Every three seconds, experts say, someone is trying to hack into your home or work computer. Whether it’s teenagers snatching Facebook photos, criminals siphoning your bank account or a foreign government stealing billions in intellectual property, these attacks share a common thread: They’re driven by human behavior, not a machine. In what is believed to be a first, Maryland researchers are examining the online behavior and motivation of cyberthieves—identifying the methods they use to crack a system, their actions once they’ve infiltrated and the types of network configurations that deter them. The team of engineers, computer scientists and criminologists from the Maryland Cybersecurity Center (MC2) are casting a wide net for hackers, catching them in a cybertrap called a “honeypot,” where their every move is recorded and analyzed. The National Science Foundation is providing $653,000 for the research, with additional funding coming from SANS, a nonprofit institute that specializes in cybersecurity certification. Ultimately, the data collected and analyzed by Maryland researchers could help engineers design better security solutions and IT managers teach computer users how to safeguard their files. With hackers having the power to wreak havoc on the banking industry or disrupt communication networks, the stakes have never been higher.
photo credits photo by/ John T. Consoli by John T. Consoli
fall 2012 terp 29