Calling all technical wizards.

If it is possible—a serious question—to devise a means to block criminal invasions of computers at sophisticated companies, the person who designs that security program will be almost as rich as Bill Gates.

A fortune may await you. Our security depends on better tools than are available today even in the most sophisticated companies, as this Washington Post story says.

The Washington Post

“More than 75,000 computer systems at nearly 2,500 companies in the United States and around the world have been hacked in what appears to be one of the largest and most sophisticated attacks by cyber criminals discovered to date, according to a northern Virginia security firm.

“The attack also highlights the inability of the private sector — including industries that would be expected to employ the most sophisticated cyber defenses — to protect itself.

“The traditional security approaches of intrusion-detection systems and anti-virus software are by definition inadequate for these types of sophisticated threats,” Yoran said. “The things that we — industry — have been doing for the past 20 years are ineffective with attacks like this. That’s the story.”

Source: The Washington Post, February 18, 2010