacting such attacks do not stop at state borders. And yet the information technology and connectivity is continuing to increase. All businesses and many people /above 3 Billion, as shown above, / depend on the free exchange of information.
How is one to ensure the information security in this framework? Borders are protected by armies. Civil peace is protected by police. However today information is does not, and cannot have a single guardian.
Source: Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_divide
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National Information Security Solutions: Realizing the above, and the inherent risks involved, most countries have started to develop their local information security legislation and guidelines. Some have already adopted their local Strategies and Guidelines. The early movers were Russia with their “Information Security Doctrine of the Russian Federation” adopted as early as 2000 and closely followed by the USA with their “National Strategy for Secure Cyberspace” adopted in 2003. Most countries developed their own strategies in the period 2010-2015. Some are still in the development phase.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has empowered its Ministry of Communication and Information Technology to develop the NISS or The National Information Security KSA’s strategy.
NISS aims to
create national guidelines for these guidelines will be set in this document, aiming /to quote the draft of the NISS/: “… to increase the security, safety and integrity of online information while promoting the increased use of IT …”
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The Future Necessary Step: The national strategies are a good thing because they show that all nations, from Mongolia to the USA, have realized the importance of the matter. However, these will not be enough. As the German Federal Ministry of Interior has stated in their “Cyber Security Strategy for Germany”:
“For this reason, strengthening cyber security also requires the enforcement of international rules of conduct, standards, and norms. Only a mix of domestic and external policy measures will be appropriate for the dimensions of the problem.”
Just like the global nature of information and the global character of the associated risks and threats, future international strategies need to be developed and implemented in order to ensure global information security.
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