Now that the magnitude of cyber attacks have increased and these acts have become so pervasive, governments have taken action to try and bring these malicious actions under control. Many of these attacks are conducted by independent hacktivists and criminal organizations.
McAfee, Symantec and other security firms have all issued report after report about current trends related to malicious cyber activities. If the picture these reports paint is not bleak enough, add to that the fact that the blackmarket for malicious software is thriving growing at a double digit percentage.
The problem has become so serious that President Barack Obama recently took action and ordered a thorough review and the development of a new approach to international cyber policies. One of the more significant actions is talks between Russia and the United States that began a few months ago. Back on 12 November, a Russian delegation led by General Vladislav Sherstyuk, a deputy secretary of the Russian Security Council, flew to Washington for a meeting with representatives from the U.S. National Security Council and the State Department, Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security.
Many point to this as a clear sign of just how serious cyber attacks and the evolving cyber threat environment have become. There are reports that the talks have a dual focus. The first focus is to limit the development and military use of cyber weapons. However, it was clear by the results of our November 30th cyber weapons poll where 81 percent of you clearly stated that an international cyber arms control treaty would not halt a cyber war – the potential impact of a cyber treaty is at best limited.
Many believe that any such treaty will just send the research and development on the weaponry of digital conflict further underground and militaries around the world will continue to develop strategies for cyber warfare. The second topic of discussion is said to focus on strengthening Internet security by increasing international cooperation when it comes to investigating cyber attacks. This is the cornerstone in the foundation needed to quell the recent increases in acts of cyber aggression. However, actions in both of these areas will have a dramatic effect in the opposite direction when it comes to cyber terrorism. Now that the dangers of cyber weapons and the potential impact of an attack are out in the open on the world stage, cyber terrorist will become increasingly motivated. This motivation will surely lead to acts of cyber terrorism according to one cyber security expert who wished to remain anonymous.
By all accounts progress is being made between these two cyber superpowers, but one big question remains: Where is China? They are the third cyber superpower and must be part of the solution to the rapidly expanding cyber threat environment. In addition, the European Union, United Nations (SEE REPORT) and NATO should be brought into these discussions and rapidly expand these talks to a full international accord.
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Where is China? They are sitting there having their 3rd and 4th departments of the PLA General Staff recruiting civilians such as academics and private sector technicians to work in conjunction with uniformed technicians to form units whose sole purpose is the discovery, development, and utilization of exploits in foreign networks.
Why would they want to limit what could become a huge tool that can be used both tactically and strategically? Who wouldnt love to do the equivalent of an EMP attack on a nation without having to ever use a nuke?
I have said this before and I will say it again. Why do we need to network and connect our critical infrastructure to (or through rather) the internet?
Is the convenience of having all of our critical infrastructure like, water, electricity, natrual gas, etc, accessible by networks worth the risk of them being so vulnerable?
History has shown us that if someone creates a barrier or wall, that in time it will be overcome. What if we just avoid it all together by not allowing remote access to critical systems?
Why can’t a piece of criticial infrastructure like a hydro-electric dam for example, have a closed local network only? The network can be accessed by any PC on the network on site at the dam, but it has no ability to connect to outside networks (i.e. no internet access)
I know other departments are at stake with this, such as the military and government in general, but why do we need to make CRITICAL civilian infrastructure so vulnerable?
In the un-attributable world of computers (where attacks aren’t done by the government, but by “ultra-national/patriotic” hackers) all this is going to do is limit the USG’s ability to respond. The USG (most of it) will abide by the rules and the foreign governments will snicker that they hobbled yet another technological advantage that they US could use and continue to do business as usual and plan for even greater scale attacks. This is a losing deal for the US.
Are we going back to “Mutual Assured Destruction”? Most people, even geeks, don’t understand the complexity of this issue. There is an old saying, “A wise man knows that he knows not and a foolish man knows not that he knows not.” This is the question for us. Which one are we? We should compare and contrast the two men. Both men don’t know, the wise man knows it and the foolish man doesn’t. Which one are we?
Cyber warfare programs needs expanded greatly. In the past 10 years millions in cash and millions in personal information has been taken by cyber crooks.
From online gaming, info on personal info such as name, location, family & friends, email and messenger user details, and banking.
I have tried various online games & nearly all have an issue of hackers, account thieves & e-selling of the stolen virtual items. None ever get reported past the gaming host. None of the money is ever retrieved. These crooks live a life of a rich person & are not combatted at all. Game companies only ban accounts associated to the crooks IP and rarely take further actions.
@Rob:
“I have tried various online games.…account thieves & e-selling of the stolen virtual items.”
Did you catch the case last year of the guy who robbed the bank in some RPG game online and sold the “credits” in a zip drive, for several thousand dollars? An Australian guy I believe. The RPG company tried to take him to court, but the law laughed at them!
Trust nothing the Russians have to say about this, (Or anything else). They will make much public and “official” noise and promises to drop an iron fist on any cyber-attacks from their country, while increasing funding to the criminal org’s there who do the dirty work.
China is quite because they want to dominate the world in the cyber-realm. Plus, they are not such good liars as the Russians. They would rather remain silent than lie about it.
As always, the best defense is a good offense. America needs to get to and stay at the forefront of cyber technology. Speaking of which, what ever happened to the self-perpetuating nano-bots that DARPA was working on to defend American networks?
@Philo Not read about that but I’ve seen middle east billionaires buy loads of virtual currencies & items for various games they got addicted to. They bought & still buy off the average player, chinese farmers and the worse types of people on this planet.
So many sites where you can buy accounts, virtual items, game currencies, cheats & even more sadly 1/2 are just either scams or methods to phish attack any who google or type thier site.
Spam wars, advertising their illegal sites & ‘offerings’ occur daily on countless games & growing.
Their sales only slow as a game dies out but replaced with many newer more popular games every month.
International temptation for this is so high since almost noone has been punished for it. It’s only going to get worse.
…As far as “Where is China?” I suggest you read “Unrestricted Warfare” (ISBN 0–9716807-2–8) this might shed some light. That is if you truly wish to understand their wereabouts.
S. Fisher, the book looks interesting. My only problem is that China doesn’t really need cyber terrorism to bring down America.
Because of the greed of American businessman, we are closing our manufacturing plants here and running them in China. This works well and good now that they are our “ally”. But what if China changes it’s mind and closes it’s borders to America? They have a a large amount, if not majority, of our manufacturing expertise and technology.
The Allies won WWII because they out produced the Axis powers. Kind of a scary thought…
Ptsfp