Is cyber warfare the new corporate reality?

A new survey, commissioned by security vendor McAfee, of technology executives who run critical infrastructure systems around the world has revealed some startling information: They say that their sites are experiencing constant cyberattacks, and from foreign governments to boot.

In the same vein, I wrote about how security is still the major bugbear in 2010 just last week. This was based on the revelation by search giant Google, as well as a number of notable corporations that they were on the receiving end of sophisticated and targeted attacks.

Of course, it does not take much imagination to figure out the rationale for attempts to penetrate the critical installations of sovereign nations. As abhorrent as the idea of sabotaging such infrastructure is, the ability to cripple or bring down some of these critical systems would probably rate as an excellent first-strike option in military thinking.

Personally, I'll leave worrying about protecting such installations to the government. What I find deeply disturbing however, is the prospect of rooms crammed full of elite hackers working from multiple systems as they conduct round-the-clock cyber campaigns against less well-supported corporate entities.

Today, it would be unusual to enter a corporate office and find staffers without access to a dedicated workstation. And most households in developed nations have more than one PC at home, which would likely have some kind of access to resources on remote corporate networks. The chilling truth is this: A successful exploit on any one of these machines could potentially tear a huge security hole in the network.

How can smaller companies stand a chance against the forces that foreign governments can bring to bear? Is the ability to protect against such cyber attacks the new reality for corporations around the world? - Paul