What are the engineering solutions for securing cyberspace?
Historically, the usual approach to computer protection has been what is called “perimeter defense.” It is implemented by placing routers and “firewalls” at the entry point of a sub-network to block access from outside attackers. Cybersecurity experts know well that the perimeter defense approach doesn’t work. All such defenses can eventually be penetrated or bypassed. And even without such breaches, systems can be compromised, as when flooding Web sites with bogus requests will cause servers to crash in what is referred to as a “denial of service” attack or when bad guys are already inside the perimeter. The problems are currently more obvious than the potential solutions. It is clear that engineering needs to develop innovations for addressing a long list of cybersecurity priorities. For one, better approaches are needed to authenticate hardware, software, and data in computer systems and to verify user identities. Biometric technologies, such as fingerprint readers, may be one step
