1518653499 (N) by Bobby Akart

Author:Bobby Akart [Akart, Bobby]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Freedom Preppers Publishing
Published: 2015-10-15T04:00:00+00:00

PART FIVE

Cyber Attacks as Acts Of War

Chapter Eleven

Does Cyber Vandalism fall short of An Act of War?

Military and national security operations in cyberspace have made headlines with increasing frequency.

Security companies for several years have documented massive cyber-espionage by the Chinese military against the United States—both private and public sectors. As discussed, the Department of Justice responded by indicting five Chinese military officers for computer hacking, economic espionage, and other offenses directed at American nuclear power, metals, and solar products companies.

Snowden’s allegations of massive cyber spying by the National Security Agency and close American allies have raised worldwide fears about the security and privacy of the Internet.

Russia and Iran have been accused of launching covert cyber espionage against political and economic targets in the U.S. According to reports, it appears Russian hackers attempted to place a digital bomb inside the NASDAQ stock exchange networks.

Fears are growing that, similar to the outbreak of World War I a century ago, a cyber event—the equivalent of the Serbian gunman’s assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Duke in Sarajevo—could escalate into an outright cyber war with dire consequences around the world.

Cyber warfare is one of the most misused terms in the cyber dictionary. The U.S. Strategic Command defines cyber warfare as: The Creation of effects in and through cyberspace in support of a combatant commander's military objectives, to ensure friendly forces freedom of action in cyberspace while denying adversaries these same freedoms.

There are traditional definitions as to what constitutes an act of war, and the cyber version is only slightly different. Cyber warfare has been defined as an action, or series of actions, by a military commander or government-sponsored cyber warriors that further his or her objectives, while disallowing an enemy to achieve theirs. Military leaders typically belong to a nation-state or a well-funded, overt and organized insurgency group (as opposed to loosely organized rebels, crime syndicates, etc.). Acting overtly in cyberspace means you are not trying to hide who you are, although it’s relatively easy to mask your tracks. The warriors of today are the cyber version of regular, uniformed forces versus irregular forces.

In 2014, Sony executives, gearing up for the release of Seth Rogen's North Korea-bashing film, The Interview, received an ominous holiday greeting—“We’ve obtained all your internal data including your secrets and top secrets. If you don’t obey us, we’ll release data shown below to the world.” The hackers delivered on their promise, unloading onto the internet an incredible number of emails, employee information, and all sorts of other data. Most of the actual damage involved disclosed personnel records and damaged celebrity reputations. Among other things, producer Mark Rudin called Angelina Jolie a minimally talented spoiled brat for delaying his film projects, and producer Amy Pascal called Leonardo DiCaprio absolutely despicable after he passed on a Steve Jobs biopic.

A few politicians focused on the Sony cyber attack’s political and economic implications. “It’s a new form of warfare that we’re involved in,” Senator John McCain told CNN’s State of the Union, “and we need to react and we need to react vigorously.

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