Cyber-terrorism is undoubtedly real, but are those responsible for keeping the home drives spinning pitching the risks to us in a realistic manner?

I read this excellent article by Glyn Moody on ComputerWorldUK this morning. Entitled ‘Is GCHQ Frighteningly Clueless or Fiendishly Cunning?’ it takes an analytical and rather sceptical look at GCHQ’s recent comments about the threat faced by the British economy from cyber attacks via email. If what Glyn Moody says is true (and I have no reason to believe it isn’t), GCHQ is displaying some quite frightening attitudes and beliefs.

Cyber-terrorism – good for business?

You’re a company selling security software – that proprietary stuff in which those poor souls on non-Linux systems place their trust. How best to increase sales but to pump up the scare stories about the level of threat, while implying that buying ever more heavy duty security software will solve the problem?

Cyber-terrorism and Windows

Returning to a well-worn theme both here and on numerous other technology blogs, the government’s blind adherence to Windows systems is exposing national systems to unnecessary risk. Glyn Moody suggests that perhaps GCHQ is secretly playing a bluff here and quietly replacing vulnerable Windows systems with Linux, but he doesn’t sound convinced.

I’ll leave you to read the article yourself and draw your own conclusions, but I have to quote this marvellous bit:

“have those boffins at GCHQ ever thought of turning to software like GNU/Linux that is rather less vulnerable to all those nasty, malicious emails in the first place?”.

What more can we say?