Western civilization could easily come to an abrupt halt from a terrorist cyberattack.
Just consider our dependance on technology...
There are computer-driven carrier fleets safeguarding the oceans, unmanned aerial vehicles flying through the air, and even robots patrolling international borders.
There are communications systems that send live video from patrol drones to field units to command centers halfway around the world. These can fire missiles from South Dakota at a moving jeep in the hinterlands of Yemen.
Thousands of satellites orbiting space affect everything from the temperature in your house, the internet you use, even your work commute.
In today's modern society our entire way of life is built on 1s and 0s. Everything works off the digital landscape.
There are smart bombs, smart bullets, smart clothing, smart cars, smart watches.
There are malicious types of software that send viruses through systems big and small for no other purpose than to bring them all crashing down. The banks, the airlines, the grid, the law firms, the markets, the ships, the gas stations, they are all at risk.
That makes us exceptionally vulnerable to a Big Crash ignited by hackers.
For all our talk about being a strong and powerful nation, we're weak on cyberdefense. The military has admitted it. The government has even admitted it.
In fact, a friend of mine who works in cybersecurity for a big governmental agency recently confessed the immense challenge of keeping the hackers at bay - thousands of attacks a day - and establishing inter-and intra-governmental security protocols for users.
The deeper we get in our connected world, the more cyber threats matter. And the more money there is to be made from them.
The companies that can defuse attacks and foresee threats are in for enormous paydays. We'll get to those, but first let's explore the world of cybersecurity.
Perhaps the scariest thing about cyberwar is you don't even know you're being attacked until it's too late.
Stuxnet, a virus that was deployed on specific chips inside specific centrifuges that the Iranians were using to enhance their nuclear program is this kind of cyberwar in action.
When Russia attacked Georgia it was said that a couple hours before the attack there was a massive Denial of Service outbreak on the Georgian offices of state that shut their servers down so no one in the military, administration or security services could communicate with one another.
GhostNet is a mythological worm that has been found in computers around the world that is able to get into secure computers, turn on the cameras and watch people type in their usernames and passwords.
It seems everyone (meaning nations as well as groups) is finding ways to commit espionage, theft, mayhem and sabotage using nothing more than keyboards and an internet connection.
Yet, little is getting done to stop these breeches. Attacks are continually more sophisticated as The New York Times reported when Saudi Aramco, the Arab-American oil giant was hacked:
"More than two months after the Aramco attack, the company continues to deal with the aftermath. Employees are not able to gain access to their corporate e-mail and internal network."
The attack, intelligence officials say, was a wake-up call. "It proved you don't have to be sophisticated to do a lot of damage," said Richard A. Clarke, the former counterterrorism official at the National Security Council. "There are lots of targets in the U.S. where they could do the same thing."
Another example of big league hacks: Last year, as reported in Military and Aerospace Electronics, "An attack was carried out on the Telvent, the maker of software and services meant to be used with smart grid networks."
The attack was announced as a breach of Telvent's intranet firewall and security systems, and Telvent officials said "the attack included the installation of malicious software and the theft of project files for OASyS SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition), software that bridges the gap between enterprise networks and activities in the field."
That means you could have electrical outages, or simply people spying on the information rolling across that grid.
Editor's Note: Recently uncovered evidence shows Chinese tanks are secretly smuggling gold into the country. To learn what this means for the dollar according to a CIA Advisor, click here.
As an individual keep this in mind: If a company that holds your data is hacked, there's a 25% percent chance that your data is going to be stolen and used by the hackers.
With more and more organizations falling prey to increasingly sophisticated hacks, this is becoming a very dangerous threat for the average consumer.
Just look at what happened to Target last year. The retail chain was hacked and over 70 million customers had their credit cards and personal information exposed to identity thieves.
This followed the hack of business and professional software giant Adobe.
Last October cyber attackers accessed Adobe customer IDs and encrypted passwords. The hackers then removed certain information relating to Adobe customers, including customer names, encrypted credit and debit card numbers, expiration dates, and other information relating to customer orders.
Originally the company said only 2.9 million customers were affected, but by November Adobe restated that 2.9 million number - and raised it to 130 million. And someone even published a list of the Top 100 Passwords on the hit list. No. 1: 123456.
Obviously most individuals still aren't taking security seriously.
Even the U.S. military is just getting around to taking the issue seriously, and corporations are starting to realize that compromised data is very expensive to clean up - much more expensive than protecting it in the first place.
Part of the problem has been that the urgency of stepping up cybersecurity has come at a time when most organizations and individuals have been belt tightening, not looking to spend large sums on a generally abstract threat.
It's a hard sell, but invasions are occurring exponentially more often and they're more sophisticated.
In an increasingly electrified world, cybersecurity is as crucial as it is elusive, which makes it a great place to do business.
In fact, the $65 billion cybersecurity industry will see a 39% increase in corporate spending alone by 2017.
There are plenty of cybersecurity firms out there and there's a lot of money to be made from investing in cybersecurity...especially since many companies are small-cap stocks most investors haven't heard of.
But you don't want to be buying blind; just like the dotcom boom, not all these companies are worth your investment dollars.
My favorites are below...
Cybersecurity, like all things digital, is scalable.
That means there are various opportunities for companies to exploit a strategic niche without having to be bigger or better than they need to be. Each of these four has good positions in their respective markets.
QinetiQ Group (OTCMKTS: QNTQY) is a company James Bond would be proud of. You see, 007's chief gadget maker Q and his lab were named for QinetiQ, a supplier to British secret agents and agencies for decades. In recent years the company has gone public and has built a very good relationship in the US intelligence and military communities. Its biggest push in recent years has been into the cybersecurity space. There's a lot to like here.
Next up, is the individual and small business space and one of growing names in this sector is AVG Technologies NV (NYSE: AVG). AVG has grown its user base to 146 million active users and offers a product portfolio that targets consumers and small businesses and includes Internet security, PC performance optimization, online backup, mobile security, identity protection and family safety software.
Next, if you're looking for cybersecurity stocks in growth sectors, then you have to check out Trend Micro Inc. (OTCMKTS: TMICY), a Japan-based company that is engaged in the development, production and sale of anti-virus software, and management solutions for corporate computer systems. TMICY also develops, markets, and supports Internet content security software and services. It offers solutions to prevent the invasion of viruses and other malicious content into corporate networks, small and medium-sized business networks, and individual personal computers.
Moving up to the enterprise level and beyond it's a good idea to stick with big names. And there's no bigger name than Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC). It's a global provider of security, storage, and systems management solutions that help businesses and consumers secure and manage their information.
Symantec operates primarily in three geographic regions: the Americas, which consist of the U.S., Canada, and Latin America; Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and Asia Pacific Japan (APJ).
And this global reach means it also maintains important relationships with a number of multinational original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), Internet service providers, and retail and online stores.
Editor's Note: The People's Liberation Army is covertly bringing gold into China to hide in its central bank "off the books." In this must-see interview, the CIA's Financial Threat and Asymmetric Warfare Advisor reveals why many in the U.S. Intelligence Community fear this secret stockpile will soon be used to launch an unstoppable attack on the U.S. dollar. Click here to see the shocking evidence...
