Storming Government Buildings: The Cybersecurity Implications

By David Gewirtz

January 6, 2021. Another day that shall live in infamy. I’m talking, of course, about the day when the United States Capitol Building was attacked by an angry mob.

Coverage and commentary of that day have been done to death, so you’re undoubtedly deeply familiar with the events of that day. But while the implications and causes have also been discussed widely, the cybersecurity implications and lessons have not.

That’s what we’re going to do here.

Throughout our years of cybersecurity coverage, we’ve written many times about breaches, their causes and their implications. In almost all cases, we’ve discussed breaches that occurred digitally -- that is, breaches that were caused by some network connection or network security failure.

In the case of the Capitol Building riot, we’re instead going to look at the risk of physical breaches, breaches that occur because one or more adversarial actors have physical access to computers, network connections, and servers.

According to the January 23, 2021 Washington Post article, “Justice Department, FBI debate not charging some of the Capitol rioters,” officials estimate that somewhere between 700 and 900 people actually entered the building itself.

Put a pin in that thought. We’ll come back to it in a minute.

On a broader level, it’s fair to say that America and the world overall are facing tremendous unrest. The storming of the Capitol Building may well be just the beginning of a new wave of s...