Industries Of The Future Chapter 4: The Weaponization Of Code

Literature Review

Introduction

My chosen topic from Alec Ross’s book "Industries of the Future Chapter 4:The Weaponization of Code” centers around the dangers of malicious hackers and how major companies can be protected from cyber attacks that can lead to leaks of their customers’ private data. As someone who has seen individuals close to me fall victim to corporate data leaks, I feel as though it is my responsibility to make a strategy that could prevent such damage from being done.

As our world becomes more connected to the Internet, we risk letting sensitive information falling into the wrong hands. Businesses possessing large amounts of customers in the United States, such as Amazon.com are vulnerable to attacks from malicious hackers

According to the author [1] , Target planned to make payments to forty-seven states as a settlement after a security breach led to millions of customers’ data being compromised earlier in the year. Target is comparable to Amazon in terms of its influence as a major retail company and because of this it is important to understand just how much money Amazon could lose should they suffer a security breach of a similar scale. Abrams [1] mentions that Target also plans on tightening their own digital security through maintaining software and encryption programs to safeguard people’s personal information. What must be noted is that while Target is a company which focuses on retail in physical locations and stores in addition to online retail, Amazon.com may be at a greater risk due to all of the company’s transactions being done online. If Target has suffered a cyber attack of this magnitude, there is no doubt in my mind that Amazon.com is a potential victim as

It would be difficult to imagine letting hackers (who already suffer from a certain stigma regardless of whether or not they are ethical hackers) improve a company’s cybersecurity if there exists no example of it being done previously. Fortunately, the article written by Ed Zwirn shows exactly that. In this article published by the New York Post, Zwirn [3] explains how many companies are using white hat hacking groups in order to enhance their online security. He [3] states that one group called HackerOne allegedly has around 800 corporate customers who hire white hat hackers specifically to test and improve their online security. Some of the names included in this list of clients [3] include but are not limited to Google, Uber, Twitter, Starbucks and even the United States Department of Defense. Zwirn’s article [3] also gives price ranges for the services of white hat hackers. Companies are allegedly paying hundreds of thousands to multiple millions of dollars to have their cybersecurity tested by these