Time For The Industry To Step Up Over Hacking

Hacking is becoming ubiquitous. Even by taking a glimpse at a handful of high-profile cases, such as the hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s e-mail servers, the Ashley Madison data breach, or the setting off of emergency sirens in Dallas last weekend, one can clearly see that anything and anyone is at risk.

This omnipresent vulnerability is the starting point for the Economist’s article, which points out that there now exists a plethora of hacking techniques. With some hackers targeting chip design and manufacture, and others messing around with software, it becomes harder and harder to safeguard computer products.

Companies often end up hoping for the best. As the Economist highlights, “shutting down every risk of abuse in millions of lines of code before people start to use that code is nigh-on impossible”. And time is money too. Being focused on profit-making, many internet companies follow the logic of “time spent trying to write secure code is time not spent adding customers".

The Economist emphasizes the need for increasing software-makers’ liability for their products. Despite the reluctance on the side of the industry, the issue cannot be ducked forever “in a world where software is everywhere, and computerised cars or medical devices can kill people directly”. Both regulation and self-regulation are at hand. For now, the industry still has the opportunity to clean up its act before the government steps up and avoid "looking like the pharmaceutical industry, where tough, ubiquitous regulation is one reason why the cost of developing a new drug is now close to a billion dollars".