28 – SwiSS Style

It’s midnight. Do you know where

your data are? Seriously? It may

sound flippant, but as things are

evolving in the world of information

technology, there will come a time in a

not-too distant future, when this little

needling thought could cause a few

sleepless nights and long headaches

in the business community. For Carlos

Moreira, CEO of Wisekey and peripa-

tetic promoter of online security, the

question is crucial to the evolution

of the digital world. Especially con-

sidering the drumfire of news about

banks “losing” data to tax authori-

ties, CDs bearing names and account

information of heavy-duty German

tax finaglers winding up with the

Finanzamt, or companies and agen-

cies getting penetrated in cyber at-

tacks. “We are not talking about

some hacker in China trying to shut

down the electrical system in New

York,” says Moreira. Cloak-and-dag-

ger type warfare has been going on

since World War Two and the famous

ENIGMA encrypter, he points out.

What happened in Switzerland

with the private banks was low-tech

stuff, individuals getting a hold of the

right identity and entering the bank’s

database. “Some banks are still using

dBase [one of the oldest database manage-

ment systems, the Editor] and systems

from the 1990s, with the client name

and address in one file,” says the long-

time specialist in electronic and infor-

mation security. “Segregating and en-

crypting data is the kind of stuff you

have to do each day, it’s like brushing

your teeth.”

Safety firstMoreira, who moved from work in

academe to consulting and security

for various international organisa-

tions including the ILO and EFTA,

bundled his knowledge and experi-

ence and founded Wisekey in 1999. ID

management and security, the com-

pany service as it were, were some-

thing of a niche area in the post dot.

bomb era, and so the business grew by

leaps and bounds. The key in Wisekey

is an X.509 standards-based certifi-

cate containing information shared

publicly and used as a form of digital

identification. It can help protect an in-

dividual’s PII (Personal Identifiable In-

formation). The user is also equipped

with a private key to be kept confiden-

tial. This one is used to encrypt and de-

crypt sensitive communications. This

system is a powerful tool in maintain-

ing privacy online, and when extend-

ed to be used for the identification of

objects and data, it goes a long way to

making the Internet a more trusted en-

vironment.

“People wondered why you needed that

level of security and segregation,” he re-

calls. Today, of course, online security is

becoming essential. In spite of its appar-

ent shapelessness, the Internet is any-

thing but some ephemeral space. It con-

sists of real hardware stashed in a wide

variety of locations that is vulnerable to

attack. And what happens on the web

can have very real consequences in the

real world, like businesses collapsing. “I

used to say the Internet was in the con-

tact phase, that is, people made contact,

through Facebook, LinkedIn, and other

social media,” says Moreira. ”Now we

are in the contract phase, where people

are able to do major contracts through

the Internet, and the ‘R’ that turns con-

tact into contract stands for ‘regula-

tions’, because using the Internet as a

contractual tool, people will demand

regulations to guarantee secure trans-

acting online.”

The WEF, which likes to draw in-

ternational attention to certain topics,

made cyber-security a major issue. Not

surprisingly, Carlos Moreira was up in

Davos earlier this year – not his first vis-

it to the hallowed grounds – expound-

ing on the subject with other interested

parties, including none other than Bill

Gates. His company was even given the

WEF blessing as one of the world’s “hot-

test” 25 enterprises. The WEF accolade

is important, Moreira feels, because im-

portant people are beginning to take a

serious look at the problem he is trying

to correct 24/7. “It’s a boardroom con-

The Internet does bear some resemblance to the much ballyhooed American Wild West, with its somewhat anarchic disposition.Fortunes are made and lost online, and robbers and con-men lurk. But like the Wild West, the Internet, too, is gradually aging, the wild oats are growing into nicely tended fields, and some semblance of order is appearing. One of the policemen on the block is Carlos Moreira. And Swiss Style caught him between trips.

Virtually present

Business style

> Marton Radkai

“Segregating and encrypting data is the kind of stuff you have to do each day, it’s like brushing your teeth.”

iSSue n° 225 – 29

cern,” he says. “A few years ago, cyber-

security was the domain of engineers,

experts in the company, but now it’s

the board that is interested, because

the company valuation could be annihi-

lated in a single day given a successful

attack.” Indeed, about USD 1 trillion are

lost each year to cyber criminals.

Part of the problem has been a

perceptional error. In Switzerland, for

example, the “fortress mentality”, as

Moreira calls it, held sway until fairly

recently. “The bad guys were out there,

and all one had to do was load up on

software, hardware, firewalls, biom-

etric systems,” says Moreira. The prob-

lem, he tried to tell many banks, was

that the enemy was actually inside the

bank, with a USB stick or a cell phone

camera, simple technologies to collect

information and bring it beyond the

massive defensive walls. Nowadays,

however, banks seem to be adopting

more effective measures. They main-

tain greater control over staff members,

give them digital IDs that permit bet-

ter tracking and restrictions. Comput-

ers are encrypted as well, as are email

programmes and other systems used in

daily work. As such, the country has be-

come something of a hub of innovation

in the world of secure Internet, though

it has learned the hard way.

Seventh heavenAs for the Internet itself, it remains an

unregulated environment with power-

ful advocates for maintaining the open-

ness – with all its copyright issues and

web pages crowded with advertising.

And the next great transformation is al-

ready in the making, announced almost

discreetly for some years now through

the convergence of telephony and com-

puting and by the proliferation of iPads,

iPods, and other lightweight, highly

mobile technologies. “The Cloud”, used

by Apple to make services and other ap-

plications available ubiquitously, is an-

other one of those somewhat odd meta-

phors to rename the Internet.

For Carlos Moreira, the Cloud – or

cloud computing – is the future, and

it is upon us, with all its bells, whistles

and warts. Essentially it means that

any device features a far simpler ar-

chitecture for the average user, at any

rate: “The new generation is the C-gen,

you could say, connect, click, commu-

nicate,” he suggests. “They are in front

of their computers and don’t want to

worry about hard disks, or where their

data is, or how to transfer the stuff from

an iPod to a laptop, to a television.” Of

course, the Cloud is more than just a

way to have lots of digital fun or check

out what some virtual friend has eaten

for breakfast at the Kuala Lumpur Star-

bucks. It offers genuine business oppor-

tunities as a centralised system where

people can buy space, set up services,

provide their subscribers or users with

a secure and unique ID. “You don’t have

to worry about data services, maintain-

ing servers, and so on,” says Moreira. »»»

Carlos Moreira, the key to Cloud security

“The new generation is the C-gen, you could say, connect, click, communicate.”

30 – SwiSS Style

Whatever the interface, it will no longer

need all the heavy programmes that

slow down computing or have to be up-

dated every week. In fact, the computer

itself is no longer smart, it is merely a

conduit.

This brave new world of comput-

ing, which puts ever greater physical

distance between the owner of data and

the data itself, will have important re-

percussions on companies and organisa-

tions – including government – particu-

larly those having to deal with masses

of highly confidential information. “The

old situation with VPNs, for example,

was shaky,” says Moreira, ”losing a lap-

top meant losing emails, documents,

even entire databases! That could com-

promise the entire organisation.” Today,

data stored in the Cloud has to be en-

crypted, so an account manager travel-

ling and needing, say, to read and sign a

contract, will just have to log on with a

secure ID, pick up the document, do his

or her business, and log out. Objects and

content are also given IDs, thus enhanc-

ing security and trust for extra security.

In a virtual sense, the area of attack is

kept to a minimum.

Ground floorOf course, the Cloud is not a misty thing

that floats above the earth. It has shape

and heft, just like the servers making

up the Internet. Even in its relatively in-

choate current form, it is beginning to

evolve as users make demands on physi-

cal location. Servers and data centres

are, after all, vulnerable to local laws,

of course, and even encrypted data can

be seized by warrant or by force. On the

one hand, there is growing demand for

servers and data centres to be set up in

specific areas or even countries to en-

sure sovereignty over the data. On the

other hand, many organisations are

calling for so-called private clouds, ar-

eas that are only accessible to author-

ised people and not shared with the hoi

polloi of the Internet. “It’s like being in

a disco or a stadium with a VIP area,”

says Moreira, “everyone is watching the

same match, but some have special cre-

dentials and can access certain services

and data that others cannot.” All they

will need is the right key to get into the

golden door. «««

Business style

Virtually present by Marton Radkai

your data

your identity

your enterprise

Secure

FUTURE CONNECT

Essentially, the Cloud is noth-ing new, rather, it is the con-tinuing evolution of what Marshall McLuhan already conceived as the Global Vil-lage, with computing becom-ing as simple, ubiquitous and natural as switching on a light. Naturally, given hu-man history and the tendency of power structures to want to control as much informa-tion as possible, not only will regulations be needed for se-curity, but also to guarantee the integrity and privacy of individual users. The greenness of the Internet and by extension the Cloud is also an issue that needs ad-dressing, since cooling thou-sands of whirring servers costs a great deal of energy. On the positive side, how-ever, easier accessibility and multi-terminal services will also reduce the need to travel. Moreira himself often confers with clients and engineers in India and Vietnam, for exam-ple, and he sees no problem with larger meetings being done virtually. It’s a ques-tion of paradigm, and that is shifting ever so quickly. And to think that just a few brief decades ago, Dick Tracy’s two-way wrist TV was so cool and absurd at the same time, it had to be relegated to the fun-nies page.