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 COLUMN
Parallel worlds A FEW WEEKS AGO, in a column on the SecurityFocus Online Web site, George Smith took an indirect swipe at me. He was lambasting the media for using expressions such as "digital Armageddon" and for drawing analogies to the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack. While I agree that the hobgoblin of cyberterrorism is invoked too often, I hope that we come away from future digital attacks as relatively easily as we did Pearl Harbor.
The most obvious parallel between the Japanese attack and an impending cyberattack is a failure to correctly analyze and disseminate available intelligence, which played -- and will play -- a major part in our unpreparedness. Another parallel is that we're likely to be looking in the wrong direction, as were the defenders of Hawaii. Even though the Navy's war games had developed a strong case that a surprise attack was likely to come from the north, the patrol planes were looking toward the Japanese mandated territories to the west and southwest. Radar facilities were still provisional, and the eyes of America's leadership were riveted on Malaya, the Philippines, and the East Indies. When the cyberattack comes, we'll be looking at every "rogue nation," but in all likelihood the attack will be launched from hosts in North America and Europe. Yet another example of misdirected effort is the decision of the Hawaiian Air Force [sic] commander to cluster his airplanes as an anti-sabotage defense. This made it easier for the attacking Japanese fliers to blow the planes to kingdom come. The only U.S. Army [sic] fighters to sortie in the first attack came from a station where the C.O. had disobeyed orders and left his planes dispersed around the field. Likewise, we'll put a huge effort into preventing one kind of cyberattack and leave ourselves open to another. The Japanese success at Pearl Harbor was illusory, just as the future cyberattackers' will be. The loss of life at Pearl was shocking, the destruction of the Pacific Fleet's battle line in the space of a morning even more so. Yet the Imperial Japanese Navy did their American counterparts many favors. For one, by rendering slow, obsolete battleships hors de combat, the IJN forced American admirals to accept the aircraft carrier as the primary strategic unit and to adopt tactics and build ships suited more toward the battles of the future, instead of the past. It's also unlikely that the cyberattackers will completely destroy their targets, just as the Japanese fliers left the tank farm and fuel supplies stored therein untouched; the submarine base at Pearl was barely scratched. We'll survive future cyberattacks. That's why a digital Pearl Harbor doesn't scare me: Worse could happen. P.J. Connolly is section leader for InfoWorld's Test Center, covering security and collaboration. Contact him at pj_connolly@infoworld.com.  RELATED ARTICLES  Security Adviser archiveRELATED SUBJECTS SecurityClick here for all of P.J. Connolly's past columns. SPONSORED WHITE PAPERS 
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