Information systems have become the nervous system of our societies, but the perception of the risk of computer attacks is very hazy, because this is a complex area and we have not yet experienced attacks with major consequences. This article transposes some key elements of the financial crisis to the world of information systems in terms of the dangers of toxic interconnections, the management of crises and unlikely events and network resilience. It asks whether we have to wait for a societal crisis due to an attack on networks to happen before we understand that the risks are very real.
Finance and Computer Science-Twin Crises?
The financial crisis has introduced some ideas completely new to most of us, such as subprime mortgages, inter-bank lending, toxic assets, etc. In the bars and cafés people talk about Lehman Brothers without really understanding the meaning of all these terms, previously the jargon of insiders. How have certified and securitised organisations, complex financial products and the system of inter-bank dealings entered our lives? How have the markets intruded on our households? The answers are to be found in the crisis itself, whose origins are apparently technical and the business only of an elite, but whose bitter fruit now affect all of us.
As the same causes tend to produce the same effects, it is worth comparing the ingredients of the current financial crisis with those that could cause a crisis in computer science. The roots of an IT crisis would be technical but the consequences would affect the whole of society. So let us consider three key elements of the financial crisis and try to transpose them to the world of information systems:
• toxic assets and network interconnections;
• crisis management and the management of unusual or unlikely events;
• securitisation and network resilience.
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