Google is fed up with shoddy online security, so they’re doing something about it
Google knows how annoying it is to have to watch your digital back everyday with vulnerabilities popping up left and right. The Heartbleed debacle was one such issue that caused a lot of headache, and threats like that won’t simply cease to exist one day. Google’s so fed up with it that they’ve decided to create a whole new research team to start fighting back in a meaningful way.
They’re being called Project Zero, a group of researchers, experts and developers being equipped with the tools, money and time to figure out the whys, the whats, and the hows of internet security. They say they have a particular interest in targeted attacks such as those targeting human rights activists and victims of espionage.
That said, their efforts should stand to help improve security for any users who are at risk of being targeted by digital attacks. Google said they won’t put bounds on the scopes of the team either, giving them freedom to tackle the plugging of holes and vulnerabilities for any software used by lots of people.
The best part is they’re going to be transparent with all of it as they’ve committed to publishing any of their findings after vulnerabilities have been patched. A handy database right here will be updated regularly if you care to follow along.
One could analogize this situation a number of different ways. I prefer to think of it as the war on drugs — just as it is virtually impossible to stop the trafficking of drugs and all the nastiness that surrounds that world, it will be impossible to make the internet completely secure. But it’s about time someone put some real resources into trying.
[via Google]