[ISN] President Should Have 'Kill Switch' For Internet, Most Americans Say

From: InfoSec News <alerts_at_private>
Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2010 01:43:49 -0500 (CDT)
http://www.darkreading.com/insiderthreat/security/vulnerabilities/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228000253

By Kelly Jackson Higgins
DarkReading
Oct 28, 2010

More than 60 percent of Americans say if a major cyberattack were to 
occur on the Internet, the president should have the capability to shut 
down parts of the network, according to a new survey.

Around 80 percent of Americans also say they are limiting access to 
their personal information and using privacy settings on Facebook and 
other social media, and 73 percent are keeping their antivirus 
up-to-date. But they are less vigilant about their mobile devices, with 
only 37 percent password-protecting these devices, according to Unisys' 
Security Index survey for the second half of 2010, released this week. 
And about 46 percent of these users regularly update and use strong 
passwords for their desktop machines.

"With only 37 percent using passwords on mobile devices, it's probably 
because people are looking for convenience," says Patricia Titus, vice 
president and chief information security officer at Unisys. "People are 
not applying the same security practices to mobile devices as they do to 
PCs and laptops. And in some instances, these [mobile devices] are more 
powerful."

As for the "kill switch" support, Titus says respondents could be 
interpreting what that might entail in different ways. "They might not 
be thinking about what the implications would mean .. they might be 
thinking of him blocking a particular country [or attackers]," she says.

[...]


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Received on Thu Oct 28 2010 - 23:43:49 PDT

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