Hype, Crime, and Terror

Security maven Bruce Schneier believes that an emphasis on "cyberterrorism" (presumably, cyber-based threats to critical infrastructure for the purpose of direct terrorism) is diverting resources from "ordinary" cybercrime:

"I think that the terrorist threat is overhyped, and the criminal threat is underhyped," Schneier said Tuesday. "I hear people talk about the risks to critical infrastructure from cyberterrorism, but the risks come primarily from criminals. It's just criminals at the moment aren't as 'sexy' as terrorists."

Fair enough; the emphasis in the United States on "critical infrastructures" to the exclusion of what are presumably less-important information targets has always been a persistent policy issue. But while the technical preventive mechanisms for each of the foregoing categories may differ, one wonders whether the practical extent to which resources are really being diluted, given that "information security is information security" from an awareness point of view. And if there really is a developing trend where terrorism blurs into organized crime, we might be talking about the same people after all -- which, at least from a top-level resourcing standpoint, kind of brings us full-circle.

[Hat tip: IATAC Digest]