I hope you will forgive me a bit of self-congratulation. Today, The Great Courses released a video course that I did for them entitled Thinking about Cybersecurity: From Cyber Crime to Cyber Warfare. The course is a less academic but visually stunning treatment of many of the topics I covered in my recent book on Cyber Warfare. To be honest I’m overwhelmed a bit with the production values that the company put into the lecture series. The course is perfect for those who prefer visual experiences, or for anyone you know who is interested in the topic, but doesn’t want the depth of academic treatment. Here is how the company describes it:
Cyberspace is the 21st century’s greatest engine of change. And it’s everywhere. Telecommunications, commercial and financial systems, government operations, food production—virtually every aspect of global civilization now depends on interconnected cyber systems to operate; systems that have helped advance medicine, streamline everyday commerce, and so much more. Which makes keeping these systems safe from threat one of the most pressing problems we face.There are billions of Internet users connected to one another, and every minute, these parties create mind-boggling amounts of new information and data. Yet because cyberspace is so vast, flexible, and unregulated (and because it grows in leaps and bounds every year), all these users are highly vulnerable to dangers from cyber criminals, rogue nation-states, and other outside forces.
Just how important an issue is cybersecurity? Consider these points:
- Every minute, individuals and organizations hack multiple websites around the world.
- Each year, experts discover millions of new pieces of malware designed to illegally tamper with computer systems.
- Yearly, cyber crime leads to astounding global monetary losses of billions and billions of dollars.
- In just a single year, millions of people will find themselves the victims of cyber identity fraud.
Public policymakers and technology experts agree: Cybersecurity and the issues associated with it will affect everyone on the planet in some way. That means the more you know about this hot-button topic, the better prepared you’ll be to protect yourself, to weigh in on the political and ethical issues involved, and to understand new threats (and new solutions) as they emerge.
PS — As a new course, the series starts out on sale … :-)