Fighting with Shadows

The science fiction writers were mistaken when they predicted 30 to 40 years ago that wars in the 21st century would take place in outer space. The cosmic weapons still belong mainly to science fiction, but cyber-wars – wars on the Internet – are already just around the corner.

Militarization of Cyberspace

The fact that Americans will consider any serious cyber-attack as a declaration of war displays the importance which developed countries are attaching to cyberspace. Americans intend to react to a cyber-attack as they will to any other attack. It can be with economic sanctions, a retaliatory cyber-blow or a strike with traditional weapons.

In Washington, a cyber-security strategy is being developed with dispatch now. This feverish activity bears resemblance to what was happening in 1950s, when the Pentagon was hastily developing the doctrine of U.S. nuclear war.

In mid-May, the White House disclosed American cyber-wars doctrine, the crux of which is that there will be an adequate response to every challenge in cyberspace. As usual, the doctrine presents only the general outline. Now, the Pentagon is working on a more detailed strategy. It will be presented in mid-June, but the Wall Street Journal was lucky to have a glance at the draft.

Though the principle of “blow-for-blow” is the basis of the strategy, it should be noted that the term “adequate” is not defined. There is only a vague explanation that the consequences of retaliation must be comparable with the consequences of cyber-attack.

According to international law, the legitimacy of retaliatory blows is rather questionable because no international legal document contains a single word on cyber-weapons, cyber-attacks or cyber-wars. Such a trifle would not stop Washington, of course. The White House as well as the Pentagon have already hinted that they intend to apply all regulations on armed conflicts to cyber-attacks.

The most difficult thing in cyber-wars will be to ascertain one’s adversary. The problem is that it is very difficult to determine the source of a cyber-attack. The attacks in cyberspace are well prepared, and cyber-terrorists can foil the trail so that it is practically impossible to track them down. By the way, the latter fact gives reason to suppose that a government is behind every sophisticated cyber-attack by hackers.

Another problem is to give a precise definition to the term “cyber-attack.” For now, cyber-attacks can be either stealing credit card numbers via the Internet, hacking websites for a bet, web vandalism as well as many other things which do not threaten national interests and won’t lead Americans to declare war and launch a counterattack.

Cyber-troops will be subordinate to the U.S. Cyber Command, which will be headed by the Director of the National Security Agency (NSA). It is the NSA which will be responsible for determining the source of cyber-attacks and making decisions about the appropriateness of counterattacks.

U.S. Achilles’ Heel

The growing U.S. interest in problems relating to cyber-wars and cyber-weapons is quite explainable: America is too vulnerable to attacks in cyberspace owing to the extremely high “computerization” of ordinary citizens as well as of the Pentagon.

The idea that these are all problems-to-be is erroneous. According to Alan Paller, director of the SANS Institute, which trains specialists in computer security, the Pentagon computers have been under attack since at least 2003. The technical data on the F-35 fighter was the most well-known victim of these attacks.

The Pentagon estimates that over 100 intelligence organizations abroad are attempting to reveal American military secrets. For instance, last week, the aerospace compay Lockheed Martin, one of the main Pentagon contractors, suffered attack from an undetermined source.

Google often suffers attacks too, though in this case it does not concern military secrets. The Google press office reported about the latest attack on the email service Gmail occurred earlier this week. Jinan, the administrative center of Shandong province, is said to be the place where the attack was directed from. Beijing, as usual, rejected all accusations.

“Hacking is a global problem,” stated Hong Lei, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China. “China falls victim to it, too. The assertions about so-called support for hackers have no foundation under them.”

The evidence of hackers’ connections to the Chinese government is really lacking. However, details such as passwords being stolen from hundreds of U.S. and South Korean government officials and journalists, as well as Chinese dissidents, in order to read their mail serve as clues that the aim of the attack was not financial benefit, but to serve governmental institutions.

Unsurprisingly, China is likely to be the main U.S. adversary in the cyber-war. Congress reckons that Beijing is able to strike at federal networks such as the national power grid, which if disabled would paralyze the whole country.

Of course, it is too naïve to think that Americans only defend themselves from attacks of cyber-terrorists. Teheran, for instance, is sure that the up-to-date and complicated computer worm Stuxnet, which paralyzed their uranium enrichment program last year, was designed in Tel Aviv and Washington. The allies and adversaries are watchful.

London does not fall behind and in some aspects excels its “senior partner.” Recently it announced the launching of a cyber-weapons development program. In the opinion of the U.K. Defense Minister Nick Harvey which he shared with The Guardian, cyberspace will form part of the future battlefield. Although he is not sure that cyber-weapons will replace traditional ones, Her Royal Majesty’s government regards them as an integral part of the country’s armory. Six hundred and fifty million pounds ($1 billion) were spent on strengthening cyber-security in Britain last year. The British cyber-operations group is headed by general Jonathan Shaw, a former commander from the Parachute Regiment, who did not study information technologies at college.

So what about the Chinese, who are considered to be world’s main cyber-terrorists? In May, at a press briefing in Beijing, Geng Yansheng, spokesperson of the Ministry of National Defense of the People’s Republic of China, acknowledged for the first time that his government is spending lavishly to finance a squad of 30 cyber-fighters who protect PLA (People’s Liberation Army) secrets from overly curious strangers. The Blue Army, the name of this secret squad, is recruiting from only the most talented Chinese.

The PLA Daily reported recently that the Blue Army, which has existed for about two years, was a success in repelling the mock attack of an adversary outnumbering them by four to one. The Chinese cyber-fighters’ activities formally have defensive character, but it is certain that nobody prevents them from worming foreign secrets when they are not too busy protecting Chinese ones.

According to the results of the cyber-espionage research carried out by Symantec, the largest antivirus manufacturer in the U.S., more than one-fourth of attempts to steal secret data from American corporations emerge in the Celestial empire. Specialists from Symantec even called the Shaoxing, a city in the eastern province of Zhejiang where the majority of cyber-attacks come from, the capital of the Chinese hackers.