5 Votes
Raised Stakes in State Sponsored Cyber Activity
|
||
The stakes are always changing in the state sponsored CNO (computer network operations) field. China has recently admitted to having built a dedicated military unit known as the Blue Army for defensive operations. A retired PLA general spoke to their skills by allusion, “It is just like ping-pong. We have more people playing it, so we are very good at it.” Despite the claims on defense, it is generally assumed to be related to their offensive operations which continue to be less and less clandestine (pdf). Symantec research indicates that nearly 30% of malware cases originate from within China
On the homefront, the Obama Adminstration recently unveiled the White House’s International Strategy For Cyberspace (pdf). The paper outlines a vision of state interaction and protections on the Internet in accordance with the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime followed by a loose warning the United States reserves the right to kick ass.
When warranted, the United States will respond to hostile acts in cyberspace as we would to any other threat to our country. All states possess an inherent right to self-defense, and we recognize that certain hostile acts conducted through cyberspace could compel actions under the commitments we have with our military treaty partners. We reserve the right to use all necessary means—diplomatic, informational, military, and economic—as appropriate and consistent with applicable international law, in order to defend our Nation, our allies, our partners, and our interests. In so doing, we will exhaust all options before military force whenever we can; will carefully weigh the costs and risks of action against the costs of inaction; and will act in a way that reflects our values and strengthens our legitimacy, seeking broad international support whenever possible.
The Pentagon is formalizing its own stance on attacks and intrusions against its own assets in addition to nationally protected assets as equivalent to acts of war. Naturally such a decree would require overwhelming evidence of attribution. The running consensus is solidifying that when the effect of a cyber attack on American assets is equal to a kinetic attack, then its not a stretch to apply equivalent counter-measures.
Similarly tagged OmniNerd content:
- Offensive Cyber Units, by VnutZ 3 months ago
- A Balanced Strategy: Reprogramming the Pentagon for a New Age, by mikeforbes over 4 years ago
- Voice of God Weapon, by gnifyus over 5 years ago
- Rumsfeld to Resign as Secretary of Defense, by VnutZ over 6 years ago
Print Friendly
Write an Article
Dumb posturing by Occams
The US policy is certainly a cause for concern because cyber attacks may come from individuals or groups in any country:who have nothing to do with the government.
Our belligerent posturing on this looks like warmongering of the worst kind.
Cyber attacks require a particularly measured response to find out who is responsible. We need to be totally sure before we react, and this is an area where identities are routinely obscured or forged.
This creates a situation where private interests who are harmed by a cyber attack could urge the Government to retaliate on their behalf. Generally we should not do that. Private risk should not be underwritten by the government.
I think that the current low level of attack is strengthening us as we develop countermeasures and is probably a good thing. We should concentrate on defence and not contemplate attack outside of an open war scenario.
My gmail by EyeOfSage
Three weeks ago, I opened one of my gmail accounts I use to sign up for game demos and coupon offer. [I really hate spam email so I have 2 or 3 special spam gmail accounts just to handle that] I was notified by gmail service that my account was accessed in China a couple of hours since I logged off the night before. Well it didn’t really matter to me because there was nothing valuable in that junk gmail account, but I changed my password anyway.
The curious thing was my friend had his gmail account hacked too a couple of month ago and he got viruses from visiting Chinese websites.
Though I don’t think it was the Chinese government that was responsible for the above mentioned incidents, but rather a poorly regulated internet society within China. True their government keeps a close watch and have their infamous “great firewall of China” filtering out porn and materials that might incite “social instability” and disruption to a “harmonious progression”.
I think China’s coming to a stage where their regulation policies lags their progressive steps. Internet grows twice the size but their ability of internet security lags. Productions of materials and products grows, but their version of food and drugs regulation also lags. I seen news of fake eggs, fake meat, lead toys and toothpaste, poisoned milk, fake sugar, fake beer, fake soy sauce, watered down wine, fake everything really. And of course the pirate society in China is no small force either. They may not be able to access youtube or wiki, but they can access torrents and downloads.
That being said, it is also true the Chinese Government is pushing ahead in technology of all areas. And one of the most important thing in modern ages isn’t tanks or air planes or navy ships, it’s the internet. This vast cyberspace of super intelligence and connections that binds everything together. As they say in Dune: “To control Spice is to control life in the universe”. Well in our case, it’s the internet really. It’s meaningless to make any sort of statements or warning. In my opinion, and I’m sure many other people will agree, our words have almost no weight against the PRC. This is at most an attempt to make some loud noises but PRC is no black bear to scare away. We need to strength out own cyber security defenses. It’s a joke to think a country formed 60 years ago can even penetrate our cyber defense. [And if I remember correctly back in the 1980s-1990s, we didn’t sell any of our computers to China. Most of what they had was 2nd or 3rd or even 4th hand computers from Taiwan or Japan…] So whose fault is it really that they caught up? Perhaps our own arrogance and belief of our impervious superiority made us relax a little too much.