Cyberwar is not your typical hacker attack. The difference — Cyberwar is when a cyberattack is launched or condoned by a country, as opposed to being performed by a group, such as a terrorist group or cyber-criminals performing acts of vigilantism or some skewed version of patriotism.
A Cyberwar is considered a “hack” – using the term very loosely – by a nation, government, and/or military to harm other countries. Granted, the lines are very blurry, especially when governments permit cyber-criminals to operate in their country or turn a blind eye, which can be construed as supporting the effort. But in general, Cyberwar is considered a military action funded and driven by an established government.
Cyberwar is sometimes confused with the recent advent of counties using Cyberwar-like tactics for various purposes – such as espionage or general disruption. For example, there is some evidence that the Chinese government was behind Project Aurora against Google and other companies. Or the formation of China’s GhostNet, where more than a thousand computers in more than a hundred countries were infected, with more than 30% considered high-valued targets, such as computers in embassies, international organization, news media and ministries of foreign affairs, among others. These are examples of the escalation to Cyberwar — blatant attacks against digital assets around the world. It’s easy to see how these are examples of initial planning, testing of cyberweapons and information gathering.
Regardless, what we’re seeing today is not what I would call Cyberwar, but more so cyberattacks that are testing the bounds of what is possible. In some discussions, I’ve referred to attacks of this nature as live-fire weapons testing.
Cyberwar is scary because of a few interesting attributes that are a little different from traditional warfare as we generally understand it, making it somewhat complicated:
There is a great deal of anonymity, generally referred to in Cyberwar circles as the “attribution problem,” representing the deniability of the attacker. Although there are technologies that help to identify the source of a cyberattack, they do not provide indisputable evidence, at least not in the eyes of the international community. This attribute represents fundamental counterattack challenge. In conventional war, the source point of a fired weapon or the location of a threatening weapon system is rapidly identified and quickly targeted for destruction. In cyberwar, the attribution problem makes effective combatant identification nearly impossible. You may be able to determine what systems are attacking and from what location, but this is not enough to attribute to the real enemy.
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