The Unhackable Internet

Like most aspects of modern existence, more and more of our financial lives have migrated wholly to the digital realm. With the benefits of ease that our Internet allows us, that transition also raises numerous – and dangerous – threats to national security, our money, and the systems we use to store and transfer it. Cybersecurity is one of the most formidable challenges that the world faces today. From cyberattacks by foreign adversaries like China and Russia, the explosion of cryptocurrency, the advancement of ransomware, phishing, surveillance apps, spying software, and logic bombs, and the increasing savvy and daring shown by Internet hackers, the next financial panic is likely to be delivered to us through use or abuse of technology.

In Unhackable, author and financial services and technology expert Thomas P. Vartanian exposes the vulnerabilities of the many networks that we rely on today, as well as the threats facing the integrity of our national security and financial services sector. Recent cybersecurity failures like the Solar Winds attack, which gave hackers believed to be directed by Russian intelligence unprecedented access to federal agencies and private corporations, and the breach of Equifax, which compromised the data of nearly half of all US citizens, have revealed the inadequacies of our current computing systems and the dysfunction of the bureaucracy that oversees them. Even further, attacks like these underscore the need for a centralized and empowered government administration charged with protecting our country’s data and information. Vartanian offers comprehensive solutions to the problems we face: fortifying our Internet with channels dedicated to financial transactions that use heightened authentication, governance, and enforcement; incorporating the benefits that blockchain has to offer; and investing more in the rapidly developing world of quantum computing are all necessary steps to shoring up our online security.

This incisive and important book investigates the creation and history of our financial Internet, the vulnerabilities of our current data storage and sharing platforms, the pitfalls and potential that cryptocurrency holds, the promise that quantum computing and the blockchain offer, and how we can – and must – make a stronger and safer Internet.