A world-renowned expert on information security says governments and corporations must do more to protect themselves against increasingly popular politically motivated hacking.
Stuart McClure, who has written several how-to guides on hacking, was in Ottawa on Wednesday to discuss security with businesses and bureaucrats. He warned companies against waiting for "catastrophic cysmic attacks" to shore up their security systems. The 35-year-old recalled how easy it was to gain potentially tragic control over one rail company's system, hired as a consultant to test security.
"We were able to get in their main system and actually do whatever we wanted," he said. "It was, again, just not easy. So a cataclysmic event is very possible."
After working for years as a consultant, McClure became president of Foundstone, an information security provider. The company was recently acquired by software giant McAfee.