The rise of the internet has prompted many great innovations; on the other hand, it has allowed those wishing misfortune on others to cripple digital security and spread private information. While some services do exist to combat this problem, they are yet another subscription service that adds another layer of bills. If the international community or even just the U.S. could come together to establish protective restrictions on servers, the average person could feel safer when inputting sensitive data. If this data were to fall into the wrong hands, it has the potential of costing those afflicted thousands of dollars, whether through a debit card or losing access to an important account.

Countries have been waging digital warfare on each other ever since this form of communication began, and the vast majority of attacks have caught private citizens in the crossfire. People should be educated on what to do when faced with any sort of malware, and should be able to take proper measures in case they end up getting hacked. While not costing much money, knowing what malware can look like and how to deal with it can cut down on some of the simpler hacks that get into infrastructure and wreak havoc.

Some of the most devastating hacks have come from one nation to another, such as the Bangladesh Bank Heist which happened on Feb. 5, 2016. In this attack, a group of North Korean hackers broke through Bangladesh’s internet protections and were able to steal about $50 million, with only $16 million ever really being recovered. Another example was when hackers, not affiliated with any one country, broke into the servers of the International Committee of the Red Cross on Jan. 18, leaking over 515,000 people’s data and temporarily shutting down many necessary resources the International Red Cross was administering around the world.

With Virtual Private Networks (VPN) being the best source of protecting confidential networks, one of the most logical courses of action governments could take would be to incorporate the infrastructure VPN companies already have and make it as cheap or free as possible. This could mean working with one or more of the companies to set up public accounts which people could sign up for; these new VPN accounts can have such strong firewalls that a person’s location cannot be tracked. This means that the average person would be impenetrable to most cyberattacks. 

An additional option governments have is to employ groups of people to patrol the internet, shutting down anything that seems too suspicious or potentially dangerous. This could create a wealth of new jobs and prevent the loss of millions of dollars to deadly criminals. These services can also double up as a sort of digital police force, which, if structured correctly, can lead to unbiased behavior that can shut down those using the internet for possibly illegal or evil things. 

Currently, the internet is a mostly unregulated place where companies reign supreme; they have the power to do what they want whenever they want, including getting rid of someone’s data if it’s in their best interests. The need for digital peacekeeping is immense and so must be fulfilled by a higher authority.

Digital peacekeeping is a natural step towards properly regulating society. This means protecting infrastructure, and providing the basic needs of every citizen surfing the web. With the greater community as a whole migrating onto a new platform, which is greatly without the rule of law, people in power need to act swiftly and decisively on what to do.

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