Cyber Warfare
What Is Cyber Warfare?
Cyberwarfare is a series of cyberattacks against a nation-state, which result in significant damage to the nation-state. As well as disrupting critical systems and causing havoc on civil infrastructure, it can also damage the state and even cause death.
In a cyber war, the goal is typically to disrupt, disable, or destroy the opponent’s computer systems or networks or to steal or manipulate sensitive data
One of the key differences between a conventional war and a cyber war is the level of physical destruction. While a conventional war can destroy buildings/infrastructure, but cyber warfare may not result in physical damage.
The History of Cyber Warfare
The history of cyberwar dates back to the 1980s, when the US and the Soviet Union developed advanced computer technology during the Cold War. With the internet becoming more popular in the 1990s, espionage and digital warfare became more prevalent.
In recent years, we have seen numerous examples of cyber warfare at the state level.
Stuxnet: The first known cyberweapon
Thanks to Stuxnet, we now live in a world where code can destroy machinery and stop (or start) a war.
Stuxnet, a potent computer worm crafted by U.S. and Israeli intelligence, was created with the intention of disrupting a crucial component of the Iranian nuclear program. Initially targeted at an air-gapped facility, it unexpectedly propagated to external computer systems, prompting inquiries about its design and objectives.
Types of Cyber Warfare Attacks
Espionage
The act of monitoring other nations with the intent to steal secrets. This may encompass the use of botnets or spear phishing attacks to infiltrate vulnerable computer systems, ultimately extracting confidential information.
Sabotage
Sensitive information must be identified and vulnerabilities associated with its compromise evaluated by government entities. Such information may be stolen, manipulated, or exploited by adversarial governments or terrorist groups. The threat can come from insiders including dissatisfied employees, government officials affiliated with the nation that is attacking, or military personnel from the nation that is attacking.
Denial-of-service (DoS) Attacks
A denial-of-service (DoS) attack is like overwhelming a website with fake requests, making it unusable for regular people. This can be done to disrupt important websites that many people rely on for various purposes.
Electrical Power Grid
In order to pose potential risks to people, attackers target the power grid, which can be a critical system that can be shut down, infrastructure disrupted, and infrastructure exposed. As a result of such attacks, services like text messaging and communication can also be disrupted, making them unusable.
Propaganda Attacks
Efforts to influence the minds and beliefs of individuals residing in or supporting a specific country. People may be manipulated into aligning with adversaries by propaganda by revealing embarrassing truths, spreading falsehoods, or spreading rumours.
Economic Disruption
Many contemporary economic systems rely on computer networks. Attackers may focus on the computer systems of financial institutions like stock markets, payment systems, and banks to either steal money or prevent individuals from accessing their funds.
Surprise Attacks
The objective is to execute an unexpected large-scale attack, catching the enemy off guard and undermining their defences. This can be done to prepare the ground for a physical attack in the context of hybrid warfare.
Capabilities of AI in Cyber Warfare
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has brought a diverse range of capabilities to the field of cyber warfare, fundamentally changing the dynamics of digital conflict. These capabilities position AI as a powerful tool for both offensive and defensive cyber operations.
Some of the AI brings to the cyber warfare are:
- Real-time Vulnerability Identification
- Adaptive and Evolving Tactics
- Speed and Automation
- Precision and Accuracy
- Evasion Techniques
- Cognitive Decision-Making
- Scalability
- Learning from Failures
Cyber Weapons
Cyber weapons refer to malicious software and specialized tools crafted to compromise, disrupt, or destroy digital systems and infrastructure. These tools can be employed for espionage, financial motives, or political sabotage, posing a significant concern in our interconnected world.
A range of entities, including nation-states, criminal organizations, and individual hackers, utilize cyber weapons. As technology progresses, these weapons are becoming more sophisticated, leading to increasingly destructive cyber-attacks. It is crucial for countries, companies, and individuals to recognize these potential threats and take proactive measures to safeguard against such attacks.
Offensive cyber weapons are specifically developed tools designed for cyber attacks, aiming to gain unauthorized access, steal sensitive information, disrupt services, or damage infrastructure. They are commonly employed by nation-states, criminal organizations, and individual hackers.
Defensive cyber weapons are tools and software created to protect against cyber attacks. These tools are used to detect, prevent, and respond to cyber threats, primarily deployed by organizations, companies, and governments to fortify their defences against cyber attacks.
Example of contemporary cyber warfare
“The Israeli-Palestinian conflict saw a significant escalation in cyber attacks by hacktivist groups and threat actors from various regions, targeting government websites, education and media sector, billboards, power plants, alert systems, and even sensitive military information”
Some of cyber attacks happened during the war
DDoS attacks. Noga Independent Systems operator was down. This event marks the beginning of cyber activity related to the ongoing conflict.
Within an hour of the 5000+ missile attack on Israel by Hamas, hacktivist group Anonymous Sudan (suspected to be of Russian origin) launched DDOS attacks on all the alert applications used for notifying citizens about incoming rockets.
Various pro-Israel and pro-Hamas hacker groups engage in cyber activities, shutting down websites and targeting infrastructure. Cyber Av3ngers claims to have CCTV access to Mekorot, the national water company of Israel, adding to the list of attacks on industrial control systems.
References
https://www.imperva.com/learn/application-security/cyber-warfare/
