When people think about the world wide web, they usually think about it as a place that is global in reach and where there are no borders.
Since its very inception the Internet was supposed to be about connecting individuals from distant places so that we could learn from one another.
Unfortunately one thing that we have found out over the past ten years is that the web has just as many virtual borders as the outside world has physical ones.
This is displayed in a very unique fashion.
Usually, when there is a problem that involves two nations, hackers will now get involved.
Government Web Sites Under Attack
The first thing that hackers will attack is the opposing country’s government web site.
This action is used to show solidarity to their own government and their policies.
These attacks have proven over and over again that government web site security is severely lacking.
We had a great example of this this type of action being performed in 2008.
During a political dispute, the Russian hacker community attacked the country of Georgia over a political argument that the two countries were having.
This turned very ugly as the hackers were able to shut down certain parts of the Georgia government Internet infrastructure.
Not only were they shutting down government web sites but they also attacked local news web sites as well.
This was the biggest cyber attack against a country that has ever been witnessed.
The United States vs. China
The US and China hacker community have also been known to throw shots back and forth over the virtual bows of each other.
They are usually trying to uncover secrets between each others governments but several years ago the problem became serious when there was a submarine incident between the two countries.
A Chinese submarine popped up in the middle of a naval exercise between two United States war ships.
This caused tension between the two countries and a fury in the hacker community.
There were attacks on state government web sites from both sides and it took weeks for the attacks to calm down.
Government web sites are usually the first thing that are attacked when two countries are in a dispute with one another.
This is the new reality in the digital age.
That is why the security must be top notch.
Unfortunately, as has been proven time and time again, this is not the case.
The more that government depends on its online components to get more work done, the more that it is going to have to worry about securing their infrastructure so that their workflow can not be interrupted.
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