The emerging era of cyber wars

With internet-based threats rising exponentially, the governments across the world are cudgeling their brains looking at ways to protect their national infrastructure. Arms and ammunitions are all bygones.

Coming of age, this new race of cyber arms is actually spoiling the broth. Whether developed or developing, every country is today trying to equip itself with cyber weapons.

In July, US President Barack Obama painted a very alarming picture of a cyber attack in an article in The Wall Street Journal. He wrote, "Across the country, trains had derailed, water treatment plants in several states had shut down, contaminating drinking water and many more such things.

Our nation,it appeared, was under cyber attack.” He asked the US Senate to pass the Cybersecurity Act of 2012, so that the US can acquire better offensive and defensive cyber warfare capabilities.

The increasing global dependence on information and communication technology poses risks not only for private users and businesses, but also for critical infrastructure such as national energy systems, the financial sector, aviation, transport, health, and the government agencies. “The dimension of a cyberwar will not be limited to damage to physical infrastructure alone, as in the traditional world.

In a cyberwar, the damage is inflicted on the economy, the intelligent infrastructure such as railways, airlines, telecom, banking etc and can lead to widespread death and destruction,” says Jaijit Bhattacharya, President, Center for Digital economy Policy research(C-DEP).

Types of Attacks

“Cyberwar can be conducted by spreading canards on the social website, that lead to internal law and order disturbance of massive proportions. India witnessed that recently in the case where the North-Easterners were targeted in Bangaluru, through this kind of warfare,” says Bhattacharya.

 

Cyber espionage hit the headlines in the first week of September 2012, with reports of a series of hacker attacks. State-owned Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil producer, and Qatar gas exporter Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Co, known as RasGas, was hit last month by a virus called Shamoon. A cyber event, whether caused by an external adversary, an insider, or inadequate policies and procedures, can initiate a loss of system control, resulting in negative consequences, explains Amitava Biswas, country head, Honeywell Process Solutions.

Not only it is possible to attack and interrupt civilian infrastructure, but states or non-state actors can also utilize cyber attacks as preludes to conventional military strikes.

 

In 2003, Israel allegedly used cyber attacks to obstruct Syrian air defense systems and in 2008, Russia used cyber attacks against Georgian intelligence and other defense systems in the prelude to its land based invasion of South Ossetia (Rid 2012).

In 2011, the Obama administration spoke regarding the usage of cyber attacks against the Libyan defense systems, however, Obama himself eventually decided against it, fearing the attack might set a precedent for other nations–Russia or China in particular. Cyber warfare is already a reality with Russia, the US, China, and now Iran is increasingly raising digital warriors in the thousands. “Cyber wars would be engaged in not only by state players but also by non-state actors, including private entities.

Cyber wars will have to be taken as a part of day-to-day life as time passes by, given the fact that these wars could never be declared but would be constantly on, targeting the enemy’s computers, computer systems and computer networks,” says Pavan Duggal, a cyber security expert.

Cushion against Cyber Attack

According to cyber security experts, China has a 30,000-strong cyber army with another 150,000 hackers who serve as a support group. Russia is said to have 7,000 cyber warriors.

 

The US created a cyber command in 2010. Washington has set aside nearly $3 bn in the 2013 defense budget for cyber security operations.

What Should India Do?

“Just like the US and China are preparing for cyber war, India needs to give importance to cyber war. The US Pentagon has already declared cyber to be the 5th domain of warfare and the same should be increasingly given more and more significance,” Duggal adds. India needs to re-visit its existing legal framework so as to provide appropriate protections in the context of cyber activities.

Complacency is the name of death and defeat in cyber war. As a nation, it is a necessity to constantly keep on updating our computer resources and our cyber war techniques, mechanisms, processes, procedures and plans so as to be in sync with the requirements of changing times and changing political priorities.

It will be critical for any country’s security agencies to prepare themselves for any cyber war. As time passes by, countries will be compelled to raise institutionalized cyber armies consisting of tech savvy nerds whose focus area will be not only at protecting and preserving the sovereign interests of the country concerning cyber space, but also to impact computer systems and computer resources located outside territorial boundaries of that country.

“India needs to realize that its next war is going to be fought in cyberspace. “India needs to come up with its own distinct cyber army which can help and prepare India for cyber war activities, both offensive and defensive,” Duggal, who is also the president of Cyberlaws.net, says.

He further said that the existing components of the Indian defense agencies should enhance their skills in cyber warfare. Coordinated centralized approach will have to be adapted, while planning and preparing for any cyber war as far India is concerned.

The government needs to allocate increasingly large chunks of expenditure to cyber warfare preparation activities. With Indian security becoming increasingly dependent on date processing and network centrality, it will become extremely vulnerable to such information warfare campaigns. India needs to adopt a multidisciplinary approach towards dealing with the emerging cyber warfare threats and develop appropriate response.