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One click to attack critical infrastructure: What can we do?

  • min read
    • Growing digitalization in the industrial sector makes attacking critical infrastructure (CI) easy for cybercriminals. For example, ransomware attacks on critical sectors hit headlines in 2021. But what can we do about it? Can the international community cooperate across borders to respond fast and effectively? I've written before on how the world could improve its cross-border firefighting. Now there's a new UN cyber dialog with diplomats from 193 countries getting together to discuss using information and communication technologies (ICTs) for cyber stability, security and peace. And we may now be a step closer to a solution. Kaspersky organized the workshop, One click to attack critical infrastructure: What can we do? at the 2021 UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF) with experts from cyber diplomacy, cybersecurity research and incident response worldwide. Many national perspectives We looked at national approaches and existing good practice in critical infrastructure protection and heard how states implement the UN cyber agreements and critical infrastructure protection norms. Germany: Cyber protection is a whole-of-society issue Ambassador Regine Grienberger (@GERonCyber) of Germany's Federal Foreign Office said Germany's approach to critical infrastructure protection is whole-of-government and whole-of-society. Close public-private cooperation with sharing information and lessons learned are essential parts of it. Ambassador Grienberger says, "In Germany, we've built a national framework for critical infrastructure protection, which is embedded in the legal framework at European Union level and complemented by our cooperation with our international partners. Lack of human resources remains a serious challenge. We need greater investments in cyber capacity building." Switzerland: Sharing responsibility Daniel Klingele, Senior Advisor at Switzerland's International Security Division of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, said cost of regulatory action versus incentives, decentralized structure of responsibilities and building an inventory of critical functions all guide their regulatory approach. Mr. Klingele also thinks it's important to focus on public-private partnerships to ensure a shared responsibility, but critical infrastructure operators must also understand their responsibilities to manage cyber risks. Singapore: Three areas for international cooperation Dan Yock Hau is Assistant Chief Executive for National Cyber Resilience at Singapore's Cyber Security Agency. Mr. Dan highlights three areas for international cooperation: Consensus (states agreeing on 'rules of the road',) collaboration (keeping digital domain safe and secure through effective collaboration and partnerships) and capabilities (investing in capacity building to spearhead a systemic response to cybersecurity.) Mr. Dan believes governments should lead in strengthening cooperation because the weakest link can provide an entry point to a system but also risk to other countries. He says, "Cyber threats are not confined within geographical boundaries. Bilateral, multilateral cooperation are key to share timely information and respond to incidents swiftly." Australia: Mandatory reporting requirements for operators Johanna Weaver (@_johannaweaver) Director of Tech Policy Design Centre, Australian National University, highlighted Australia's new legislation outlines mandatory reporting requirements for critical infrastructure operators and extends government powers to take control of infrastructure if there's a serious cyberattack. Ms. Weaver says governments and the private sector must have regularly tested plans for effective incident response. "All states have now agreed they should protect critical infrastructure and they are not going to intentionally damage other states' critical infrastructure using ICTs. But not enough countries are being transparent about the use and development of offensive cyber capabilities. Australia is among the few countries that publicly commit that we are not going to use these to damage other states' critical infrastructure." A UN cyber emergency phonebook? We also explored the idea of a UN 'cyber emergency phonebook' in our workshop. If an attacked state can't respond and protect itself, who should it ask for help? And where a cyberattack affects critical infrastructure in several jurisdictions, how should cross-border cooperation happen? Serge Droz, Board of Directors at Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST,) said most incident response teams run into limits handling incidents and don't have access to infrastructure operated by third parties. Mr. Droz says the international community should invest in developing trusted relationships, but trust is hard to institutionalize. Regular collaboration helps, and trust between individuals spreads further into teams. Mr. Droz also highlighted the importance of neutrality in Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs.) "CERTs' key role is to respond to incidents. They shouldn't be party to other activity like attribution or using offensive capabilities. Focusing on their role is key to ensuring their neutrality during a cyber emergency." Carmen Corbin, Head of Counter Cybercrime Programming for West and Central Africa, UN Global Programme on Cybercrime (UNODC,) agreed with Mr. Droz and added the need to keep an ongoing focus on capacity building and training in helping states be more effective in protecting critical infrastructure. "Experiencing cyber emergencies together helps experts and communities build closer and trusted relationships." Pierre Delcher, Senior Security Researcher at Kaspersky, said multiple factors trigger cooperation – like common values, shared commitments and compatible capabilities – but trust underpins it all. He believes continuous collaboration and experiencing common events develops trust. "Cybersecurity incidents are usually global, but the response, almost never. Cross-border cooperation should bring better results," says Mr. Delcher. "An emergency phonebook may be a good start. It could be done through existing cooperation mechanics." What should happen next? We're not alone in the wilderness when dealing with critical infrastructure incidents. Since 1998, states have talked about working with ICTs in the interests of peace and security. The new five-year long round of the UN cyber dialog continues soon. Hopefully the international community will have new practical achievements even sooner.
what happens internet stops

What if the internet stops?

  • min read
    • We've all fired up our laptop and been stopped in our tracks by an irritating 'no internet connection' message. We've fiddled with the router, called our provider or just waited, and all was well. But what if the internet didn't come back? How would we manage, as people, businesses and nations? Internet outages happen. On June 8, 2021, thousands of websites, including the BBC, New York Times and even the UK government, were offline for up to an hour. Millions experienced disruption because of technical issues at US-based internet infrastructure provider Fastly, who blamed a configuration error. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed our unpreparedness for a global 'black swan event:' An unforeseen event with extreme consequences. With everyday life revolving around an internet connection, are we failing to consider and plan for the end of the internet? Reliance on the online world "We now rely on the internet for everyday tasks, from banking to communicating," said Matt Shanahan, founder and CEO of independent internet service provider Stream Networks. "Businesses and society rely financially on the internet." During the pandemic, billions were forced to rely on internet connectivity to work. Attitudes to working from home changed overnight. Many now question the need for commuting to physical workplaces, with large employers like Amazon, PayPal and Twitter now adopting permanent work from home arrangements. While the information connection offers have transformed society, has it dulled the resourcefulness we'd need to get along without it? "There are many more ways to access the information we need," says Dr. Paul Sant, Head of School of Computer Science and Technology at University of Bedfordshire. "I think we've become tuned to using the internet first and so have lost some information-finding skills." Back to before the internet? The internet's date of birth is said to be March 12, 1989. It's roughly when computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee proposed a 'web' of hypertext documents, viewed with a 'browser.' Rustic as it was, this was the first working internet. The next three decades saw an information revolution. If we didn't have the internet, would we go back to a pre-March 1989 technological world? Bingham continues, "We'll likely see the greatest impact in commerce. Most of our economy uses the internet to transact business. We may have serious problems making or receiving payments, online or in-person. That can have severe economic ramifications." David Savage is Group Executive Chairman at Excelerate Technology, a firm that provides resiliency support for businesses and emergency services if an internet blackout happens. "What matters for our clients is to have internet, or 'always on' connectivity, where coverage is low or non-existent. "Emergency services vehicles must use multiple networks for a reliable internet connection, known as hybrid connectivity. Hybrid connectivity lets the user and on-board devices connect to the internet over cellular, satellite WIFI or any other way." Planning for internet blackouts Fastly's June 2021 blackout was, by the company's admission, a basic mistake. But many nations' defense systems now integrated with internet connectivity could be a focus for cyber warfare. An armed force could use an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) to knock out its enemy's power, preventing them logging on. An 'internet kill switch' has become a topic of discussion for many governments. "Whether it's an EMP blast, a fire or a terrorist attack on infrastructure, the risks go beyond just that of internet connectivity. It could cut off society," says Savage. "Fire caused this scenario in a small town in Australia: People couldn't communicate, withdraw cash or fill up with fuel because payment systems were down." Clive Evans, Chair of the Professional and Technical Forum for merchant navy union Nautilus International, wrote: "There doesn't seem to be any fall back for ships at sea, in the event of no satellites and any warlike operations ... The [UK] government seems to let this slip. If they don't do something about this, there could be communications blackouts with ships." It's an area where Savage and his team provide additional support. His firm provides internet resilience for coastguards and other emergency services along the Dorset coast in Southeast England as part of a UK government-funded project. "It involves 'smart buoys' that can monitor sea and surf conditions, digital signage giving real-time safety information to the public and a network for first responders, lifeboats and Coast Guard in areas that would normally be without connectivity," explains Savage. AI keeping businesses online Cybersecurity has become a big part of business risk management. Protecting a business online means more than restricting unauthorized access: Keeping a business operational. Artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a way to keep businesses working. "The major innovation in internet infrastructure is using AI to detect and protect networks from long-term outages. It's an exciting area of development," said Stream Networks' Shanahan. Shanahan explains how Stream is using AI to give business users a more reliable service. "AI can automatically re-route application traffic along back-up paths if a primary path is unresponsive. The potential is huge in pre-empting, detecting and fixing everything from human error to cyberattacks to faults in core infrastructure." Invisible until it stops Dr. Emmanouil Tranos, Reader in quantitative human geography at University of Bristol, has studied the impact the internet has on society. He points out how infrastructure is invisible until it stops working. "We could have had the same discussion years ago about aviation. It was taken as a given that aviation was working – then an Icelandic volcano erupted in 2010, grounding all flights in Europe." If the internet stops, life goes on. There are communities and whole cities around the world with little to no internet connectivity. Just 19 percent of people in Ethiopia have internet access. But generations who grew up with this technology may not know a life without it and could be vulnerable. Dr. Sant argues, "We need to improve awareness and reduce reliance on one way of accessing and finding information. We should be teaching youngsters to be fault-tolerant: There is more than one way of finding information, so teaching to look for alternative sources, so they're not subject to a single-point-of-failure, would be beneficial." A world without the internet may sound novel or even bizarre, but it's worth considering. And it's worth considering before such a 'black swan' blackout happens – when we cannot Google the answer.
global cyberincident response

How the world could improve its cross-border cyber firefighting

  • min read
    • If a cyberattack knocked out the energy grid or hospital in your town, you'd expect a fast response. You'd perhaps imagine critical infrastructure operators, computer emergency response teams and cybersecurity vendors would coordinate, exchanging information and helping victims. But today, global cross-border coordination mechanisms for a major attack on critical infrastructure aren't there yet. In the event of an attack, those affected tend to look around for the right person to call and ask for help, delaying response and putting users and cyber stability at greater risk. What can be done about this lack of a system? What's been achieved so far? We're not entirely alone in the wilderness when dealing with critical infrastructure incidents. Since 1998, states have been talking about working with information and communication technology in the interests of peace and security. Countries have agreed on three international documents that pave the way for a global response to a critical infrastructure attack. The 2015 UN Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) report includes non-binding norms for critical infrastructure protection and asks governments to "take appropriate measures to protect their critical infrastructure from ICT threats." It also promotes assisting victim states. The 2021 UN Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) consensus report recommends states "consider nominating a national Point of Contact (PoC) at technical, policy and diplomatic levels." In the advance copy of the 2021 GGE report, 25 government experts elaborate on how to implement norms, including on critical infrastructure protection and assistance. States also clarify how Points of Contact (PoCs) can work. With these steps, the global community has a good base for developing a global incident response. But it's important to start implementing these agreements while clarifying what victims should and shouldn't do, the private sector's role and how any party should gather and exchange information for incident response and mitigation. High on the cyber expert agenda Experts have been discussing improving global response mechanisms, for example, at the world cybersecurity conference, RSA, in 2021. One RSA Conference session saw experts from INTERPOL, the global Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) and Switzerland's Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) sharing views. Craig Jones, INTEROL's Director of Cybercrime, said information and communication technology incidents are underreported and under-investigated because there's no unified mechanism to inform everyone of an attack. Jones continued, "It's in everyone's interests to thoroughly investigate incidents and to gather and share as much information as possible." Despite the value of unified action, the current geopolitical situation contributes to a lack of information-sharing and low trust between states. Serge Droz, Chair of FIRST, says building trust in a difficult political environment can't be rushed. "Cybercriminals love 'divide and conquer.' That's why our biggest challenge is to decide how we'll all work better together." Building trust and cooperation between states Jon Fanzun, Special Envoy for Cyber Foreign and Security Policy at Switzerland's FDFA, spoke of what's needed for greater trust between states and between states and the private sector. The Geneva Dialogue on Responsible Behavior in Cyberspace, led by the Swiss FDFA and implemented by DiploFoundation, is an example of building greater trust and closer community. The dialogue shapes a joint vision of digital security and global policy processes for a trusted, secure and stable cyberspace. What should the mechanism be like? The mechanism should start by giving recommended technical and operational national Points of Contact (PoCs) in the event of an attack. These would serve as a 'final station' in reaching out to a national computer emergency response team, law enforcement agency or cybersecurity professionals to exchange technical information to help cross-border cooperation and incident response. How a global incident response mechanism might work There could be a three-step process in a scenario such as a country's energy grid being attacked. Step 1: National Points of Contact (PoCs) would facilitate further coordination with the country's other authorities, as they organize cyber exercises regularly and have developed incident notification cross-border procedures, tools and templates. Step 2: PoCs would connect the attacked energy grid with the software manufacturer and a cybersecurity company, and CERTs of the attacked country and software manufacturer's country. Step 3: PoCs would quickly exchange information on the threat and analyze and compare forensic samples to address the incident. This mechanism would ensure a timely and coordinated global response and mitigation, and enhance the global community's technical and operational capacities, contributing to cyber stability. There are encouraging signs like the UN open-ended working group on cyber and the sixth GGE process. It shows, despite confrontations in cyberspace, states want to keep up critical dialogue for cyber stability. For everyone else, including us at Kaspersky, it's important to follow these processes and engage proactively, supporting states with our expertise to help keep our shared cyberspace open, stable and secure.
future travel tech

Advances in tech are brightening the future of public transit

  • min read
    • 1960s US children's cartoon The Jetsons, set around a family living in the year 2062, did amazingly well at predicting many technologies we have today. Its difficulty in seeing past the values of mainstream 1960s America is more amusing. The family revolves around a bread-winner patriarch, his ditzy wife, fashion-obsessed daughter and whiz-kid son. And they all get around in a private, although flying, car that belches smoky exhaust. But even The Jetsons didn't fantasize escaping roads would mean escaping congestion. Clogged, chaotic 'skyways' are now a mainstay of science-fiction dystopia. In the iconic '90s blockbuster, The Fifth Element, taxi driver Bruce Willis cuts a recognizable figure with his roadless road rage. Are we doomed to a future of inefficient, alienating and polluting transport? I don't believe so. I'll share a couple of exciting developments in sustainable public transportation. But first, why does it matter? The cost of laying down the red carpet for cars Today's urban planners agree the mid-to-late 20th-century trend for building cities around the idea everyone should have a private car was a mistake. And it was a downward spiral – as more people became reliant on their car, public transport became less efficient and affordable. While private cars are brilliant for disabled people, families with small children and people living in remote areas, when everyone relies on them, it's a problem. Conversely, where we see efficient, affordable public transport, we also see better health, greater social mobility (meaning people can more easily escape poverty) and reduced traffic accident-related injuries and deaths. A 2020 report by the US's Economic Development Research Group found investing in public transport gives a 5-to-1 return through, for example, job creation, productivity and tax revenue. That's before considering humanity's biggest threat: Climate change. Even when powered by fossil fuel, a trip by bus instead of a car means an over six times reduction in emissions. Moving people (or freight) by rail is even more energy-efficient. That's before converting bus and train fleets to run on electricity or hydrogen, as many cities are now doing. We must look at public transport, cycling and walking as priority means of transportation in the future, but it might not be a return of the transport options our grandparents knew. The future of public transport might evoke more utopian science fiction imaginings. Taking to the sky on a cable In recent years cities in Central and South America have chosen to build aerial tramways, also known as gondolas or cable cars, because of their advantages over options like light rail and buses. Among other things, they're fast to build, have an excellent safety record, and the terrain is no object. In Medellín, Columbia – once described as "the most dangerous city on earth" for its cartels and drug barons like Pablo Escobar – many credit cable cars with turning the city around. Lonely Planet says Medellín is now "one of the safest big cities in Latin America, with character, nightlife and public art that any urban area would envy." Locals put the success of their cable cars down to an intention to serve the residents of deprived neighborhoods rather than tourists or wealthy commuters. This is reflected not just in where the cable cars go, but in the ticket cost of less than 1 US dollar. Gondolas in Caracas, Venezuela, and Bogotá, Bolivia, may have succeeded for similar reasons. The most high-tech aerial tramways run on three cables – two for carrying and one for pulling. Without social distancing, some can take as many as 200 people in one cabin. New combined automation and safety software allows continued operation if sub-systems fail, aiming further to enhance the gondola's existing top-notch safety record. Many now have Wi-Fi for customer use and as a safety feature. Head of Kaspersky's Research Center for Europe, Marco Preuss, recommends caution with public Wi-Fi. "It's convenient to use local Wi-Fi in hotels, restaurants and public places, but think about who controls the network, what data you share and which websites you visit. The operator or cybercriminals may snoop on your traffic, collect sensitive data or even attack your device. Make sure work and personal devices are encrypted and use encrypted connections." While digitalization often brings safety improvements, it also means more ways for cybercriminals to attack. In recent years attacks on critical infrastructure have increased, and cyber experts predict they'll become even more common. Mass transit organizations should see themselves as a likely target, secure all potential attack points and plan how they'll respond to a cyber incident. Trains running on solar power What could better highlight the value of reducing our impact on the planet than traveling through restored coastal wetland and wooded areas on an almost-silent sun-powered heritage train? People have been able to do this in Byron Bay, near Brisbane, Australia, since 2018. "There'd been some resistance to an old diesel train operating," Byron Bay Train Development Director Jeremy Holmes told BBC World Service. "We talked about the reality of converting it to solar." The train's restorer Tim Elderton continues, "I said, "What?!" But then I did some calculations, and actually, with the technology today, I believe we can. With the batteries, solar panels and traction motor, we made it all come together." The train gets some of its power from photovoltaic cell panels on the train's roof, but most from panels on the station terminus roof. It uses only 27 percent of the electricity generated, so they sell the rest to the local grid. Although the team says the technology could power a trip 15 times its three-kilometer run, that's still far from what many railway journeys must achieve. But the Byron Bay Train is part of broader solar exploration in the rail sector. Riding Sunbeams is a UK-based social enterprise supplying electricity to the rail sector from solar farms owned by commuters and the local community. There are significant potential emissions reductions from renewable railway power. In the UK, rail is the country's single largest electricity consumer, and it's among the highest energy-consuming sectors in India. And most of the world's rail journeys are still powered by diesel. Changing lives and technology change transport COVID-19 laid bare the unpredictability of change in how we live our lives, and so, how we travel. Suddenly, the numbers working from home has leaped and is expected to stay far higher than pre-pandemic levels. Some areas have seen consequent falls in public transport users of up to 60 percent, putting networks at serious risk. While many authorities enforce social distancing and mask-wearing on public transport, some commuters make other transport choices if they can. It's not the first time tragic events have changed travel behavior. Terrorist bombings on Transport for London trains and buses in July 2005 led to a daily fall of up to 32 percent in numbers using the Underground and an increase in cycling. Ride-sharing apps like Uber and Lyft are often said to have radically changed the face of urban transport, including apparent decreases in the use of public transport in cities where they operate. Although they've started to add public transport schedules to their app in many cities, mixed statements about whether they're deliberately competing with public transport raise concerns. Marcus Enoch, Professor of Transport Strategy at Loughborough University, says steep rises in the cost of living in cities is likely to decrease public transport use by forcing its typical younger user group to live in smaller cities and towns. As a general rule, the smaller and less dense the city or town, the less likely it will have efficient public transport. He also predicts rising transport automation levels and increasingly intelligent, personalized apps could lead to one of four possible transport futures. His least dystopian and more socially connected visions require high-density urban living to succeed – something government policy can influence. New technology and social change bring challenges and opportunities to the hard problem of getting people around cities. In supporting sustainable, efficient transport options like public transport, cycling and walking, cities can ensure better health and economic well-being for their citizens. When transport projects aim to meet the needs of the most isolated and vulnerable people, examples like the cable cars in Medellín, Columbia, show the power of something as everyday as transport to create ripples of positive change across society.
ATTACHMENT Dglobal cybersecurity priorities

COVID-19 has changed global cybersecurity. What must nations do now?

  • min read
    • During the pandemic, lockdowns and 'shelter in place' orders around the world have done much good. They've not only saved lives, they've shown us our cities without pollution and let businesses realize employees working from home can be more business benefit than business challenge. I spoke about the growing cyberthreat landscape and what we must do about it as part of a high-level leaders discussion on international cybersecurity during the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2020. During the pandemic, cybercriminals used new-found time to hone their skills and test out new methods. We saw a sharp rise in cybercrime of all kinds, from malware to advanced persistent threats (APT.) New hacking groups came on the scene, and with them, new kinds of attacks. New attacks and actors unmasked Here's just a sample of the expansion of cybercrime our researchers detected since the coronavirus pandemic came into our lives. This year we've seen unique malicious file detection rise 20 to 25 percent a day. Most threats, like malware, are relatively easy to deal with. But when what we're seeing is a rise in more professional cybercrime gangs, that's a different story. Kaspersky researchers are now monitoring more than 200 cybercrime gangs who've been launching hyper-targeted attacks against targets such as banks and governments. We've also seen more 'juniors' entering cybercrime. While they're easy to stop now, many will graduate from hacker kindergarten and join the pros. With the increasing use of the internet of things, the number of points where cybercriminals can attack has grown exponentially. We know they're willing and able. Take, for example, one of the most successful global attacks, the 2016 Mirai malware attack on domain name system provider Dyn. It took down hundreds of news websites around the world. How should nations respond to the new threat landscape? The cybersecurity impact of the pandemic has two parts. First, people are at greater risk of cyber-intrusion thanks to working from home and spending more time online. Second, there are more cybercriminals, and they've become better at what they do. Meanwhile, the digital economy has been growing fast. Many businesses decided to use the breathing space and necessity of the pandemic to digitalize new parts of their business. So we're at a place and time when organizations and their customers need to feel confident in these new ways of buying and delivering services. Building that confidence will help economies thrive. So how do we get there? I've got three priorities. Leaders discuss international cybersecurity in the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2020 1. Secure technology by design We can make technologies much more difficult and expensive to compromise, but they must be designed that way from the start. We have operating systems in devices already on the market that are so secure we had to devise a new way of talking about them – so we call this cyber-immunity. The chances of an attack on these systems succeeding means the cost to the criminal of a successful cyberattack is higher than the damage caused. To make critical infrastructure safer, we could deploy cyber-immune technologies across the network. The time to do it is now. 2. Enforcing cybersecurity law on an international level International cooperation is crucial for hunting down cybercriminals, but it looks as though the world isn't going in a 'cooperation' direction – it's becoming more fragmented. We need a space in cybersecurity where nations can cooperate safely, without geopolitical fractures getting in the way. 3. High-level cooperation requires high-level cybersecurity education As well as needing to overcome our differences, international cooperation against cybercrime will require 'cyber diplomats' to stay continually informed about the changing threat landscape. Good news for those imagining a boring slide talk in a dark basement – cybersecurity education keeps pace with innovation and developments in learning science. For example, learning through immersive gamified simulations like Kaspersky Interactive Protection Simulation (KIPS) is popular and effective. While the world recovers from the shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic, we must recognize much has changed, not least in cyberthreats. We need a new era of international cooperation to hunt cybercriminals. We need to make sure 'cyber diplomats' (those who develop and enforce national and international policy against cybercrime) fully understand the threats. As professional cybercrime gangs hone their skills, I predict we'll see cyberattacks grow at every level, harming business and governments. Thankfully, technology keeps evolving, and no one is powerless. Adopting cyber-immune systems will help nations keep the lights, water and internet running at times of crisis and beyond.
Going green

Reduce your company’s IT carbon footprint, and save money

  • min read
    • While digital usually seems non-physical and ephemeral, digital services run on servers. Servers use energy still mostly produced by burning fossil fuels. This means digital services have carbon emissions and are part of causing climate change. Many of the big IT companies are now reporting their carbon emissions. The numbers look similar to the emissions of whole countries. In 2018, Amazon emitted 44.4 megatons of carbon – as much as Finland in that same year. Most of that is third-party carbon emissions, such as from packaging and transport of Amazon goods and emissions from business travel. Apple's carbon footprint wasn't much less in the same year, at 25.2 megatons –  similar to Mongolia. If we don't count emissions from producing Apple-branded goods, their emissions are just 0.6 megatons — more like the Gambia. Half is from business travel, another 30 percent from employees' commutes. Google's carbon footprint was — 1.2 megatons, comparable to Liberia. Comparing these IT companies' emissions to countries shows their contribution is significant. So what can you do to minimize your company's impact? 1. Use scalable architecture With the rise of cloud computing, many businesses started migrating their infrastructure to the cloud. The typical approach is renting an always-on server that safely exceeds the business's current peak load. But people use the internet, and your services, differently depending on time of day, so loads differ a lot. The load at night is probably significantly lower than at midday. For software with scalable architecture, load balancers can automatically add more computing power on a single machine or add more servers depending on the number of requests you're receiving. That means you don't waste money and energy on servers running in idle mode. Most cloud providers offer both horizontal (adding more machines) and vertical (adding more power to the machine) load balancing. To use load balancing, you'll need to build your services with scalability in mind, but once you start, it will save you money and lower your cloud infrastructure's carbon footprint. 2. Use greener providers Where does your cloud provider get its electricity? It may depend on the region. Sweden relies mostly on renewable energy, such as wind and water. France heavily employs nuclear power, which is also low emissions. Poland gets most of its energy from burning coal. So, your company's carbon emissions vary depending on where the data center that provides its cloud computing is based. Bigger services such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure tend to pay more attention to that aspect of sustainability. AWS users can choose where their computing power comes from using a map that shows which data centers run on green energy and which do not. Microsoft built a low-carbon Kubernetes scheduler with a group of scientists. It automatically migrates your tasks to different data centers around the world to maximize green power use, minimizing your carbon footprint. The scheduler can be ported to work with other cloud providers too. You don't necessarily need to choose AWS or Azure if you want to go green. The Green Web Foundation has a directory of smaller providers that use green energy. Running computing on your own hardware usually uses more energy, though. Cloud systems conserve energy by allowing a more even distribution of tasks among computing powers. 3. Choose your programming language wisely Programming languages differ in several ways, including their logic, syntax and capabilities. They also differ in resource consumption. JavaScript and Python tend to consume more resources than compiled programs in languages such as Fortran, C++ and Rust. Object-oriented languages, in turn, consume more than imperative ones. More resources means more power, means more emissions. Faster doesn't necessarily mean greener. A program may be executed for longer but consume less energy. You're more likely to choose programming languages based on the tasks they perform, the abilities of your workforce and the rest of your technological stack, but it's worth taking into account the energy aspect. No matter what the language, optimizing code helps lower your carbon footprint, making it faster and less power-hungry. Profiling your software and rewriting ineffective parts can have a significant impact. 4. Optimize your web pages The average web page is now more than three megabytes. The bigger the page, the more power needed to transfer it from server to client, and to display it. You may think that doesn't account for a large part of carbon emissions, but the Green Web Foundation disagrees. Green Web found running a background video on a Web page resulted in as much carbon as the project team's commutes. Remember that 30 percent of Apple's total emissions coming from its workers' commutes? Now you see the scale. There are many tools for optimizing web pages. Google Lighthouse scores your website on performance, accessibility, best practice and search engine optimization (SEO). The Green Web Foundation introduced another tool, Greenhouse, that analyzes pages and checks which domains run on renewable energy. It's not as useful as Lighthouse for optimization, but it can help ecologically savvy organizations choose service providers. You can also use The Green Web App to find out if your site is hosted on a server that runs on green energy. Unfortunately, not many hosting providers publish information about the greenness of their electricity. Save the planet while saving money For some, trying to prevent global warming is a compelling reason to make an effort. For others, it's not. But when it comes to IT, going green usually means saving money too. For example, after optimizing your hosting and code, you will need less computing power, saving money. Your website will load faster, meaning fewer customers close it before it fully loads. And the faster your site, the higher search engines rank it, so more customers will see it.
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Secure Futures magazine is your go-to business guide for opinions, trends and insight into the world of technology and cybersecurity. We help your business to bring on the future. Brought to you by Kaspersky, the global cybersecurity experts.

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