[Dailydave] Biggest Rocks and Glassiest Houses

[dave aitel]

Ok, so what I was hoping to do was convince Tenable and Qualys to dig
into their data today and answer a simple question that confounds the
entire policy world. They say a few pithy things, and without any data
whatsoever, as is their truest love. The most common thing they say,
such as on the Steptoe podcast, is "We (the US) have the biggest rocks,
and the glassiest houses." By this they mean that instability in
cyberspace effects the US the most. And especially they mean in the
sectors of critical infrastructure, as including the financial sector
(which Immunity primarily services from a consulting standpoint).

But I was listening to this this morning on the ride in, after dropping
my kids off at "sailing camp" where they don't allow computers of any
kind because if they do that's all kids will want to do, despite having
a beach and boats and other kids to yell at. And we (like a lot of you)
do a ton of big vulnerability scans for our customers, and frankly, from
the perspective of pure vulnerability, I'd say the US is the most
secure. I.E. I'd love to see what Qualys and Nessus Cloud say, but I
think the level of criticals and old-ass PHP on any given random US
Class-C is going to be lower than that of most other countries.

Anyways, IF THAT THEORY IS SUPPORTED BY DATA, that leaves the discussion
only to a question of how much we "rely" on computers. But "reliance on
computer networks" is not a simple one dimensional thing. Our military
might rely on them more than other militaries, but at the same time be
more protected than other places. I haven't seen data that says the US
society is in particular more vulnerable from a reliance standpoint than
anyone else at this stage, especially not Estonia (the titan of
e-government) or Ukraine.

So to sum up: I think the policy world is again full of it, because it's
not the 90's anymore, but I want data to back that up. So please donate
some! :)

-dave