Treat Computer Hacks Like Disease Epidemics

A cybersecurity guru who works for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's venture capital arm has suggested a wholesale solution to the problem of malicious hacking: Treat vulnerabilities as if they are disease outbreaks and make cures publicly available at government expense. This is a brute force approach that would change the rules of what is currently a game of cops and robbers.

Dan Geer, chief information security officer at In-Q-Tel, a CIA-funded nonprofit that looks for new tech to satisfy the agency's needs, outlined his idea in a keynote speech to the Black Hat USA cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas. Geer's timing is spot on: as he spoke, anxiety was spreading about an alleged Russian hack affecting more than 1 billion website accounts, with the company that discovered it only willing to share information with paying customers.