How Scared Should You Be of a Cyberwar?

How Scared Should You Be of a Cyberwar?.

-- Tom

 

Cyber war?

"That word, I do not think it means what you think it means."

 

Whether discussing/considering cyberwar or cyber terrorism, or cybersecurity (or any other manifestation of digital mayhem), if we suddenly find ourselves on the receiving end of a cyber attack on our power grid, we will simultaneously discover that we are up to our collective necks in do-do. Deep do-do.

Any sort of coordinated and prolonged cyber attack upon Wall Street would be something to fear.

Whether or not these events are within the scope of this article, I'm not sure. I read the article and it seems to pose questions that it doesn't do such a good job of answering.

 

I welcome it, I can then have a reason to turn off my computer and go outside.

 

So that implies you spend all days in doors, am I correct?

 

New equation predicts the best time to launch a cyber attack.

Related: Timing of cyber conflict (PDF - 6 pages, ~50KB)

-- Tom

 

IMO, a cyberwar between nations is very unlikely. An attack on a nations infrastructure would draw an equally damaging counter attack. There'd be very little to gain and a lot to lose for both sides.

I wouldn't rule out a government (or 3 letter agency) using a form of cyber warfare against their own citizens in the event of a public uprising. Tactics such as disabling communications followed by disabling utilities in areas they control. IMO, most of the NSA spying, tampering, and backdooring is to protect the government from its own people. That's probably the reason critical infrastructure is so vulnerable, so it can be disabled should they choose to. If the government really believed that cyber warfare was a real possibility, they'd be forcing the utilities and critical infrastructure to harden their systems. The fact that this isn't happening says all that needs to be said.

 

For the majority, there's plenty more things to be scared of or worried about. Things that affect daily lives and near future. The chemicals we interact with daily. The food we eat - our diet. Health. Finance. Real war that cause unnecessary loss of lives. Hunger and people dying to malnutrition. Our preparation prior facing death. Many more that escape my mind right now.

Different people have different perception of risks. Done a reality check and of course speaking only for myself, cyber warfare is definitely not at the top of the list.

 

If you could strike your enemy without him knowing that you did it then you have the upper hand.

Pretty much how it looks to me. Have you seen the TV series Jericho?

 

Given the surveillance that's already in place, I'd expect that any such attack would be tracked. I think the fear of being discovered and of the severity of the retaliation would be sufficient to prevent such an attack between nations, much like the mutually assured destruction fear that kept nuclear war from happening. Even if it wasn't, with so much of the worlds infrastructure sharing common components, I'd expect an attack on infrastructure to have global effects in the long run.

Regarding Jericho, I haven't seen it. I watch very little TV. If it was totally up to me, I'd throw the thing out.

 

Like the song said back in '65, "you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows".
And you don't need nations attacking each other's grids to plummet us into darkness.

Excerpted from, The Congressman Who Went Off the Grid
Roscoe Bartlett spent 20 years on Capitol Hill. Now he lives in a remote cabin in the woods, prepping for doomsday.
By JASON KOEBLER January 03, 2014

 

A cyberwar?
who are the bad and good guys?

I think people here have been watching too much star trek lol.

Although if such a war were to occur (which i strongly doubt) then it would be certainly better than a real physical war.

 

The potential for "real physical" is great with a cyberwar. Given our near total reliance upon computers, any form of disruption, alteration, or destruction created by said computers failing to work is limited in scope only by one's imagination.

 

I believe it is undeniable that cyberwarfare has been taking place between nations and within nations (against it's own people) for quite some time.

The recent revelations regarding Edward Snowden confirmed what many people worldwide have believed for years- that, in the name of security, our government and other governments routinely spy on their own citizens as well as other nations and, at times, employ actual cyber attacks so to quell civil unrest and regain control.

Russia shut down all internet traffic in Estonia in, I believe, 2007.

Syria has done approximately the same against it's own citizens within the past year.

My understanding is that similar nationwide disruptions have occurred in Egypt and Libya within the past year or two.

Major financial and retail concerns in America have been repeatedly and successfully attacked, and there is real evidence that The Pentagon and some of our nuclear laboratories have experienced a data breech by electronic attack on several occasions.
The major culprits for those are said to be North Korea, China, and Israel.

The nuclear facility in Iran was damaged by a cyber attack about two years ago. The united States and Israel are said to be behind it, perhaps in union.

And those are what immediately come to mind.

Perhaps the most troubling of realizations is that most cyber warfare is conducted with near or even total stealth and the event and damage are not discovered for- perhaps- years after the fact. We have been and will remain in a cyber war against individuals, organizations, and nations for a long time.
I don't see how that can be denied and the ramifications bother me greatly.

 

The question seems to depend on what level of offensive activity constitutes warfare. The current levels remind me of the cold war, mostly covert, limited scope, specific targets. In my last post, I interpreted "cyberwar" as large scale attacks against infrastructure, military targets, etc on a level that will affect everyone.

Regarding which is "better" (hard to use that word with the subject of warfare) cyberwar wouldn't exactly be as horrifying as napalm raining on your home but it could be just as deadly. A major disruption of the power grid that lasts for months would kill a lot of people and make life very difficult for the rest. Attacks on nuclear power plants could be worse than actual nuclear bombs, causing thousands to die slow, painful deaths. Attacks on refineries and chemical plants could make them into some very big bombs. An unlimited cyberwar could be almost as devastating as full scale physical warfare.

 

I agree with all that you have written, adding only this...
A major disruption of the power grid wouldn't have to last for months in order to perpetuate major bad.

 

To answer the OP question: I'm not.

First, the US and Israel are the only verified (as close as can be) "attackers" on a nation state. So I find it pretty hypocritical that the US government uses the FUD boogie-man of "cyber attack" to try to encroach on the liberties of private citizens/corporations. The China/Mandiant report was interesting, but more than a few other experts questioned the attribution.

Second, there is "another" internet, that could be used to connect dams, power stations, etc if they really need to be connected to a network at all. Isn't "Internet2" the high speed link between .edu and .mil, etc... networks, that can't be reached from the regular internet?

I'm no infrastructure expert, but I find it hard to believe that nuclear plants need to be accessible via -www.enterthreemileisland.com-

This seems like complaining you got robbed because you left your door open.

 

I don't watch TV, I watch netflix. I haven't watched much TV in the past 10 years.

 

An overused word is no reason of being scared

 

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
If I may - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7g1xOxYmzc.
Mrk

 

Suddenly im getting visions of a terminator film lol

 

Everyone skeptical of a cyberwar should read about what this country's response was when it faced a cyberwar Lessons from the World's Most Tech-Savvy Government.

You might even ask yourself - now why can't I live in a country like that?

-- Tom

 

How Scared Should I Be of a Cyberwar?

Not very

 

If This Is Cyberwar, Where Are All the Cyberweapons?.

-- Tom

 

If a nations missile defense system kept going down due to a suspected cyber weapon, would you expect them to admit it? Would you expect the "other side" to openly claim credit for it? The only reason that we know about Stuxnet is because they screwed it up and it got out in the wild. The author doesn't seem to understand the difference between open warfare and covert operations.