Cyber attacks are growing in number and sophistication
It is no secret that modern warfare is increasingly dependent on advanced computers — and no country’s armed forces are more reliant on the digital age for information superiority than those of the U.S. This is both the American military’s greatest strength — and potentially its greatest weakness.
Today, the Pentagon uses more than 5 million computers on 100,000 networks at as many as 1,500 sites in at least 65 countries worldwide. Not surprisingly, potential adversaries have taken note of AmericaÂ’s slavish dependence on information technology.
The Defense Department suffers tens of thousands of computer network attacks annually. Although the department is understandably cautious about revealing the success of these attacks, some of the cyber assaults allegedly reduced the military’s operational capabilities. The Pentagon reportedly logged more than 79,000 attempted intrusions in 2005 — the most recent publicly available data. About 1,300 of the attacks supposedly were successful, including the reported penetration of computers linked to the Army’s 101st and 82nd Airborne and 4th Infantry divisions. Foreign cyberspace operations are a threat that is here and now — and cannot be ignored.
Cyberspace operations, which include computer network attack, exploitation and defense, are not a new national security challenge. Cyber warfare was all the rage in the late 1990s but has faded in importance since 9/11, not surprisingly, in comparison to the threat of terrorism and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Cyber operations appeal to many state and nonstate actors, including terrorists, because they can be low-cost, low-risk and highly effective, and provide plausible deniability for the attacker, who can route operations through any number of surrogate servers across the Web en route to its target. Talk about “low-DNA” operations.
Malicious code can launch viruses, crash networks, corrupt data, collect intelligence, spread misinformation, and interfere with vital friendly military and intelligence operations, including command, control, communications, navigation and logistics. In essence, if it is wired to the Web, it is potentially vulnerable.
According to McAfee, an Internet security company, about 120 countries are involved in developing the ability to use the Internet as a weapon, not only against government networks, but also against soft targets such as financial markets and even critical civilian infrastructure. Although it is impossible to say how many raids go undetected, cyber attacks have grown increasingly sophisticated. The threat has grown from the work of curious hackers to premeditated government-sponsored operations that embrace a variety of security-related purposes.
No country is seemingly more active in cyberspace than China.
ARMY OF HACKERS According to Pentagon sources, most attacks on AmericaÂ’s digital AchillesÂ’ heel originate from the PeopleÂ’s Republic of China (PRC), making Chinese cyber operations an issue that deserves close attention. The PRC is serious about cyberspace and has made the development of cyber capabilities a top national- security priority. ChinaÂ’s military planners recognize that the United StatesÂ’ reliance on computers is a potential strategic weakness ripe for exploitation. The PeopleÂ’s Liberation Army (PLA) has reportedly incorporated cyber warfare tactics into military exercises and created schools that specialize in it. The Chinese military is also hiring top computer-science graduates to develop its cyber warfare capabilities, literally creating an army of hackers.
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Russia is believed to be developing significant cyberspace capabilities, too. Indeed, in April 2007, a massive cyber attack on the tiny Baltic state of Estonia by Russian hackers demonstrated how potentially catastrophic a pre-emptive digital strike could be on a developed nation. Pro-Russian hackers, some likely associated with the government, attacked numerous Web sites in neighboring Estonia — one of the world’s most wired countries — to protest the controversial removal of a Soviet war memorial located in the capital, Tallinn. The hackers brought down government and other Web sites, including the office of the president, the parliament, political parties, banks, news organizations and communications firms, using denial-of- service attacks, in which a server is bombarded with so many bogus requests for information that it overloads and crashes.
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The Russians see cyber dominance as central to warfare. At a recent conference, a senior Russian general said victory in future conflicts will be decided by suppressing the opponentÂ’s military and state institutions through information technologies.
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The Internet offers terrorists a multitude of advantages in waging their unconventional warfare: mobility, flexibility (if hacked or shut down by an Internet service provider), world-wide coverage with huge potential audiences and high-speed communications. Some Islamist hackers have promoted the notion of carrying out electronic jihad against infidel civilian infrastructure, economic and military targets. Serious attacks in which cyber terrorists take innocent lives via the Web in an effort to advance their cause may become reality in the future.
In testimony to Congress in March 2007, Gen. James Cartwright, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, said: “America is under widespread attack in cyberspace. ... [T]he magnitude of cost, in terms of real dollars dedicated to defensive measures, lost intellectual capital and fraud, cannot be overestimated, making these attacks a matter of great national interest. Unlike the air, land and sea domains, we lack dominance in cyberspace and could grow increasingly vulnerable if we do not fundamentally change how we view this battle space.”
State-sponsored and terrorist cyberspace efforts provide a cautionary tale to U.S. and other policymakers. Although many governments have devoted significant resources to cyber security, recent intrusions clearly demonstrate cyberspace vulnerabilities.
A digital Pearl Harbor is by no means a certainty. But cyberspace is increasingly important to American national security — and complementary to the broad spectrum of modern warfare. The time to take heed of this challenge is now.
