Difference between revisions of "Cyberwarfare"

Revision as of 03:40, 7 October 2011

Cyberwarfare refers to politically motivated hacking to conduct sabotage and espionage. It is a form of information warfare sometimes seen as analogous to conventional warfare although this analogy is controversial for both its accuracy and its political motivation.

Background Information

Since it originated, cyberwarfare has been defined in many ways. Some of these definitions include:

"actions by a nation-state to penetrate another nation's computers or networks for the purposes of causing damage or disruption"

"The fifth domain of warfare"

Cyberwarfare has transformed into a very common way to attack other nations in war time today. The U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, states that "as a doctrinal matter, the Pentagon has formally recognized cyberspace as a new domain in warfare, which has become critical to military operations as land, sea, air, and space." In May 2010, the Pentagon set up its new U.S. Cyber Command, to defend American military networks and attack other countries' systems. Other nations are quickly following in the United States footsteps to set up national cyber security.

In 2009, President Obama warned that cyber intruders have probed the United States electrical grids.

Methods

Espionage

Espionage is the act of obtaining sensitive information from someone for an advantage illegally exploiting said persons or groups, often over the internet. When the opposition finds breaches in the security, they can easily obtain and alter classified information from anywhere on the globe.

Sabotage

The United States military is among the most technologically advanced militaries in the world. Many operations incorporate computers and satellites, normally for some type of communication. These operations are the most vulnerable and susceptible to breaching. Communications can be intercepted by enemies, and enemies can replace messages, with orders of their own. Security breaches have gone far beyond stolen credit card information, and reached the electric power grids, and even the stock market. A recent example of this, was in July 2010, when security experts discovered a malicious software program called Stuxnet that had infiltrated factory computers and had spread around the world. This was considered by The New York Times, to be "the first attack on critical industrial infrastructure that sits at the foundation of modern economies"

Motivations

There are vast motivations for nations to partake in Cyberwarfare, these motivations include: Military advantages, civil advantages, and private advantages.

Military

General Keith B. Alexander, head of the United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM), recently told the Senate Armed Services Committee, that computer network warfare is evolving rapidly, and there is a mismatch between our technical capabilities to conduct operations and the governing laws and policies. The USCYBERCOM focuses on attempting to find and neutralize cyberattack to defend military networks. This is important because all military operations are documented on a server. If an outside source has access to these classified, secret, and top secret records, the United States will be in grave danger. Not only are all operations documented, but all command and control systems at military headquarters, air defense networks, and weapons systems require computers to operate.

Civil

Potential targets in internet sabotage include all aspects of the Internet from the deepest parts of the semantic web, to the internet service providers themselves, to the varying types of data communication and network equipment. Cyber targets in the civilian sector include: servers, information systems, client servers, communication links, desktops and laptops, electrical grids, and telecommunication systems. This is seen anywhere from stealing credit card information to emailing someone a virus to kill an entire computer, to exploiting a large company.

Private

Computer hacking is no new development, and occurs quite often, with quite ease, yet is often overlooked. According to McAfee's George Kurtz, corporations around the world face millions of cyber attacks a day, most don't gain any media attention, or lead to strong statements by victims.

Counterintelligence

Counterintelligence is defined as measures to identify, penetrate, or neutralize foreign operations that use cyber means, as well as foreign intelligence service efforts that breach security.

The reality of cyberwarfare has become very apparent, and since, the United States has taken many precautions to protect the nation from attack.

• 07 April 2009, The Pentagon announced over $100 million in spending in the last 6 months as a response to and repairing damage from cyber attacks and other computer network problems.
• 09 February 2009, the White House announced that it would conduct a review of the nation's cyber security to ensure that the Federal governments cyber security was properly managed.
• 2009, cyber war was waged against Estonia, NATO established the Cooperative Cyber Defense Centre of Excellence in order to enhance the organizations cyber defense capability.

Reality