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You are here: News > News > Is Cyber Warfare Becoming Real Warfare?
| » IT Security NEWS |
| » 23 May 2009 |
| Is Cyber Warfare Becoming Real Warfare? |
| As a continuation of yesterday's article entitled "U.S. Military Now Has Special Hack-by-Numbers Device", we'll now take a look into the narrowing line between cyber warfare and real-life warfare. After all, seeing that the U.S. Military is currently looking into adding the weapons of digital warfare into their arsenal, it's not really a stretch to think that the battlefield of future wars will probably be waged in virtual trenches. Three weeks ago, the head of the U.S. STRATCOM (Strategic Command) U.S. Air Force General Kevin Chilton has recommended that American leaders should not overlook the use of real world military force—that is, ground attacks and air strikes—against enemies who attack in the digital front—that is, hackers that disrupt critical networks over the Internet. His suggestion may sound extreme to the point of warmongering, but Chilton's quote to the Stars and Stripes reasons that "I don't think you take anything off the table when you provide options" to senior civilian leaders after an attack on the United States, even when it comes to cyber terrorist assaults on America. Chilton is ardently and overtly focusing on the progressively problematic and ever-increasing security threats to network installations, especially those connected to the military and government. According to a recent statement by another senior U.S. military officer, cyberspace is a "contested environment" wherein hackers and cyber criminals run rampant. Like in the Old West, the new virtual frontier of the Internet is the kind of territory that needs to be fought for lest you lose it to hacker outlaws and troll bandits. It's simple. Certain hackers have long ago crossed the line from helping security experts find vulnerabilities and bugs in server code to outright invading, for example, U.S. air traffic control systems in acts of cyber terrorism. These criminals have time and again committed obvious acts of war, and retaliation has been long overdue. The casualties of real war are different from a cyber war, but it can cause damages that can be just an incalculable as the ones made by missiles, grenades, and other explosive artillery. The economic costs that could lead to, say, corporations closing, loss of jobs, the compromise of sensitive information, and so on can prove to be just as damaging, if not more so, than a blitzkrieg of airplanes bombing a city. There will be consequences to this sort of action. Hacking networks isn't new to warfare; it's the classic case of intercepting information to gain an intelligence edge over the enemy. It's the same as eavesdropping over radio messages or jamming radio signals. At any rate, cyber warfare is fast becoming the new front of war, so our present society must be vigilant in protecting the technology that everyone is so dependent upon. |
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