Mr Beacham says that many large organisations using the Internet really have no idea what information is actually being sent and intercepted. With e-mail, for instance, it is diffi cult to check if a message has been intercepted and read along the way to its destination. Mr Beacham claims that every network router on the In ternet is a potential point of attack. He warned that the Internet as it exists now is not a secure place to ship anything. However he believes there will have to be a Second Com ing and suggests that the next version of the Internet will be a lot more se cure up front.
Encryption provides some unique benefits.
For example, if hard drives are en crypted then viruses cannot attack them, Mr Beacham says. The virus can sit in the system but encryption stops it spreading. He said that if your intranet only understands en crypted traffic, hackers may get in but cannot go any further. There is a speed penalty with encryption but with high-speed algorithms this is not noticeable. Encryption needs to be a reasonable strength, however, with 56 bit as a minimum, he says.