So it seems that once again, brilliant network and computer engineers have found a back door into some of the largest multinational corporations:

“The names and e-mails of customers of Citigroup Inc and other large U.S. companies, as well as College Board students, were exposed in a massive and growing data breach after a computer hacker penetrated online marketer Epsilon.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/04/us-citi-capitalone-data-idUSTRE7321PI20110404

Internet security has always maintained an elusive veil of protection. As much as we would like to think that the mapping of our digital selves onto cyberspace remains within our full control (especially with the advent of social networking services such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn), I predict that such breaches of internet security will continue to be on the rise. [1]

With respect to energy security, the most recent string of network hack-ins at major financial and energy corporations over the last couple of months [2][3] present an interesting problem to the wave of so-called “smart grid” initiatives that intend to provide more automation of our electric power systems. The current VPNs and telemetry systems that facilitate automatic generation control (AGC) to keep the United States’ electricity grid secure have historically been remarkably reliable; however, the additional layers of telecommunications infrastructure being proposed for the grid will present more opportunity for similar breaches we’ve seen at financial and oil firms. One can envision distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks orchestrated by a nation state with enough wherewithal on the future smart grid (several hackers at major banks have been traced to China DNS and IP addresses) by shutting down commercial systems to gain economic advantages.

Only time will dictate the fate of nations.

See also
[1] U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team. http://www.us-cert.gov/reading_room/index.html
[2] “Chinese hackers targeted Morgan Stanley in 2009.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/01/morgan-stanley-chinese-hackers (1 Mar 2011).
[3] “Data theft attacks besiege oil industry.” http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20031291-264.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=News-Security (2 Feb 2011),