No rules: Internet security a Hobbesian "state of nature"

Life in cyberspace can be nasty, brutish, and short.

So says a new report on international cybersecurity, which argues that the Internet is a Hobbesian "state of nature" where anything goes, where even government attacks maintain "plausible deniability," and where 80 percent of industrial control software is hooked into an IP network. It's also a world where the US is both a model and a bully. When 600 senior IT security managers were asked which state actor was most likely to engage in cyberattacks, the top response was the US (36 percent), even among traditional US allies. On the other hand, US security practices were some of the world's most admired.