The network security challenge: three industry experts sound off about inherent dangers and how service providers can overcome them

In the period immediately following the catastrophic terrorist attacks of 2001, many thoughtful persons within the telecommunications industry felt that something approaching a thorough security audit of all public networks was desperately needed. Perceiving those terrorist acts of three years ago as the opening salvo in a total war against the United States, some industry executives assumed that national infrastructure--especially the telecommunications system--represented a key target of opportunity whose vulnerabilities likely would be exploited sooner or later, presumably on a grand scale.

Three years later, it is still too early to conclude that such fears are groundless. The anticipated ideologically motivated sabotage hasn't occurred. Even so, technological advancements have presented new security challenges to enterprise and public networks.

Public networks today are hardly safe and secure avenues of communication. If orchestrated attacks by terrorist organizations have yet to take place, individual exploits by hackers and authors of malicious code have become much more commonplace.