We must strengthen social trust for truly effective cyber security

Had it not been for over-ambition or arrogance on the part of the hackers—allegedly linked to Russian intelligence agencies—in attacking FireEye, a leading private cyber-security firm, it might have taken the world longer to discover that thousands of government bodies, corporations and even think-tanks around the world had been compromised for months. The culprits had gotten into the target networks by compromising the software update servers of Solarwinds, exploiting the vulnerabilities in the global information technology (IT) supply chain. As the world was dealing with the covid-19 pandemic, the hackers installed back doors, exfiltrated data, and perhaps planted other mischief that we are yet unaware of. The primary targets appear to be in the United States, but systems in several other countries, including India are potentially affected.Read the full piece on Mint