US & Canadian Team Up to Use Propaganda Campaigns For Public Support of Cybersecurity

Last week, both the US and Canadian governments revealed that they will combine efforts against cyber-attacks with the creation of an action plan between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Public Safety Canada (PSC) to improve digital infrastructure.

In a 2011 document entitled “Beyond the Border: A Vision for Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness” this relationship was laid out for the purpose of interweaving the two nations to increase the resiliency of our networks, enhance public-private partnerships, and build a culture of shared responsibility,” according to Janet Napolitano, Secretary of DHS.

Because governmental officials state that “the internet knows no borders” there would only be benefits from creating “a shared infrastructure” to protect government secrets and digital information.

The connection between “vital cyber systems” is borne out of a “mutual interest in partnering to protect shared” organization. In Washington, DC and Ottawa, Canada there will be a collaboration of cyber security operation centers as well as shared information and the establishment of guidelines on private sector corporations. Add to this endeavor is the governmental alliance on propaganda methods to convince the citizens of both nations that cyber security must become an over-reaching control by the two governments.

DHS has begun an initiative to purvey propaganda onto American citizens called Stop.Think.Connect. (STC). The STC have teamed with Microsoft to create public service announcements (PSAs) that convince average Americans on how to perceive the inflated threat hackers have on the US government’s cybersecurity.

Some of the founders of the STC initiative are:

• AT&T
• Costco
• Experian
• Facebook
• Google
• Intel
• McAfee, Inc.
• Microsoft
• Paypal
• Symantec
• Verisign
• Visa
• Walmart
• Yahoo!

In Canada, the government-sponsored Get Cyber Safe campaign that defines public risks as cellular phones, online banking, social networks, private emails, YouTube, VoIP, downloading/file sharing and online shopping. Essentially, all activity conducted online are potentials for being hacked into and therefore there is a clear and present necessity for creating an invisible perimeter wherein the government can control cyber-activity for the sake of securing the Web.

At the latest Canadian Association of Defense and Security Industries conference, Dean Turner, computer security expert for Symantec said: “The big problem is behavior at this point.” Turner elaborates on the point that malware, Trojan horses, and cyber espionage is successful because it is easily installed into systems.

Turner would like the private sector to take governmental claims of the danger of cyber-attacks, hackers and the necessity of federal control over cybersecurity seriously. “What we need to start thinking about is not how we would attack, but how our adversaries are attacking and will attack.”

In Canada, as in the US, there is an initiative to begin educating the public on cybersecurity fears at an early age. Turner admonishes the ignorant masses by saying that we need to focus is going after the bad guys, and right now they couldn’t care less. If we’re going to make a dent in this type of thing, we have to start going after these guys and we have to start establishing relationships between law enforcement and governments about what constitutes an actual crime.”

Canadian Tory Senator Pamela Wallin, chair of the Senate Defense Committee, believes that Canadian corporations must tell their customers about cybersecurity breaches and take responsibility for educating the public. Wallin said: “That’s a whole new paradigm. This, as they say, is war.”

Focusing cybersecurity onto the public is the focus of some representatives in the Canadian government. This scheme then redirects the citizens to support all governmental controls “for their own good.”

The Canadian Cyber Incident Reporting Center has established that the Canadian government has lost an estimated $1 billion in monies allocated to cybersecurity wherein only $20.9 actually was spent on these measures.

In the US, to combat this nameless, faceless threat, the DHS is setting the foundation for a “cyber reserve” of IT experts that will be employed as needed during a cyber-attack.

Jane Holl Lute, DHS Deputy Secretary, wants to create the cyber reserve from retired government employees working in the private sector for intelligence technology corporations. Those chosen would conduct forensic investigations and be “intelligence liaisons” to the DHS.