Video: Pulitzer Prize Winner Kaplan Talks about Cyber War in our Unsafe Internet

Qualys Security Conference 2016 ended with a bang thanks to Fred Kaplan, a Pulitzer Prize winner whose keynote “Cyber Conflict: Prevention, Stability and Control” gave hundreds of attendees plenty of food for thought as they got ready to head back home.

Kaplan offered an unsettling overview of crucial security compromises made by architects, custodians and operators of the Internet from its genesis as Arpanet in the late 1960s to today.

The implications of those decisions — made for the sake of usability, commerce, research and other considerations — are enormous, according to Kaplan, a Slate columnist who researched the topic in depth for his book “Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War,” published this year.

The Internet, while inherently vulnerable and fragile by design, is now nonetheless a key part of the world’s critical services infrastructure. Naturally, it has become a virtual battleground used by nations to attack each other and conduct cyber espionage, and by criminals and terrorists to create mayhem.

So what can governments and the private sector do at this point? Their best bet is to focus on detection and resilience, and to figure out if and how deterrence can come into play, according to Kaplan.

Watch this video interview he granted us at QSC16 to learn more about his findings, insights and recommendations.