Sherlock and Cyber Security

If ever there ought to have been a Cyber Security criminal mastermind - it should have been Moriarty, right? At least that's what Sherlock was led to believe in the final episode of the second season on BBC's series Sherlock. This show, which airs both on BBC America and Netflix has done a fascinating job of re-imagining the title character. Sherlock is today, as in the turn of the century (century before last that is), a man of science, logic and rational deduction; albeit with some quirks.

Sherlock and Watson in London (notice the big wheel behind them - that means it's London)

The episode entitled, "The Reichenbach Fall" begins with simultaneous Cyber exploits of the three most secure facilities in England (a combination of physical and system security breaches). Holmes, Watson and Scotland Yard find Moriarty sitting in the Tower of London wearing the Crown Jewels - awaiting their arrival. How did he do it they wondered?  He explains that he has obtained a 'few lines of code that can open any door in the world' and Holmes buys it. Later, as Moriarty toys with his arch nemesis he uses his fingers to supposedly tap out lines of binary code that represent this mysterious key.

While Holmes seems to be an excellent chemist and supposedly had cracked any number of computer systems in previous episodes he takes Moriarty's admission at face value - assuming that there is in fact a simple code snippit that can bypass every security solution devised by man. At the end, Moriarty tells Holmes that he made it up and used conventional means to break into all those secure facilities. He is surprised Holmes fell for it, and quite frankly so are we.

Moriarty, a well-dressed Villian, but is he a world-class Hacker?

Why are we interested in this (beside the fact that we enjoy the show)? It is symbolic of the level of misunderstanding in popular culture when it comes to Information Technology. Whereas when Holmes uses chemical analysis to track where a shoe had been, we're given concrete reference points that help to explain his deductions. With Cyber or computer related insights it's often "Deux et Machina" - which in theatrical terms translates to what we call in IT - "Magic Happens Here."

The sinister Moriarty had only been given time to tap out the equivalent of a couple of ASCII characters using his binary clue. How could Holmes have thought that this would somehow defeat complex encryption algorithms, intrusion detection systems and more? IT is a young science but the Holmes of old was dealing with the young sciences of his day also. Perhaps, we need to do a better job of demystifying IT...

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