NSA Official at CES Warns of Threats to Networks, Especially From China

LAS VEGAS -- Speakers at CES warned of the cybersecurity dangers posed by the growing IoT, during a panel Monday. For years, one of the biggest trends here has been expansion of the IoT, and thousands of IoT devices are on display. The discussion also played into the FCC focus on security threats from China and elsewhere (see 1812210032).

“If we aren’t already in the midst of, we are surely on the cusp of a global cyber-pandemic, with malicious activity and worse,” said Glenn Gerstell, NSA general counsel. NSA knows who the bad actors are, and includes other nations and criminals, he said. “I think it’s going to get worse before it gets better.” Cloud computing, 5G and the IoT make the risks greater, he said.

“Nation states concern us greatly because of their ability to have a direct impact on our everyday life, to affect our critical infrastructure and to cause tremendous economic damage,” Gerstell said. “We have seen nation states that have the resources to be able to put the millions of dollars needed to develop sophisticated cyber tools, and the personnel, thousands and thousands of people, dedicated to breaking into America’s computer systems and network.”

Nations are persistent, Gerstell said. “If you shoot enough hockey pucks at a goal, [one] will get through.” Gerstell singled out as the biggest threat China, North Korea, Iran and Russia.

The Chinese Ministry of State Security has an “organized effort to break into computer networks of defense contractors, others,” Gerstell said. China presents “a very integrated, persistent threat,” he said. While North Korea and Iran are smaller, they have the capability of doing damage. He downplayed the risk from Russia, noting its gross domestic product is smaller than that of Illinois and Pennsylvania combined.

“The attack surface … is going to get significantly greater, the amount of data we put in the cloud is going to be increasingly significant,” Gerstell said. “We’re not going to be able to find a miracle drug or a silver bullet.” The threat is growing faster than the ability to address it, he said. It's like a chronic disease, he said.

CTA President Gary Shapiro mentioned China Tuesday. Shapiro said he was at a G7 summit on artificial intelligence last month in Montreal. Officials “happily agreed” every product with AI “must be cyberrisk-free, must protect privacy, must have transparency totally in all its algorithms,” he said.

No one discussed AI's benefits, Shapiro said. “Nor did I hear that countries like China, which have a different view of privacy and human rights than the G7 countries, are better poised to take advantage of AI.” The U.S. needs a smart technology policy accounting for “global views” of privacy and how data can be used, he said. Government should set “ground rules,” not choke innovation, he said.

“The #Cybersecurity Agency at the Department of Homeland Security has furloughed 45% of its employees as a result of the shutdown,” FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel tweeted Tuesday.

“There isn’t an industry today that I run into that hasn’t been materially changed by IoT and that looks like a trend that only accelerates,” said AIG's Lex Baugh, CEO-North America General Insurance. Today, 89 percent of companies plan to adopt or have adopted digital-first strategies, he said. “Cyberrisk is inherent in everything we do in technology.”

General Motors faces the problems other technology companies do, said Chris Murphy, chief privacy officer. The connectivity of cars is expanding rapidly, he said. Changes in the auto industry “require true thought as to the impact of cybersecurity as well as a collaborative perspective,” he said. “The threats we face are coming from many directions.”

CES Notebook

A new era of consumer technology is dawning, as we near the end of the connected age and move to the data age, since internet connectivity is now a given, said Steve Koenig, CTA vice president-market research. He cited Monday the first commercial deployments of 5G and self-driving vehicles in the U.S. and globally. Artificial intelligence and digital assistants are gathering momentum and penetrating households. Fifth-generation wireless “is really going to become the central nervous system of the data age,” Koenig said. He offered a far more extensive discussion of 5G and advanced wireless issues in general than has been given in recent years as part of this trend preview session. Deployment of 5G isn’t “like flipping a switch” but more like watching a toddler learn to walk, since 5G networks are taking their first steps, he said. The new 5G era really begins here this week, he said. We'll see networks start to expand and in two to three years most 5G networks will be up and running in places around the world, Koenig said: “5G is going to amplify current connectivity exponentially -- not just devices but also infrastructure,” with millions more nodes. Announcements are expected at the show this week, he said. Koenig warned that all the major nations want to lead on 5G, so U.S. dominance isn’t a given.