E-Warfare: The Modern Cyber Threat

[monitor]

E-Warfare: The Modern Cyber Threat
The world is shifting ever further away from the "conventional" warfare seen during the tank battles and infantry engagements of the Second World War. While troops on the ground and armored vehicles are still in demand in modern combat zones, the military procurement of the Western world is increasingly focused on high technology such as advanced UAVs and remotely controlled bomb disposal units.

On today's digitized battlefield, where network infrastructure plays as big a role as traditional weaponry, the most dangerous weapon could be the humble PC. The threat of cyber terrorism, or indeed cyber warfare, is an intangible concept, covering everything from a precocious teenager hacking into restricted databases up to sophisticated viruses capable of crippling national infrastructure on a huge scale. As a result, the military world is being forced to formulate new strategies to respond to this growing threat.

Recognizing the risk

In response to the risk of cyber attacks, several countries are leading the way by incorporating online security into their defence strategies. In Germany, a €7.1bn project called Herkules is well under way, with the intention of upgrading the security of the country's military IT systems. It is currently one of Europe's largest public-private partnership programmes.

In the UK's recent Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), the UK government highlighted "cyber crime" as a Tier One risk, denoting the highest possible security threat, along with international terrorism, global pandemics and international military crises.
"In response to the risk of cyber attacks, several countries are leading the way by incorporating online security into their defence strategies."

To put this into perspective, cyber attacks have been rated a higher risk to the UK's security than WMD attacks, satellite disruption or internal civil instability, all of which are ranked as Tier Two threats. As a result, the UK government has set aside around £650m over the next four years to bolster the country's security against attacks emanating from cyberspace.

In an interview broadcast on BBC Radio 4, Malcolm Rifkind, the chairman of the UK's Intelligence and Security Committee, described the high priority being assigned to attacks of this nature. "What we're talking about is terrorists being able to actually use cyber methods, for example, to interrupt the National Grid to prevent proper instructions going to power stations, which are under computer control.

"I was in the United States a few months ago and a very senior intelligence figure said to me that cyber attacks, he feared, were going to be the United States' next Pearl Harbor. That's the kind of severity that could happen if we don't get it right," he said.

The US is also taking the cyber threat seriously. In May 2010, the US government set up US Cyber Command with a remit to, "direct the operations and defence of specified Department of Defence information networks and…conduct full-spectrum military cyberspace operations in order to enable actions in all domains [and] ensure US / Allied freedom of action in cyberspace and deny the same to our adversaries."

What is interesting about the mission statement of US Cyber Command, which reportedly reached full operational capability in October last year, is that it specifically widens its sphere of activity to cover offensive cyber actions against the country's enemies as well as defensive security operations.

The Stuxnet worm

2010 was also a landmark year in that the most significant danger to emerge from cyberspace received widespread media and governmental attention. The Stuxnet worm was discovered in July last year, a powerful virus intended to disrupt industrial infrastructure.


The frightening implications of such a programme were revealed in November 2010 when Iran announced that its controversial nuclear programme had been set back by a Stuxnet infection that shut down centrifuges and wreaked havoc on computer systems at the country's uranium enrichment plant in Natanz.

The Stuxnet attack is significant for reasons other than its ability to disrupt and damage physical infrastructure in a way never seen before. Many computer experts, including those at security firms like Kaspersky and Symantec, have stated that the development of such a sophisticated programme would have required the kind of resources only available to a nation state.

Speculation is now rampant that Israel could have been responsible for developing the worm, with the objective of delaying Iran's nuclear development programme, which it considers to be a primary military threat. It has even been suggested that the US may have collaborated with the country on the programme.

Scott Borg, of think thank the US Cyber Consequences Unit, noted in an interview with The Economist that a cyber attack against Iran would potentially make more sense than a conventional assault, as it could knock out essential infrastructure with fewer risks and almost total deniability. He described Stuxnet as "Israel's obvious weapon of choice". As such, Stuxnet could be the first engagement in a new era of state-funded cyber warfare.

Cyber attacks: a growth industry

Although Stuxnet is certainly the most high profile example of cyber assaults, there have been a host of other instances in recent years. In December 2009, it was widely reported that Islamist insurgents in Iraq, using simple software, had hacked into advanced CIA Predator drones used to carry out operations across the world.

While the hack did not allow the insurgents to gain control of the $20m drones or their deadly weapons systems, they were able to watch live video feeds from the Predators' camera systems to access vital intelligence. This security breach raises questions about the suitability of the US military's defences against even the crudest cyber attacks, as well as the grim possibility of Predators being actively controlled by insurgents in the future to carry out attacks on foreign soldiers or even Western civilian targets. Whatever the future holds, it's clear that military forces should not underestimate the ingenuity and adaptability of their adversaries, however poorly funded.

An aspect of cyber crime that was recently uncovered is the proliferation of mercenary programmers without any military or ideological objectives, who offer malicious botnets to paying customers. As the sophistication of such software increases, these attacks are becoming more dangerous. A botnet rental group known as the Iranian Cyber Army was reportedly responsible for an attack on social networking site Twitter in 2009.

Cyber threats may seem inconsequential in comparison to terrorist attacks and insurgencies, but governments are coming to understand that these attacks are a growing trend, and they are only going to get more serious as the technology behind them evolves. Even for countries that have taken a progressive stance on this issue, the challenge for militaries will be to shift mindsets from focussing on physical threats to virtual ones.

Former strategist for the UK Ministry of Defence and NATO Ashley Truluck summed up the challenge facing the world's security forces in an interview with Strategic Defence Intelligence: "Senior military personnel have built up entire careers in tanks and guns and aeroplanes, and need to undertake a culture shift from kinetic to cyber."

 

[monitor]

 

[monitor]

Cyber warfare is a term used to describe the use of the Internet to wage war in the virtual world, often with real effects in the physical world. Although generally cyber warfare refers to attacks from one sovereign state on another in cyberspace, it may also be used to describe attacks between corporations, from terrorist organizations, or simply attacks by individuals called hackers, who are perceived as being warlike in their intent. In recent years, cyber warfare has become an issue of much concern among the major nations on the planet, and virtually every national military now has a branch dedicated to both conducting and defending against cyber warfare.


As the world becomes more networked, more crucial systems become susceptible to attacks in cyberspace. Although certain military systems remain accessible only by being present at a terminal on site, the vast majority of critical systems that control modern nations are now tied into the Internet in some way or another. While these systems are defended by high levels of security, they are nonetheless breakable, and cyber warfare concerns itself with finding weaknesses and exploiting them.
Cyber Warfare Guerrilla Warfare Cyber War Military Operations Maneuver Warfare Unconventional Warfare Information Assurance

There are three major sectors targeted by most nations involved in cyber warfare: financial, infrastructure, and governmental. Financial attacks could disrupt the world’s major markets by taking down electronically-controlled commodity exchanges, or by shutting down web-based operations of major banks or retailers. Infrastructure attacks can damage a nation by shutting down critical utility systems, such as electrical grids, or by wrecking havoc on others, such as opening dams, or interfering with the air traffic control system. Governmental attacks can shut down the ability of government officials to communicate with one another, steal secret digital communications, or release things like tax information, social security information, or other personal data to the public.

In 2009 a report was released showing that the United States electrical grid was incredibly susceptible to attacks in cyberspace, which could cripple the nation by shutting off electricity for hundreds of millions of people. The report claimed that the grid had already been breached by both Russia and China, both of whom had left behind software that could be activated remotely to control the system. Although such an attack has not yet happened anywhere in the world, if combined with a conventional military attack it could prove catastrophic.

Many critical military systems are also susceptible to virtual attacks. Satellite systems, for example, although protected by extensive security, have been breached on occasion. If an enemy were to take control of spy satellites or satellites which feed GPS data to aircraft and missiles, it could be a major blow to the military.

In recent years, it has become apparent that the major military nations of the world are each devoting large amounts of energy and money to cyber warfare. China has received the most press for its programs, but reports have also surfaced about the programs of both the United States and Russia as well. Although these attacks have, for the most part, been benevolent, they are laying the groundwork for future wars which could be waged predominantly through the use of communications technology.

 

[monitor]

A cyberattack is an attempt to undermine or compromise the function of a computer-based system, or attempt to track the online movements of individuals without their permission. Attacks of this type may be undetectable to the end user or network administrator, or lead to such a total disruption of the network that none of the users can perform even the most rudimentary of tasks. Because of the increasing sophistication of these kinds of network attacks, the development of effective software defenses is an ongoing process.


It is important to understand that a cyberattack can be relatively innocuous and not cause any type of damage to equipment or systems. This is the case with the clandestine downloading of spyware onto a server or hard drive without the knowledge or consent of the owner of the equipment. With this type of cyberattack, the main goal is usually to gather information that ranges from tracking the general movements and searches conducted by authorized users to copying and forwarding key documents or information that is saved on the hard drive or server. While the ultimate goal is to capture and transmit information that will help the recipient achieve some sort of financial gain, the spyware runs quietly in the background and is highly unlikely to prevent any of the usual functions of the system from taking place.

However, a cyberattack can be malevolent in its intent. This is true with viruses that are designed to disable the functionality of a network or even a single computer that is connected to the Internet. In situations of this nature, the purpose is not to gather information without anyone noticing, but to create problems for anyone who uses the attacked network or computers connected with that network. The end result can be loss of time and revenue and possibly the disruption of the delivery of goods and services to customers of the company impacted by the attack. Many businesses today take steps to ensure network security is constantly being enhanced to prevent these types of malicious computer attacks.

Attempts by cyberterrorists to interfere with the function of power grids and other means of delivering public services are also classified as cyberattacks. Because attacks of this kind can quickly cripple the infrastructure of a country, they are considered an ideal means of weakening a nation. A strategy utilizing a series of cyberattacks timed to simultaneously disrupt several different key systems can, in theory, render a nation unable to successfully overcome any of the attacks before a great deal of damage has taken place. Fortunately, many nations recognize the very real threat of cyberterrorism and take steps to protect government and public service systems from any type of Internet attack, as well as the manual introduction of software that could disrupt the systems.

Just as governments and corporations must be aware of the potential for a cyberattack to occur, individuals must also take steps to protect their home computers and related equipment from sustaining an attack. A basic preventive measure is to secure high quality anti-virus and anti-spyware software, and update it on a regular basis. End users should also make sure to scan and files or programs that are stored on a CDR or similar remote storage system before loading them onto a hard drive.

 

[MtRtMk]

Computer virus hits US Predator and Reaper drone fleet

h**p://arstechnica.com/business/news/2011/10/exclusive-computer-virus-hits-drone-fleet.ars


A computer virus has infected the cockpits of America’s Predator and Reaper drones, logging pilots’ every keystroke as they remotely fly missions over Afghanistan and other war zones.
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[monitor]

Computer Virus Reportedly Hits U.S. Drones
Anonymous official: "We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back."
By Abby Ohlheiser |
Posted Friday, Oct. 7, 2011, at 2:34 PM ET

(An unmanned 'Predator' drone flies near the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson December 5, 1995 off the coast of California.)

Photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Jeffrey S. Viano/U.S. Navy /Getty Images.

Some troubling news, and not just because its National Cybersecurity Awareness Month: A computer virus has reportedly infected the U.S.'s Predator and Reaper drones, and network security specialists can't seem to get rid of it.

Wired magazine reported Friday in a fascinating story that the virus logs every keystroke as pilots "fly" unmanned drones remotely overseas from Creech Air Force Base in Nevada. It hasn't hindered overseas missions, and as far as they know, there's been no leak of classified information.

But Wired spoke to three anonymous sources about the infection, one of whom had this to say: “We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back... We think it’s benign. But we just don’t know.”

Here's what they've tried so far, according to the report:
At first, they followed removal instructions posted on the website of the Kaspersky security firm. “But the virus kept coming back,” a source familiar with the infection says. Eventually, the technicians had to use a software tool called BCWipe to completely erase the GCS’ internal hard drives. “That meant rebuilding them from scratch” — a time-consuming effort.

Although the remote cockpits used by pilots to fly drones aren't supposed to have an Internet connection – thereby providing some level of protection against infection – some military specialists are speculating that the virus stumping the military might be, as Wired writes, "common malware."

The drones don't exactly have the most rigorous security protocols: In 2009, insurgents in Iraq were able to capture unencrypted video footage from the drones using a piece of cheap software. And, until the discovery of the virus, Creech was one of the few military locations still using removable hard drives to transfer information between computers. That's how they think the virus spread.

Drones are widely used in U.S. military operations, especially as ground troops are withdrawn. Last week, a drone strike killed American-born jihadi Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, along with two other militants.

So we can tell the E warfare are getting momentum