By Kevin Coleman
Defense Tech Cyber War Correspondent
Multiple cyber intelligence sources have warned for some time now of the growing cyber threat from Russia, China and others. The Albright Group recently released a report that stated that a cyber attack targeting the critical infrastructure of a NATO country or countries could equate to an armed attack, justifying retaliation. The warnings appear to now have come true. Recently, NATO members were the target of a series of cyber attacks said to be linked back to Russian hackers.
That appears to be exactly what is on the mind of NATO Commanders. Multiple sources say NATO is now considering the use of military force against enemies who launch cyber attacks on its member states. Many world leaders now fear that future cyber attacks will escalate up into a full blown cyber war and possibly evolve into a conventional form of conflict. Just recently, security and military advisors around the world have expressed their concern that a successful cyber attack on the critical infrastructure of a NATO country could lead to defense measures under article 5.
Reference: NATO: Article V and Collective Defense
Article 5 is a key component of the 1949 NATO Charter and states that any armed attack on one or more NATO countries would be considered an attack against all NATO countries. One thing is certain, the cyber threat situation is very dynamic and the proliferation of cyber weapons persists and capabilities of cyber weapons continue to increase. Once again the international rules of cyber conflict need to be developed and agreed upon.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Whtas there to ponder?! My God are these people insane!? Of course you fight back! Damn it I have never seen such stupidity (well I have but this just adds to the pile)! No wonder the worlds going to hell in a handbasket, we must have THE dumbest leaders in history! "All is fair in love and war" Fight dirty because the enemy sure as hell is going to!
I think its more a matter of how to fight back and the degree they fight back. There aren't really guidlines. If someone fires the cyber-equivalent of small arms fire you wouldn't drop the perverbial nuke.
Riiiiiight. That's exactly what I want. Let's launch a bombing campaign because some 13 year old thought it would be cool to hack the President of Turkey's website and make it say "I am a weiner."
There are some very real problems with cyber attack. First, nobody dies. This stuff doesn't blow up, shoot out electrical shocks, or anything like that. It is a nonviolent attack. It is therefore difficult to justify responding with lethal force when attacked like that. It just is. The second problem is that we don't know where the attack came from. Is this an attack from Russia? Or is it a "zombie" computer that has been programmed to attack? It is entirely possible that a guy in Virginia could send out a virus to thousands of computers in Russia, programming them to attack the US. How do we deal with that possibility? Shouldn't we know that before we start dropping bombs?
The problem with saying that a cyber attack on our infrastructure is ‘non-violent’ is that it isn’t always non-violent. Atleast not in all cases. Imagine a scenario, the dead of winter in the northern united states, most homes have two sources of heat. If the attackers take down the power grid (SCADA systems have more holes than swiss cheese and this is a LIKELY target), we are left with a good population of the united states without heat in freezing temperatures. Not good. How about if they simply attack our network infrastructure, do you have enough cash on hand to live? Did you know a good number of ATMs and charge card systems work over the regular plain old internet. We are not talking dedicated lines. Our economy could be pushed into a standstill. A cyber attack on our infrastructure can have VERY real and deadly consequences.
Exactly! And Brian, so what if we don't know who attacked us. We know the country of origin, and if we conducted a cyber attack they couldn't pin it on us either. So we damn well can and should attack back. If they can do it to us without consequence it will only get worse. So I say lets kick their "proverbial" asses!
No, we don't know the country of origin. We know where some of the computers were. That doesn't mean the responsible parties are there. So if a Russian hacker sets up in an internet cafe in London, do we attack the Brits?
Well, who exactly do you assign the blame, and what is the appropriate response?
Was it Russian military/intelligence doing the attacks or some random hackers that happened to be in Russia(in which case it's more like a terrorist attack).
As for retaliating, in a worst case scenario couldn't we just physically sever all lines going into the host country?
SImply match it target for target. If a nation uses a cyber attack and targets it on, say, the power grid, then simply go after their own power grid with kinetic weaponry.
Yeah & I was hacked with these letters in the email address: .cn, .bn.
Ive been hacked twice, first for a phishing SBC ATT email, this last time I dont know.
The hackers seek the ISPs IE Your email ACCOUNTS.
FYI
u all insane men!
What if i am in a cuba country and i hack china server to hack u does it mean u .s. going to attack china?
The use of force must be carefully handle or world war 3 will start
How can they retaliate?
You think Russia or China will not hit back with full force? While Russia is stil lrecovering, China is blazing forward.
They've invested heavily in new fighter planes.
JF-17 Thunder (http://www.jf-17.com)
J-10 (google: J-10 wiki)
and havent we all noticed J-20 (google: J-20 wiki)
I think this is all just posturing.
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