U.S. President-elect, Donald Trump, addressed the state of cybersecurity with a bang during his New Year's Eve party at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida.
"No computer is safe," Trump advised the press and suggested that important messages should be written out and delivered by courier.
Earlier that week, he told reporters," I think the computers have complicated lives greatly." He also voiced out his concerns about not knowing what type of security is needed to be safe from cyberattacks.
The 70-year-old business tycoon is known for his skepticism toward technology. He admits that he does not do emails and that he dictates most of his tweets to his personal assistants. Trump's lack of experience and seeming disinterest in technology has received much criticism, particularly from members of the IT industry. In an open letter posted on Medium, tech leaders stated that Trump would be a "disaster for innovation."
No Computer Is Safe
Trump's old-fashioned opinion toward technology cannot hide the fact that what he said is true. No computer is safe. In fact, no one is safe.
Recent years have revealed an increase in malicious activity such as online identity theft, hacking, intellectual property loss, and more.
"Half of all Americans are backing away from the net due to fears regarding security and privacy," tech expert Dan Kaminsky said during Black Hat USA 2016, a cybersecurity conference that was held in Las Vegas in July 2016.
The 2016 U.S. Presidential Elections further exposed how vulnerable the country is to cyberattacks when hackers infiltrated and leaked thousands of emails from the Clinton campaign, which significantly influenced the outcome of the elections. The U.S. government blames Russia for these hacking attacks and for interfering with the United States political system to help Trump win the presidency.
What To Do About Moscow?
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly denied the U.S. hacking allegations. In his statement on Dec. 30, 2016, Putin indicated his decision to ignore the sanctions and expulsions made by the Obama administration. The Russian president will wait for Trump to assume office and focus on building a better relationship with the new administration.
Trump expressed his support for Putin through a tweet on Friday.
Great move on delay (by V. Putin) - I always knew he was very smart!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 30, 2016
Trump plans to meet with U.S. Intelligence officials once he is inaugurated as president just to be sure about the allegations made against Russia.
"I know a lot about hacking and hacking is very hard thing to prove," Trump told the press during his New Year's Eve party.
The Inconceivable Power Of Cyber
"We're so obsolete in cyber," Trump told the New York Times in March 2016.
In the same interview, Trump expressed concern that other countries are progressing at a much faster pace than the United States when it comes to "cyber."
But it seems that Trump is not the only one who is left pondering on the inconceivable power of cyber. ISACA's State of Cybersecurity 2016 report reveals that even security professionals are losing confidence in their ability to handle a cyber attack. In 2016, only 79 percent of security professionals are confident about their team's ability to detect and respond to simple cyber attacks, a 12-point drop from last year's 87 percent. Many cybersecurity professionals now believe that the internet is broken, which is not entirely far from Trump's own perception of the Internet of Things and computers.
Will he really be calling Bill Gates to close up the internet, or should we expect classified, high-level messages and codes being delivered by courier throughout the next four years? Only time will tell.
