{"id":11000,"date":"2024-06-12T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-12T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=11000"},"modified":"2026-01-04T13:22:29","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T18:22:29","slug":"hollywoods-role-in-cybersecurity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=11000","title":{"rendered":"Hollywood’s Role in Cybersecurity"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Television and movies may have a role in juicing Americans\u2019 current tepid interest regarding cybersecurity. \u201cWhen it comes to cybersecurity, getting the public to listen isn\u2019t just a public service, it\u2019s a necessity,\u201d says the online security newsletter The Cipher Brief<\/em>. A recent summit of its Cyber Initiatives Group included a top US cybersecurity expert and a Hollywood producer with a CIA background to explore this topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why the urgency? Last month, big chunks of the nation\u2019s health care system were booted offline in a pair of ransomware attacks, disrupting health care for millions. In the past few years, there\u2019s been a steady stream of attacks on municipalities, hospitals, and pieces of our basic infrastructure, which Wired<\/em> magazine calls a \u201cransomware epidemic<\/a>.\u201d We\u2019ve read about dangers hackers pose to the electric grid, energy pipelines, water supplies, and many other essentials of daily life. These attacks may seem abstract\u2014that is, until they affect us personally and then, possibly, catastrophically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the online organization cyberforpeople<\/a> believes, \u201cBasic security literacy is absent for the majority of digital citizens,\u201d which is why its mission is to raise cyber literacy\u2014making security issues \u201cmuch more approachable and understandable by everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea of a cybersecurity-Hollywood connection is not new; the site\u2019s list of the eight best cybersecurity movies dates back to 1983\u2019s War Games<\/em>. Another cybersecurity site, SecureBlitz<\/a>, has not only a more Hollywood-friendly name, but a list of 25 \u201cbest movies,\u201d hardly any of which I\u2019ve seen and I\u2019m interested in this stuff!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you saw the 2023 Netflix movie, Leave the World Behind<\/em>, said CypherBrief panelist Col. Candice Frost (Ret.), you saw yet another dimension of cybersecurity. It\u2019s an apocalyptic vision that goes beyond the risks of hacking to explore the impact of actual electronic warfare, driven by capabilities she says are already available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it may be desirable to take this issue on as a creative challenge, Hollywood corporations already are active in the cybersecurity arena<\/a>, when it comes to protecting their own intellectual property and digital assets. They learned from SONY Picture\u2019s bitter experience in a notorious 2014 hacking incident<\/a> most probably engineered by North Korea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also on the CyberBrief program was former CIA analyst and director of Global Intelligence and Risk Analysis for The Walt Disney Company, Rodney Faraon. He believes entertainment media can be a strong driver of the national dialogue. If we want to create a culture that prioritizes information security, \u201cthen we have to actually be part of the popular culture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The goal here should be two-fold: supporting more authentic scripts focused on cybersecurity, and increasing attention to the information security risks that are part of everyday life, which can be woven into the background of other stories. Such a contextual approach gradually builds wider understanding of this complex and fast-changing issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Television and movies may have a role in juicing Americans\u2019 current tepid interest regarding cybersecurity. \u201cWhen it comes to cybersecurity, getting the public to listen isn\u2019t just a public service, it\u2019s a necessity,\u201d says the online security newsletter The Cipher … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Movies and tv have a role in helping the public understand cybersecurity risks. But will their reputation for \"just making stuff up\" may dilute their effectiveness?","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[57,67,104],"tags":[2193,416],"class_list":["post-11000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movies","category-television","category-the-morgue","tag-cybersecurity","tag-real-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2Rq","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11000"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11002,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11000\/revisions\/11002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}