The Foreign Service Journal, March 2011

14 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A R C H 2 0 1 1 tion of the problems Estonia suffered in 2007 from concerted cyberattacks, believed to have originated in Russia. Second, several OECD govern- ments have outsourced critical gov- ernmental computing services to the private sector. This yields economies, but the contractual service-level agree- ments may not be able to cope with the unusual quantities of traffic that occur in an emergency. Finally, cloud computing holds real potential for savings and resilience, but may raise concerns about confidential- ity, if authentication is not robust, and loss of service. With that in mind, the authors recommend that governments take the following steps to minimize the risk of cyberattacks and mitigate any damage: • Ensure that cybersecurity policies encompass the needs of all citizens, not just government facilities. • Encourage ratification of the Cy- berCrime Convention and other inter- national treaties. • Support end-user education to re- duce the number of unprotected com- puters available for hijacking. • Use procurement power, stan- dards-setting and licensing to influ- ence computer industry suppliers to properly test hardware and software. • Extend the development of po- lice and forensic computing resources. • Support the international Com- puter Emergency Response Team community, as the most likely means by which a large-scale Internet prob- lem can be averted or mitigated. • Fund research into such areas as strengthened Internet protocols, risk analysis, contingency planning and dis- aster propagation analysis, human fac- tors in the use of computer systems and security economics. This report is part of a broader OECD study of events that could pre- cipitate “Future Global Shocks.” Other examples to be evaluated in- clude a further failure of the global fi- nancial system, large-scale pandemics, widespread pollution, and long-term meteorological or volcanic conditions inhibiting transport links. — Steven Alan Honley, Editor Korean Tricks and Tweets We reported back inNovember that South Korea’s spy agency had accused the North of launching cyberattacks that briefly paralyzed the Web sites of some South Korean and U.S. govern- ment agencies and commercial firms. In what may be a case of turnabout as fair play, on New Year’s Day the North Korean government’s official Twitter account ( http://twitter.com/urimin zok ) denounced leader Kim Jong Il and heir apparent Kim Jong Eun as sworn enemies of the Korean people and called for their removal from power. The Telegraph reported on Jan. 8 that the site’s 11,000 followers received tweets about the regime’s profligate spending on nuclear weapons and lav- ish drinking parties “while three million people are starving and freezing to death” ( www.telegraph.co.uk ) . The unidentified hackers, believed to be South Korean, also posted a video to Pyongyang’s official YouTube site de- picting a caricature of Kim Jong Eun driving a luxury sports car, running over women and children on the side of the road, but it was quickly removed. The tweets were in Korean, limiting their impact overseas. However, the hacking came as an embarrassment to the regime, particularly because Jan. 1 is thought to be Kim Jong Eun’s birth- day. ■ — Steven Alan Honley, Editor C Y B E R N O T E S