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Takeaways from Bruce Schneier's New Book
FIX THE INTERNET BEFORE IT FIXES US— Technologist Bruce Schneier is out with his latest book and his most alarming title yet: “Click Here to Kill Everybody.” In fact, it’s one of the most ominous in the entire cybersecurity canon. Even in his introduction, Schneier admits to hyperbole, yet writes the title isn’t without merit since “we’re already living in a world where computer attacks can crash cars and disable power plants—both actions that can easily result in catastrophic deaths if done at scale.”
So, OK, it’s scary. In this outing, published last week, Schneier digs into the dangers posed by the rapid spread of internet connectivity into all our things. But since he doesn’t think the marketing term “internet of things” is encompassing enough, he coined his own term: Internet+. If you’ve followed Schneier’s career or seen his many talks at cybersecurity conferences, much of what he’s writing about won’t seem new. And since that’s probably many of you, we’re going highlight just a few of his policy recommendations (there are many more in the book) and predictions (more of those, too) when it comes to fixing what he calls the “sloppy state of Internet+ security.”…
Audio: Podcast Episode 111: Click Here to Kill Everybody and CyberSN on Why Security Talent Walks
Listen to the Audio on SecurityLedger.com
In this week’s podcast (episode #111), sponsored by CyberSN: what happens when the Internet gets physical? Noted author and IBM security guru Bruce Schneier joins us to talk about his new book on Internet of Things risk: Click Here to Kill Everybody. Also: everyone knows that cyber security talent is hard to come by, and even harder to keep. But why does precious cyber talent walk? In our second segment, we’re joined by Deidre Diamond of cyber security placement firm CyberSN, who has all the answers…
Video: Book Launch at The Aspen Institute
The Aspen Institute’s Cybersecurity & Technology Program hosted the launch of Bruce Schneier’s newest book, Click Here to Kill Everybody. In the book, Schneier explores the risks and security implications of our new, hyper-connected era, and lays recommendations for a more resilient Internet of Things and government oversight. Following a one-on-one conversation with Schneier—moderated by the Chair of the Cybersecurity & Technology Program, John Carlin—a panel of experts in the field will respond to Schneier’s recommendations and discuss the future of cybersecurity more broadly…
For Safety’s Sake, We Must Slow Innovation in Internet-Connected Things
That’s the view of security expert Bruce Schneier, who fears lives will be lost in a cyber disaster unless governments act swiftly.
Smart gadgets are everywhere. The chances are you have them in your workplace, in your home, and perhaps on your wrist. According to an estimate from research firm Gartner, there will be over 11 billion internet-connected devices (excluding smartphones and computers) in circulation worldwide this year, almost double the number just a couple of years ago.
Many billions more will come online soon. Their connectivity is what makes them so useful, but it’s also a cybersecurity nightmare. Hackers have already shown they can compromise everything …
Book Review: Click Here to Kill Everybody
The great and memorable title of Bruce Schneier’s latest book, Click Here to Kill Everybody, certainly caught the eye of those in my household—my children kept trying to touch the button on the front cover to ‘kill everybody’! (Indeed, the book’s attention-grabbing title may make me a little wary about reading it openly on the Tube or while going through airport security.)
Of course, the book is not really about how to kill everybody, but rather how, from an ethical standpoint on the part of tech, and a moral standpoint on the part of government, we appear to be sleep-walking into a scenario where something, whether by accident or design, could possibly ‘click here’ and kill everyone…
Audio: Vulnerabilities of an Inter-connected World
Listen to the Audio on WNYC.org
Bruce Schneier discusses his new book Click Here to Kill Everybody: Security and Survival in a Hyper-connected World. Computers are connected to everything small and large from home appliances like ovens and thermostats to large industrial sites like chemical plants. Digital attackers can now crash your car, your pacemaker, and the nation’s power grid. Schneier reveals the hidden web of technical, political, and market forces that underpin the pervasive insecurities of today’s connected world.
This segment is guest hosted by Jenna Flanagan…
Book Review: “Click Here To Kill Everybody”
If I were still doing radio shows, I would happily welcome Bruce Schneier back as a guest. He’s a security expert who I first spoke with when he revealed the uselessness of the TSA’s screening procedures at airports, which he labelled “security theater.” Since then, he’s made multiple appearances with me.
Bruce has just published a new book, Click Here To Kill Everybody: Security and Survival in a Hyper-connected World, and asked me to review it.
As in his previous works, Bruce sees the holes that exist in the digital world and explains the risks of having so many more things connected as part of the Internet of Things, from thermostats to refrigerators to manufacturing equipment to your kid’s dolls. In an age where everything is a computer, my favorite example he cites is the casino network that was penetrated by hackers in 2017 through an internet-connected fish tank…
Schneier's "Click Here To Kill Everybody"
Pervasive connected devices mean we REALLY can't afford shitty internet policy
Bruce Schneier (previously) has spent literal decades as part of the vanguard of the movement to get policy makers to take internet security seriously: to actually try to make devices and services secure, and to resist the temptation to blow holes in their security in order to spy on “bad guys.” In Click Here to Kill Everybody: Security and Survival in a Hyper-connected World, Schneier makes a desperate, impassioned plea for sensible action, painting a picture of a world balanced on the point of no return.
Click Here… describes a world where all the bad policy decisions of PCs and laptops and phones are starting to redound onto embedded systems in voting machines and pacemakers and cars and nuclear reactors. He calls this internet-plus-IoT system the “Internet+” and the case he makes for its importance is by turns inspiring and devastating…
Hackers Used a Fish Tank to Break into a Vegas Casino. We’re All in Trouble.
Bruce Schneier’s new book, Click Here to Kill Everybody, explains the security risks of a new world of household devices connected to the Internet. I asked him what the risks are, why they are so serious and what their consequences are for politics.
HF: Technology has created a hyper-connected world. How does this lead to vulnerabilities?
BS: As we connect more things to the Internet, they can affect each other. This is generally a goodness, but it leads to vulnerabilities in unexpected ways. First, vulnerabilities in one thing can affect another thing. We saw this last year when a major Vegas casino’s high-roller database was hacked through—and I am not making this up—its Internet-connected fish tank…
Kirkus Review: Click Here To Kill Everybody
Big Brother is watching and scheming and up to no good—and, writes security technologist Schneier (Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World, 2015), it looks like he’s winning.
By way of an opening gambit, the author posits three scenarios in which hackers take over machines and computer systems, from printers to power plants, both to demonstrate their ability to do so and to show how the interdependence of the web can easily be put to work against us. In one of those scenarios, real-world to the core, Russian hackers came into a Ukrainian power plant through a malware backdoor, “then remotely took control of the center’s computers and turned the power off.” That’s not just a threat to life, but it also erodes trust in social and economic systems, the basis for civil society. In another scenario, which gives the book its title, a “bio-printer” is hacked to “print a killer virus”—and does. Given all this, why don’t the governments and corporations of the world band together to do a better job of cybersecurity? Because, Schneier answers, there are powerful forces that thrive on the “wicked problem” of cybersecurity and insecurity, for one thing; for another, “big companies with few competitors don’t have much incentive to improve the security of their products, because users have no alternative.” With due pessimism, the author argues that individuals must do their best to harden their own security even as governments battle against encryption, anonymity, and other security measures by claiming that the “Four Horsemen of the Internet Apocalypse—terrorists, drug dealers, pedophiles, and organized crime”—will be the ultimate beneficiaries of secure systems. On a larger level, Schneier proposes resilient systems that provide multiple defensive layers as well as reform of international laws and the establishment of protocols for enhanced protection against the real bad guys…
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.