Schneier tells Washington NSA broke Internet’s security for everyone

Schneier tells Washington NSA broke Internet’s security for everyone

Nov 18th 2013, 14:13, by Sean Gallagher

Bruce Schneier, at an Open Technology Institute presentation on Capitol Hill last Friday, said the NSA had created vulnerabilties in the Internet that criminals could exploit within the next two to three years.

Sean Gallagher

WASHINGTON, DC—To say that there are a lot of people who are angry with the National Security Agency right now would be an understatement. But the things that are getting the most political attention right now—such as the invasion of the privacy of American citizens and spying on the leaders of American allies—are just a fraction of the problem, according to cryptographer and Harvard University Berkman Center for Internet and Society fellow Bruce Schneier.
At a presentation in a conference room inside the US Capitol on Friday, Schneier—who has been helping The Guardianreview the trove of documents provided by Snowden—said that in its haste to "weaponize" the Internet, the NSA has broken its mechanisms of security. And those breaks—including the backdoors that NSA convinced or coerced software developers to put into the implementations of their encryption and other security products, are so severe that it is now just a matter of time before others with less-noble causes than fighting terrorism will be able to exploit the holes NSA has created.
Schneier said that the vulnerabilities inserted into security products by NSA through its BULLRUN program could easily be exploited by criminals and other nation-states as well once they are discovered. And the other attacks and surveillance methods used by NSA "will be tomorrow's doctoral theses and next week's Science Fair projects."