Retired 3-Star Army Defense Intelligence Lieutenant General Ron Burgess, a ’74 Auburn graduate, came to the Auburn Alumni Center to give a presentation regarding cybersecurity topics, including recent cyber-attacks, potential enemy forces in cyber space, and the role schools like Auburn plays in the cybersecurity world.
Burgess talked about his history working in Southern Command as well as the impact of 9/11 on the cybersecurity world, including his involvement in intelligence gathering at Guantanamo Bay.
“[After 9/11] I became the ‘Father of Guantanamo, because, you know, we had to do something with the folks coming out of Afghanistan, and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld along with President Bush selected Guantanamo as the ‘least worst desirable place’ to put our invited guests,” Burgess said, “And I was responsible for the interrogation and intelligence portion of that mission until I left U.S. Southern
Burgess said the number of devices connected to the internet worldwide can cause instabilities in cybersecurity.
“According to Symantec…the number of connected devices in the world is equal to about four to every human on the face of the globe,” Burgess said. “You sit there and say, ‘hmm, is that really possible?’ Well, you know, for example, I’m standing here today in front of you, I’ve got two [smartphones], I took my FitBit off, and I didn’t wear my iWatch today, so I hit the mold.”
Burgess discussed the role Auburn could play in the development of the cybersecurity world.
“The mission of Auburn University is training, education, outreach, and workforce development,” Burgess said. “Part of this, then is outreach, in terms of making people smarter on the topic.”
Burgess said the recent DDoS attacks were related to the number of interconnected devices worldwide.
“That internet of things actually became weaponized, because, in its simplest form, what happened, is, we all have different things around…the problem is, of course, [internet functionality] is coded in what’s called the firmware, inside,” Burgess said. “And so, the internet of things as it was connected, all whoever did it…they overloaded the system with a code that just took advantage of the firmware, and it just kept sending messages and multiplying, and it became a Denial of Service attack because it overwhelmed the circuits.”
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