With the growth of the internet, came the capability for massively scalable distributed systems. While this has been a boon to governments, businesses and consumers – it has also been a boon for criminals and others with malicious agendas. 40 years after the birth of ArpaNet, and 20 years after the first commercially sanctioned email systems connected to the internet, internet-borne threats have become some of the greatest threats in our interconnected and data-centric world. Today’s threats can be easily launched from exploited legitimate web sites and millions of end-user computers – with little to no attribution. Cyber-attacks are of such concern that January this year, the FBI stated that it ranks cyber-attacks as the third greatest threat to our National security – behind nuclear war and weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

This presentation will cover past, present and future considerations regarding cyber-attacks, cyber-warfare, malicious software, cybercriminals and state-sponsored attacks. It will also cover why it’s important to consider the next one billion users that will be connecting to the internet, what it means to drive toward an Asymmetrical Security Posture, as well as considerations for next-generation methods of combating highly-scalable and distributed weaponized software.