[ISN] Cyberwar, Anyone?

From: InfoSec News (alerts@private)
Date: Mon Feb 04 2008 - 00:02:52 PST


http://www.afcea.org/signal/articles/templates/Signal_Article_Template.asp?articleid=1452&zoneid=223

By Col. Alan D. Campen, USAF (Ret.)
Signal Magazine
January 2008

One if by land, and two if by sea, but what if by cyberspace?

Having long relied upon military prowess and diplomatic skills to 
project and protect its interests on the seas, on land and in aerospace, 
the United States now is in conflict with stateless entities seeking 
hearts and minds, not land or treasure. It is a global contest of words 
and images, waged on a battlefield called cyberspace where rules of 
engagement that govern traditional conflict dont apply and plans for a 
multiagency effort to protect the information infrastructure have not 
yet been adopted.

Should we call this struggle a war? If so, what laws and rules govern 
conduct? How serious is the threat of malicious intrusions intoand 
manipulation ofinformation systems, and can the vulnerabilities, 
particularly in the Internet, be sufficiently reduced? Should we respond 
to these intrusions in kind, and if so, by which agencies and by what 
means? And what is the role of U.S. armed forces in a battle of words? 
Recent events have converged to bring the subject of network 
vulnerability, threats, risks and responses to the fore.

Assaults on Estonian, U.S., U.K., British and German government 
information systems have refueled alarm over security gaps in the 
Internet, calling to question the ability of wired nations to function 
under, respond to and recover from network disruptions. The May 9, 2007, 
attack on Estonia obliged that nation to sever external connectivity to 
its government Web sites temporarily, with resultant losses in the tens 
of millions of euros. Reports that e-mail service in the Office of the 
Secretary of Defense was interrupted for several days also suggest that 
nation-states could have been behind the disruption as well as behind 
electronic dumpster diving into information systems of U.S. defense 
contractors. Still, while important government functions were disrupted 
by these intrusions, no nation has been brought to its knees. Expensive? 
Yes. Damaging? Certainly. Manageable? Apparently. But, casus belli?

[...]


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